Over 500 Attend Brookhaven Business Fair

A record crowd of more than 500 attended the 2006 biannual Small Business Fair at the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, held this month at the lab in Upton, N.Y. Sponsored by Brookhaven and the Small Business Administration (SBA),

Hedy Sifre (far right), of M-Tron Components Inc., a Ronkonkoma, N.Y., supplier of electronic components and computer products, discusses how her company can meet the technical needs of Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) with (from left) Laura H. Lewis, deputy director of the CFN; David Paveglio, a contract administrator in the lab’s Procurement & Property Management Div.; and Jill Clough-Johnston, the lab's small-business liaison officer.

the fair provided opportunities for small-business personnel to network with large businesses with the goal of winning contracts. About 450 small-business people attended the fair, primarily to learn how to do business with the 37 large businesses that participated; some also attended workshops on SBA certification and on obtaining small-business loans. Construction of Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials began in September. The center, which is expected to open in June 2007, will provide researchers with advanced probes to study materials at nanoscale dimensions.