Is the Air Force closing its ‘front door’ to small businesses?

The Air Force’s efforts over the last 15 years to turn around how it works with small businesses are in danger.

A new memo from Secretary Troy Meink cuts the service’s small business office down to one person.

The Air Force’s decision to reduce staff and move the small business advocacy functions to its acquisition shop is raising alarm bells among small business advocates.

Sam Le, a former director of policy planning and liaison at SBA and now the managing member at Sam Le Law and author of GovCon Intelligence, said the real danger of these changes is how they will ostensibly close the service’s front door to many small businesses.

“These offices are the front line of defense against regulatory complexity and administrative burdens that are driving small contractors away. Without adequate staffing and resources in those programs, we’re really just telling small businesses that the Department of Defense doesn’t want to do business with them,” Le said in an interview with Federal News Network. “We’re already watching an alarming exodus of small businesses from federal contracting. The number has declined in the number of small business vendors by over 50% in the last 15 years. This year it’s down 8.5% already, and that means we’re going to lose 5,000 small businesses this year. That’s 14 companies every single day walking away from government opportunities.”

The Air Force’s Sept. 4 memo, which Federal News Network obtained, says that by the end of September, it will reduce the Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Utilization to one person. Former officials say the office currently has about 20 people, split between eight full-time federal civilian staff members and 12 contractors.

Meink outlined changes to staffing not just for the OSDBU, but every secretariat two-letter organizations, including the CIO’s office, the principal cyber advisor and the chief scientist office.

An Air Force spokesperson confirmed that the Office of Small Business will be reduced to a single individual, and added that implementation plans are still in progress and no further details are available.

The changes to the OSDBU are troubling for more reasons, given how much progress the Air Force has made since 2009 in contracting with small businesses.

A former Air Force official, who requested anonymity in order to speak about their former employer, said this is not just a bureaucratic reshuffle; the Air Force is stripping away its team and embedding functions in acquisition.

“The Air Force has turned a statutory office into an empty title,” the former official said. “You can’t expect acquisition to be both the referee and the coach. The advocate is now lapdog. This move tells small businesses: ‘you’ve gone from the front row to the back bench.’”

Transparency, accountability at risk

Under the Small Business Act, Congress required each agency to have an independent small business office with staff and authority. The former official said that because the Air Force is gutting that office, there is no way the service will be able to meet the 21 statutory requirements for OSDBU offices.

“The structure of the office was important because small business directors in the field could go up through the chain to the OSDBU to help with acquisition challenges. The OSDBU director then could go back down the chain and explain why it’s a priority to commanders and other leaders,” the former official said. “The small business office runs industry days. They are part of contracting and acquisition conferences where they help educate and recruit new small businesses. There are multiple opportunities to interact with people who were frustrated, and the small business office became their voice. Without this ability to be effective or advocate for people who can’t afford lobbyists or procurement consultants, they will really have no place to go.”

The OSDBU’s impact is clear based not just on the total dollars going to small firms, but the number of new entrants into the Air Force.

John Shoraka, a former SBA associate administrator for government contracting and business development and now CEO of Strategic Growth Partners, said starting in 2010, agencies started taking small business contracting more seriously.

“There was a turnaround across the federal government. There was a significant focus on the authorities in the Small Business Act. There was a significant focus on keeping senior executives accountable. There was a significant focus and hand-holding from senior administration officials from the White House, holding agencies accountable and agency heads accountable,” he said. “That visibility, transparency and accountability is, I think, what brought around the changes that we saw.”

Shoraka said there has been consistent progress across every socio-economic area, from 8(a) to women-owned to service-disabled veteran-owned to HUBZone firms.

“Without that dedication, oversight and visibility and transparency, achieving the small business programs and holding people accountable just doesn’t happen,” he said.

Air Force has been a leader

Le said the Air Force’s small business efforts have been some of the best across government.

“If you go with the last nine years, starting in 2016, the Air Force increased its spending with small businesses every single year, from 2016 to 2024. There’s not a whole lot of agencies that can say that,” Le said. “Even more exceptionally, the Air Force is one of the very few large agencies that was actually bringing in more small businesses into contracting; they were actually able to increase their small business participation from 2023 to 2024. None of the other four large DoD agencies can say that, not the Navy, not the Army and not the Defense Logistics Agency.”

Le said part of the reason for the Air Force’s success is its focus on the Small Business Innovation Research program. At the same time, Le said he also credits the Office of Small Business Programs and their staff who, he said, are committed to the mission of bringing in small businesses and having them work on the Air Force mission.

The Air Force’s decision to reduce the size of its small business office is drawing the attention of lawmakers.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the Small Business Committee, said in an email to Federal News Network that the Air Force’s decision is a step in the wrong direction.

“We’ve already seen similar cuts at HHS and other federal agencies, and they put both small contractors and our industrial base at risk. Small business professionals need to stay independent and fully staffed to be effective and do their jobs,” she said. “They help small businesses break into the federal marketplace and compete on a level playing field, while also ensuring they are treated fairly and paid on time. Small businesses bring innovation and resilience, but they can only reach their full potential if they have real advocates inside the federal government.”

Additionally, Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.) added an amendment to the 2026 Defense Authorization Bill trying to address these changes. His provision would require the “Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services no later than Jan. 15, 2026, on the department’s current or future plans or actions taken to make any material change to any OSBP, including but not limited to a reorganization of command relationships or reporting chains; increases or decreases in authorized civilian or military billets; realignment, consolidation, or divestiture of subordinate elements; changes to statutory programs executed by OSDBU; or any other change that would impact the ability of the Offices to meet statutory obligations or comply with statutory requirements.”

The Senate NDAA bill doesn’t include the same provision.

More cuts to small business programs

The Air Force is not the first agency to cut staffing to its small business offices. The departments of Health and Human Services, State and Homeland Security all took similar steps over the last several months.

The former Air Force official said they are worried the Air Force’s actions could be the proverbial “canary in the coal mine, should the service make this change and Congress or the administration not respond, others, especially across DoD, may follow suit.”

Shoraka said small business offices are not just about meeting the numbers or the goals. He said their roles are about attracting innovation, supply chain resilience and helping the industrial base to flourish.

Shoraka said if the government doesn’t support small business programs, these things will not flourish. He says the decisions by the Air Force, by HHS, by DHS and by State are all “short-sighted.”

“My concern is, putting the toothpaste back in the tube is going to be pretty difficult. Once you start seeing the actual impact of all these different changes, it’s going to be pretty late to try to remedy the situation,” he said. “These programs aren’t just being reduced to a large extent, they’re being dismantled. Trying to rebuild these programs will take years and years. I certainly hope that Congress exercises its oversight and does have more hearings and is more vocal.”

Le added that it’s unclear why the Air Force or any of the other agencies are taking this approach to cutting small business programs. He said that, given the fact that the Trump administration is focused on simplifying the acquisition regulations to make it easier for more companies to work with the government and that they’re committed to doing more for all small businesses — from loans to made in America manufacturing — these cuts don’t make a lot of sense.

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