ND PTAC adds procurement specialist, new Minot location
MINOT, ND – The North Dakota Procurement Technical Assistance Center (ND PTAC) is proud to announce the addition of Nicolette (Nikki) Kallias as a procurement specialist. Kallias will assist clients with government contracting opportunities at the local, state and federal levels.
“We are excited to expand our program to better serve businesses across the state with the addition of another advisor to our team, and we’re very pleased to have Nikki in that role,” said Dave Kleppe, ND PTAC program manager. “She is very customer focused and has a background in banking and federal regulation compliance. We look forward to growing the number of clients we work with in the Minot region and across the state.”
Kallias is from Minot, N.D., and graduated from Minot State University in 2011 with a bachelor of science in business administration. She has more than five years of banking experience from First Western Bank & Trust and United Community Bank and is very involved in her community. She is a Minot Chamber of Commerce member, a Companions for Children lunch pal participant and a Sunrise Rotary member.
”We’ve been listening to our stakeholders, and we agree that expanding the reach of our PTAC services is an important priority for our state,” said Tiffany Ford, director of the UND Center for Business Engagement & Development, host of the ND PTAC, ND SBDDC and VBOC of the Dakotas programs. “North Dakota has an incredible opportunity to increase the number of local businesses engaged with government procurement, whether at the local level with schools, the university system or state agencies, all the way up to the federal level with our military installations or as subcontractors under larger prime contract recipient businesses. Adding another staff member to the ND PTAC team, and strategically locating this service in Minot is just one step toward achieving this. We are so pleased to have Nikki taking this on with us.”
The new Minot location is co-located with the ND Small Business Development Centers office in the US Bank Building. The programs are both hosted through the Center for Business Engagement & Development at the UND Nistler College of Business & Public Administration.
The ND PTAC program has offices in Bismarck, Fargo and now Minot and serves as a resource for assisting North Dakota businesses in obtaining federal, state and local government contracts. In addition to individual counseling, program services include training webinars, workshops around the state and an annual procurement fair with one-on-one matchmaking opportunities. The team assists as businesses navigate the government contracting learning curve and make the whole process easier.
About the PTAC Program: The Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) was authorized by Congress in 1985 in an effort to expand the number of businesses capable of participating in the government marketplace. Administered by the Department of Defense, the program provides matching funds through cooperative agreements with state and local governments and non-profit organizations to operate Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) for the purpose of providing procurement assistance to all businesses – particularly small businesses – interested in participating in the government marketplace. Learn more at http://www.aptac-us.org.
The procurement technical assistance center is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense. Match funding is provided by the ND Dept. of Commerce.
