All posts by SEO Team

HUBZone Contractors: Advantages and Federal Opportunities

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Is the HUBZone Program? The Small Business Administration (SBA) operates the HUBZone program, which was created to enable qualified small businesses to compete for set-aside contracts and receive preferential consideration in competitive, open contract bidding. What is a HUBZone? HUBZones are historically underutilized business zones. The SBA designated them as such based on the most recent census data. HUBZone designations are re-evaluated and updated every five years. The previous review was in 2018, and the newly revised map will be released on July 1, 2023. The next review will take place in 2028. What Are the Qualification Criteria for the HUBZone Program? To become certified for the HUBZone program, your business must meet the SBA’s definition of a small business. It must also be at least 51% owned and controlled by U.S. citizens, a community development corporation, agricultural coop, Alaskan Native corporation, Native Hawaiian organization, or Native American tribe. Your principal office must be located within a HUBZone,...

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Guide to Bidding on Government Work

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Government Contracting Government construction contracting can be rewarding. Many of the largest construction companies regard it as a mainstay of their business. Public works projects are available at all levels of government, from towns, cities, and counties, to state agencies, to the federal government. But when you’re first starting out, even if you have significant experience in private construction contracting, moving into this new territory can seem a little daunting. And to be honest, it can take a little effort to get your head wrapped around the ins and outs of bidding on government construction projects. Government contracting can be a complicated matter due to its highly regulated nature, particularly at the federal level, and some states have a comparably complex procurement process. The high degree of regulation, however, helps ensure the fairness of the bidding process and minimizes the risks to the taxpayer dollars that fund public works projects. It also requires contractors new to the government construction...

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What Contractors Need to Do to Bid on Larger Projects

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Are You Ready to Make the Move? To land bigger projects, you have to get bigger. That’s a simplistic way to say that you must demonstrate the capacity to successfully execute any project you bid on. If you’re hoping to grow your business by winning bids on bigger jobs, you’ll need to prove that you have sufficient capital, equipment, workers, construction industry experience, administrative and management talent, credit, bonding capacity, and whatever else it will take to convince project owners that you have what it takes to run with the big dogs. You’ll also need to have subcontractors and suppliers with the capacity to meet your needs. If the ones you’ve been working with can’t scale up to support you on larger projects, you may have to expand your network. Cash Flow Considerations The bigger the project, the more important it is to be able to estimate and track costs accurately. That can be significantly more difficult for larger...

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How Emerging Contractors Can Master the Bidding Process

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. The Procurement Process Different project owners go about hiring contractors in different ways. The federal process is formal and highly regulated to ensure that it is fair for all parties while minimizing the risk to the government. The same is generally true of the process used to hire contractors to execute state-funded and municipal-funded public works projects. New contractors need to thoroughly understand the process to be used for a particular project before preparing and submitting a bid. All of the time, effort, and money that goes into preparing a bid is wasted if the contractor is disqualified for not following the correct process. Bid Solicitations Not all bids are advertised publicly for open bidding by any contractor. While government-funded projects typically are, some project owners, especially private ones, only advertise bids to contractors who previously went through a vetting process to be on a list of prequalified bidders. Open bidding, also known as open tendering, is an “equal...

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Advances of Technology in the Bidding Process for Procurement

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. The Procurement Process In the business world, organizations typically refer to the process through which they acquire goods and services or “purchasing.” Government agencies refer to the process through which they obtain what they need, from aircraft to paper clips, as “procurement.” Selecting a contractor to carry out a government-funded construction process falls into the procurement category. Government procurement at the federal level is carried out according to well-defined procedures and is highly regulated to ensure that it is fair for all parties while minimizing the risk to the government. The same is generally true of the process used to hire contractors to execute state-funded and municipal-funded public works projects. New contractors need to thoroughly understand the process to be used for a particular project before preparing and submitting a bid. All of the time, effort, and money that goes into preparing a bid is wasted if the contractor is disqualified for not following the correct procedures or providing...

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IIJA Funding and Cyber Security Risks in Construction

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. The Threat of Cyber Attack Cybersecurity experts have warned us for several years of the threat that cyber attacks pose to critical infrastructure and those who rely on it. Water supplies, electrical grids, banking, and communication systems are particularly vulnerable to disruption through cyber attacks. Sensitive personal and corporate information can be acquired through data breaches and sold, held for ransom, or used for other nefarious purposes. The construction industry is far from immune to cyber attacks. In 2021, construction was the third most frequently targeted industry as far as ransomware is concerned, accounting for 13.2% of all ransomware attacks in North America. It’s a favored target because of a lack of awareness and inadequate cybersecurity measures. One study found 74% of businesses in the construction industry are unprepared to respond to a cyber attack, despite the abundance of sensitive data and financial information they accumulate. And as the use of artificial intelligence and degree of connectivity in construction...

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How Construction Smart Sensors Are Changing the Industry

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Are Smart Sensors? Sensor technology has come a long way since the early days of factory automation when sensors made machine control of machine-controlled equipment possible. Back then, sensors could do little more than trigger an action by detecting the presence or absence of an item. Today’s smart sensors can gather a wide range of information and transmit it wirelessly. Some sensors contain onboard microprocessors that can act on the data collected before transmitting it elsewhere to support monitoring and decision-making. Some sensors are capable of detecting their own functioning and reporting the need for recalibration or maintenance. Advances in technology result in sensors that are smarter, smaller, lighter, and less vulnerable to outside forces. You can expect to see continued expansion of the possible uses of smart sensors, particularly in the construction industry. How Are Smart Sensors Used in Construction? These are just a few of the ways in which smart sensors are modernizing the construction industry:...

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How Carbon-Based Fuel Regulations Will Affect Construction

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Renewed Emphasis on Elimination of Greenhouse Gas Emissions The Biden administration is engaged in ongoing rulemaking intended to move the U.S. ever closer to zero emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG) that have played a major role in global warming and climate change. This involves the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposing rules that reverse the previous administration’s rollbacks of fuel efficiency and emissions standards. Every sector of the economy is under scrutiny to determine the greatest opportunities for improvement and set priorities for reducing the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. Strategies for Reducing Use of Carbon-Based Fuel President Biden signed an Executive Order including a schedule for developing standards governing fuel efficiency and multi-pollutant emissions for light-duty vehicles through model year 2030, with standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles starting with model year 2027. In December 2021, the EPA issued final gas emissions standards for passenger cars and...

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Bridge Formula Program Set to Improve Infrastructure in the U.S.

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What is the Bridge Formula Program? The Bridge Formula Plan is another name for the Bridge Replacement, Rehabilitation, Preservation, Protection, and Construction Program created by the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Job Acts (IIJA), better known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Bridge Formula Program establishes rules and guidelines for allocating the billions of dollars earmarked for the repair, replacement, preservation, protection, and construction of highway bridges throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. Described by Transportation Secretary Buttigieg as the “single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system,” the total amount to be distributed over five years to states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico is $26.5 billion with another $825 million going to Tribal transportation facilities. What Bridge Projects Will Be Funded? The Bridge Formula Program funds repairs and upgrades to highway bridges as well as “off-system” bridges. These typically are owned by county, city, town, or other local government entities and...

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