The Federal Technology Center: History

The Federal Technology Center (The FTC) is a California Corporation organized as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit, public benefit organization. It was formally organized in 1995 and was minimally active until December of 1998. At that time, The FTC board of directors hired The FTC’s Chief Executive Officer. The CEO was charged with energizing the corporation and supporting the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) and other federal organizations as a Partnership Intermediary with tasks as outlined under Title 15, Section 3715 United States Code. As part of the original charge, the corporation’s mission was to assist small businesses in the Sacramento region desiring to contract with DMEA, a high-tech federal laboratory, and to help DMEA meet their congressionally mandated small business contracting goals. As a Partnership Intermediary, The FTC was also charged with developing partnerships between DMEA and local colleges and universities.

The FTC has actively assisted DMEA in preparing and negotiating cooperative research and development agreements, commercial test agreements, and educational partnership agreements with regional organizations. The FTC provides university students majoring in electronics engineering or marketing to augment corporate staff and the DMEA lab staff. They also serve as a media and legislative interface to make the Sacramento community and key congressional and military leaders aware of DMEA’s importance to the local economy and of their role in support of Department of Defense weapon systems.

As part of its charter to assist small businesses, The FTC launched its procurement assistance program in October 2000 to serve the small businesses in a ten county area surrounding Sacramento. At that time, The FTC became a Regional Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) under the federal Procurement Technical Assistance Program established by Congress in 1985 to help small businesses contract with all levels of government. This program initially concentrated its efforts in a ten county, Northern California service area. It provided a full range of services including education, bid matching, counseling, and outreach programs. It also set up a contractor reference library for clients to access the latest procurement rules and regulations, assistance and reference articles, and made a computer available for clients to access the internet in researching contract opportunities. The FTC has consistently been rated “Outstanding” by the Defense Logistics Agency, the federal agency providing nationwide oversight of all Procurement Technical Assistance organizations. Because of their outstanding program, the Department of Defense designated The FTC to manage a Statewide Program and on October 1, 2003, its service area was expanded to cover 46 counties in the state of California. Additionally, on January 1, 2005, The FTC expanded to include 8 more counties in California bringing total counties served to 54 of the 58 statewide.

The FTC began with a CEO and a part time engineering consultant. It has now grown to include ten full-time and seven part-time employees, and four part-time consultants. Legal services, CPA, and payroll services are outsourced.

The FTC has grown to become California’s leading expert in federal, state, and local government contracting. The FTC’s contracting counselors and instructors have over 200 years of combined experience in all forms of government contracting. Since its inception, The FTC’s procurement assistance program has assisted over 8,300 businesses that have reported receiving 18,296 contract awards valued at $1.1 billion in federal, state, and local government prime contracts and subcontracts. Using the federal standard, $1.1 billion in contract awards equates to 21,095 jobs created or retained. Approximately $897 million of these awards were federal contracts, which could have gone to businesses in other states without The FTC’s assistance.