[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="215" caption="Charles Baker "][/caption] NATIONAL VETERAN CHAMPION Charles M. Baker, President and CEO MCB Lighting & Electrical and Government Logistics Solutions 3540 Chaneyville Road - Owings, MD 20736 Charles Baker has been a leader since the age of 14 when circumstances required him to take over management of the Virginia farm his family share cropped. At the age of 18, Charles entered the military and began a remarkable career that spanned 27 years, took him around the world and presented numerous opportunities to demonstrate his leadership and professionalism and make a lasting impact on the federal government. Charles developed energy conservation initiatives that are now used government-wide and has established an unbroken record of saving taxpayers $1.2 billion through his proposals and recommendations. After retiring from the U.S. Air Force, Charles founded MCB Lighting & Electrical, Inc. and Government Logistics Solutions. He offers unique and innovative construction and product solutions, including "green†solutions. Charles has also been a leader and advocate for change on behalf of the nation's veterans. He has been actively engaged with both the House and Senate Small Business Committees and the Veteran Affairs Subcommittee where he represented the veterans' position on behalf of the four major veteran service organizations related to procurement regulation changes favorable to service disabled veterans. Charles has continued to work to improve the application of federal regulations impacting service disabled veteran-owned small businesses. NATIONAL MINORITY CHAMPION Eddie G. Davis, Principal DaLite & Associates, LLC P.O. Box 56576 - St. Louis, MO 63156 For 26 years, Eddie Davis was employed by Union Electric Company. He started as a car washer and worked his way up through the company serving as a meter reader and meter installer and helper, to supervisor of community relations in the corporate communication department. He finally served as the company's minority business developer in the purchasing department. In 2001, he formed DaLite & Associate, a business consulting firm for small and midsize businesses, and that same year he joined Robert Coleman in Composite Resources LLC as Managing Consultant. In 2004, Eddie formed Integrity Recyclers LLC with Mr. Coleman to operate as consultants and merchants of scrap metals and other recyclable materials. In addition to his efforts on behalf of minority-owned businesses, Eddie serves as volunteer chairman of the Economic Development Committee, St. Louis Black Leadership Roundtable, and as Director of the Center of the Acceleration of African American Business. In these capacities, he champions minority and women-owned businesses through resource development, mentoring, and opening procurement opportunities. REGIONAL PRIME CONTRACTORS OF THE YEAR REGION II Gerald Wright, Chief Executive Officer Universal Technical Resource Services, Inc. 950 N. Kings Highway, Suite 208 - Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 Gerald Wright is Chief Executive Officer of Universal Technical Resource Services, Inc, which provides a wide range of engineering, program management, computer science services to the public and private sectors. Gerald directed the growth of the company from revenues near $1 million to more than $20 million today, and was instrumental in expanding the company's services to include information technology, program management, and environmental sciences. The company began in 1985 with a handful of employees as a provider of highly specialized data processing services to large commercial organizations, and today, has more than 130 employees. FRANCES PERKINS VANGUARD AWARD INDUSTRY OFFICIAL WINNER William Thornton III, Director, Procurement Operations B&W Y-12 P.O. Box 2009 - Oak Ridge, TN 37831 William Thornton is the director of Procurement Operations for B&W Y-12, the managing and operating prime contractor for the National Security Complex with the Department of Energy's Nuclear Security Administration. B&W's objective is to ensure that small, small disadvantaged, women-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned businesses and HUBZone-owned businesses receive their fair share of subcontracting opportunities. The company has averaged 53.7 percent in subcontract awards to small businesses over the last five years. In FY08, B&W awarded 13.4 percent in subcontracts to women-owned businesses totaling $40 million dollars and in FY07, B&W awarded 13.8 percent in subcontracts to women-owned businesses totaling $39 million. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE MANUFACTURING Gloria D. Mencer, Socioeconomic Programs Office, Program Manager B&W Technical Services Y-12, LLC P.O. Box 2009 - Oak Ridge, TN 37831 Gloria D. Mencer is the Program Manager for the B&W Technical Services' Y-12, Socioeconomic Programs Office, which supports the Department of Energy in promoting subcontracting activities for small businesses. Gloria works closely with contracting officers and program managers to develop strategies to ensure that socioeconomic firms receive procurement opportunities over $100k. In FY08, B&W Technical Services Y-12 made subcontract awards to small businesses totaling $150 million or 50.2% of its subcontract obligations. For FY05-FY08, B&W Technical Services Y-12 averaged more than 50 percent of small business participation and it has awarded more than $669 million in subcontract awards to small businesses. Source: SBA