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David Guy, with Marshall Space Flight Center, speaks with a local business owner on Wednesday at the Federal Business Connections Conference, hosted at Wallace State Community College. Trent Moore
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Local businesses participate in federal networking seminar
HANCEVILLE — Greg Aldridge, with corrugated manufacturer Rusken Packaging, spent Wednesday morning networking in hopes of adding some major contracts in the future.
“This was invaluable,” Aldridge said. “We made some really good contacts here for our company.”
Aldridge was among more than 300 business representatives on hand Wednesday at the Federal Business Connections Conference, held at Wallace State Community College.
The event — hosted by Rep. Robert Aderholt’s office — offered local business owners information on how to sell their products to government agencies and contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the Marshall Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal and others.
“All of these companies have their arms wide open, trying to embrace and help the small-town businesses,” Aldridge said. “They’re breaking everything down for us really well. Thanks a lot to Aderholt’s office for hosting it.”
Russ Elrod, with Arab Cartage and Express trucking, said the conference helped simplify the sometimes complicated procedures involved when working with the government.
“It was definitely a help,” he said. “Working with government contractors is a very in-depth process, so we made a lot of contacts that should help us with that.”
Though he likely won’t receive any government contracts, Reeves and Sons tree service owner Dennis Reeves said he did meet some other businesses that could use his services.
“Demolition and tree service doesn’t seem to be a big thing with NASA,” he said with a laugh. “But, I did get in touch with some independent folks about some work. This was a really good event.”
Rep. Aderholt said community interest in the event exceeded his already high expectations.
“We had a lot more people than we anticipated come out and participate,” he said. “We want to make small businesses aware of opportunities where they can partner with these companies that contract their work out and work with smaller businesses.”
Cullman Economic Development Agency project coordinator Susan Eller said the feedback she has received from local business owners has been extraordinary.
“One lady I talked with said she had been interested in pursuing a government contract and the information provided was a great help to her,” she said. “We could not have done this without Congressman Aderholt’s support. It was a great partnership.”
Considering the large turnout Wednesday, Aderholt said he hopes to hold similar meetings in the future.
* Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.
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