Not selling to government? Why not?

Below are some examples of state spending in 2007 that created a myriad of business opportunities for vendors:

• Aircraft - $9.7 million - This category includes aircraft rental, fuel and lubricants for state-operated aircraft and their maintenance and repair. Numerous state agencies and institutions of higher education, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), the Texas A&M Health Science Center, universities in the University of Texas System and numerous other agencies and higher education institutions rented aircraft that contributed to the total of these expenditures. Other agencies, such as the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and TPWD also had major expenditures for aircraft maintenance and repair.
  
  
• Building and Construction - $348.9 million - This category includes not only construction, but also building maintenance, repairs and improvements. Nearly all state institutions will have expenditures in this category each fiscal year. Vendors from every region of the state may bid on providing products or services that include plumbing, security, flooring, furniture, office products, glass, elevator repair and more.
  
  
• Construction - $1.3 billion - Bricks and mortar are a staple of state government as agencies outgrow their current facilities or need infrastructure updates. Last year's spending included new construction for state agencies such as the General Land Office, TPWD, TxDOT and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). Much of the state's building expenditures was also spent at institutions of higher education, such as Lamar University in Beaumont, Prairie View A&M at Prairie View, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas A&M-Commerce and Texas Tech. Virtually every area of the state allocates funding for construction expenditures each fiscal year.
  
  
• Vehicles - $108 million - The state maintains a huge fleet of vehicles and lumped into this category are expenditures for leasing or renting vehicles as well as for vehicle repairs and maintenance. This category often includes expenditures for tires, batteries, tune-ups, brake jobs, painting, welding, collision repairs and even car washes.
  
  
• Food - $47 million - The state buys lots of food products. This category includes expenditures from as little as the Department of State Health Services' $3.24 paid to a major hamburger chain to more than $11,000 for bakery goods paid by the Texas School for the Deaf.
  
  
• IT Products/Services - $692 million - Where would state government be without computers? This category includes expenditures for such items as computer software and hardware, computer repair, computer programming, data processing, contract temporary services and computer consulting. The expenditures can be as small as West Texas A&M's $521,000 for software or as large as TPWD's computer-related expenditures of $3 million.
  
  
• Road Construction - $5.4 billion - One of the largest expenditures for state government is road construction and it includes hundreds of small contracts. There are literally hundreds of opportunities for smaller companies to subcontract with larger prime contractors on projects.
  
  
• Other Miscellaneous Spending - The state spends millions more on professional services - from $141 million for advertising services in FY 2007, to $27 million for legal services. Another $33 million was spent for cleaning services, including things like janitorial services, linen services and cleaning of uniforms.
  
  

The public sector marketplace is extremely large. It represents a multi-billion-dollar environment for vendors who have products and services to sell. It should not be overlooked.