Artcturis Hosts GSA Administrator Johnson

Arcturis, a St. Louis-based architectural design firm, hosted GSA administrator Martha Johnson for a roundtable discussion with local business people last Friday on how the federal government can help businesses create jobs. Nearly 30 small business owners and pastors attended the meeting in Arcturis's offices beneath a company banner inscribed with the company slogan: "together we create."

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's office arranged the introduction of Johnson to Pat Whitaker, the CEO of Arcturis, and the introductions to the other business owners.

Johnson said she has been traveling the country meeting mostly with owners of small businesses to hear their concerns and convey what the administration is doing about them.

"Most people don't know what we're doing, because the news is so dominated by what is going on in Congress," she said.

She added that she relays what she hears back to the White House.

The people in the meeting at Arcturis mainly represented architecture, information technology, food products, and churches, she said.

And one of their main questions was: how do businesses do business with the federal government?

"The GSA is known for taking the lowest bid, but over the last 15 years we've been reconfiguring to best value bidding," said Johnson. "We're increasingly buying services instead of products, and the product buying model we had doesn't really fit when buying services," she said.

Johnson's task was to talk about the how president's American Jobs Act would affect Missouri.

"There are five main ways," she said:

1) 120,000 Missouri firms would get a payroll tax cut;
2) federal funds for "infrastructure investment" would include $716 million that would create 9,300 construction jobs building roads and transit systems in Missouri and $565 million to the jobs of 9,100 Missouri teachers and first responders;
3) job training for 2400 Missouri adults and 9500 youth;
4) unemployment insurance reform would help 109,000 Missourians, who have been without a job for a year, and save benefits for 40,000 Missourians in just the first six weeks;
5) extending the payroll tax cut from last year would put an average of $1520 in the household budgets of every household earning $49,000 a year.

"But, it is not just about the current crisis, it is really about working towards a new economy," Johnson said.

The day before, Johnson took part in an Energy Listening Session to hear from Midwest energy industry leaders on ways the federal government can leverage its purchasing power and position in the energy market to create new jobs and alternative energy capacity.

After the energy listening session, Administrator Johnson visited to the manufacturing facility of BZ Products, a local American owned small business manufacturing LED light boards which are exported worldwide.

GSA is the federal agency responsible for nearly 10,000 federal buildings, $65 billion a year in federal procurements, and the 200,000 vehicle federal fleet.

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