Island residents listen to a presentation during the 2025 Industry Day on Friday, May 2 at the Crowne Plaza Resort.
THE CNMI Small Business Development Center hosted the 2025 Industry Day on Friday, May 2 at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan to inform small businesses about the regulations they need to follow if they intend to obtain contracts from the Department of Defense.
The event featured guest speakers from the Pacific Air Forces, the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, and other stakeholders.
Nadine Deleon Guerrero, the SBDC executive director, said it was an opportunity for local businesses to connect with contractors, federal agencies, and other officials who will be part of the military buildup in the CNMI.
“Industry Day is an opportunity to connect with these [Department of Defense] contracting officers,” she said. “That’s what we [SBDC] do — provide economic opportunities for our small businesses to bid on these projects or to be able to get into the awarding mechanisms.”
She said that in the lead-up to Industry Day, SBDC conducted over 42 hours of training at 14 different events for around 207 clients on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.
Industry Day took place on Rota on April 29 and on Tinian on May 1.
She said they provided small businesses with “targeted training” to help them navigate the federal contracting process — including registering with SAM.gov (the federal government’s online portal for doing business), creating a marketing capability statement, understanding the Commercial and Government Entity code and the Unique Entity Identifier, among other steps.
Deleon Guerrero said some contracts have already been awarded for local federal projects, and her goal is to ensure that more local businesses are ready for subcontracting opportunities.
“Before you can get paid, you need that SAM.gov registration, and you need your UEI, and you need that CAGE code and you need your capability statement,” Deleon Guerrero said. “And that’s what we do — those things are what we train our small businesses to do because [federal contracting] is complex and it can be intimidating.”
