Salute to Small Business, Monday | May 14, 2012, 7
Patricia Rice, SBA’s Minority Small Business Champion By David M. Fitzpatrick BANGOR DAILY NEWS
For her work with Maine’s Native American tribes, Patricia Rice, former director of the Maine Procurement Technical Assistance Center and current SCORE Association chapter chair, has been named the SBA Minority Small Business Champion. “I’m deeply honored to have this award,” said Rice. “You do your things, you do your work day by day and day and it’s nice to get an award.” Nominating Rice was Timothy Love, the then-president and CEO of Federal Program Integrators. Love cited Rice’s “tireless assistance over several years” through her work with the Maine PTAC to help the manufacturing company enter the world of federal contracting, which has totaled over $100 million since 2009. FPI, located in a 32,000square-foot facility on Indian Island, the seat of the Penobscot Nation, is a designbuild manufacturer of wood, composites, and other advanced technologies. Through Maine PTAC, Rice traveled a lot to assist clients, which includes all
four of Maine’s four Native American tribes through her work with Four Directions Development Corporation, which provides housing and business support to the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes. In her letter of support for Rice’s nomination, Four Directions Executive Director Susan Hammond praised Rice’s assistance, and noted that Rice drove two to three hours to meet with the three tribes in Aroostook and Washington Counties. “What impressed me about Pat was her strong and unwavering commitment to helping the tribal people and her extensive knowledge and expertise in the complex world of government contracting,” Hammond wrote. “She was a dedicated champion of the tribes.” Rice worked to educate the tribes about government contracting and guide them through the massive red tape involved with that venture. It’s a lot to take in. “The federal regulations for contracting is over 2,000 pages long,” Rice said. “If you can’t fall asleep, you start reading the Federal Acquisition Regulations.” Rice has a lot of experience facilitat-
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ing businesses. After years in research and marketing with a chemical/pharmaceutical company, she taught for 10 years before moving to Maine. For the past dozen years she’s worked with small businesses, mostly as the director of Maine PTAC. She’s currently a business consultant with the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program. When she left Maine PTAC, she wanted to get into volunteering, and found the Bangor chapter of SCORE, of which she soon became the chapter chair. SCORE’s wide range of volunteers educate and assist people in their smallbusiness endeavors. “I always look at the talent — who has the talent, and what volunteers can bring to the table?” Rice said. “And her in the Bangor SCORE chapter, we have over a dozen committed and talented volunteers of all ages and a variety of backgrounds.” SCORE offers workshops on everything from writing business plans to learning QuickBooks. And in the process of learning, a potential small-business owner might discover he’s not ready to be in business. And that’s a good thing,
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BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY DAVID M. FITZPATRICK
Patricia Rice, chair of Bangor SCORE chapter. Through her work at the Maine Procurement Technical Assistance Center, helping Maine’s Native American tribes navigate the challenging world of government contracting, Rice has won the SBA Minority Small Business Champion award. Rice said. “We’re not in the business of having people fail,” she said. “It’s all about teaming and working together and collabo-
rating so that we can help Maine businesses succeed.” For more info, visit www.SCOREMaine.org.