August 2, 2011

DESA Finds Success at HHS Vendor Day

During a recent HHS Vendor Day DESA met RTI International, one of the world's leading research institutes headquartered in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, to form a sub-contracting relationship.

The two firms soon found they had similar business goals, as each heavily focuses in health communications and health-related conferences. After several phone calls, face-to-face meetings and exchanges of ideas, DESA became a project team partner and subcontractor on one of the recent HHS contract awards to RTI. Lesson learned? Networking pays.

"HHS' Vendor Day gave us an excellent opportunity to meet other like-minded businesses who share similar contracting goals. Federal contracts are competitive, so any chance we have to partner with a larger firm usually leads to our firm's growth," said Diane Sumpter, DESA's President and Chief Executive Officer.

The Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization is doing its part to ensure that firms become educated on how to market to HHS by providing education, outreach and access to resources including opportunities to network and meet decision makers, DESA is a 25-year-old conference management firm, headquartered in Columbia; SC. The firm is a SDB and a Woman-Owned Business.

This article was published in Volume 6 - Issue 25 of the HHS Pulse.