WASHINGTON—National BDPA’s Greater Washington, D.C. Chapter (BDPA DC) presented Annette Owens-Scarboro with the association’s lifetime achievement award for 2023 during the association’s annual technology and community service awards ceremony. The association’s 45th anniversary holiday soirée and awards ceremony was hosted in Washington, D.C., at Samsung’s Executive Briefing Center (EBC) on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Owens-Scarboro serves as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business and Historically Black Colleges (HBCU) and Universities Program Manager and reports to the Head of the Contracting Activity (HCA), Director, Office of Acquisition and Logistics Management (OALM).
NIH is the steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation. She was formerly the acting Deputy Director for Operations in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) and a senior Small Business Specialist supporting the NIH. Ms. Owens-Scarboro has supported all the ten HHS operating divisions as the senior small business specialist.
Ms. Owens-Scarboro is responsible for providing daily operational and technical assistance for acquisition and program officials and overseeing and managing special projects. She participates in numerous state and local government and private sector outreach activities and represents the OSDBU and NIH HCA at speaking engagements and conferences. Additionally, she has served as an advocate and liaison for the Small Business Community marketing their capabilities to the HHS, NIH, and other government and private sector communities. She has been successful in continuing the migration of new small businesses to the NIH repository. Additionally, under her leadership, the NIH continues to be successful in achieving its small business assigned goals. NIH is the only federal agency to have a small business HUBZone Consortium and to host monthly Vendor Outreach Sessions.
As the NIH HBCU Program Manager, Ms. Owens-Scarboro manages the Path to Excellence Initiative (PEI) established in 2014 by the White House Executive Order 13532 which prescribed federal agencies to assist HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) in promoting excellence, innovation, and sustainability in contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements.
In 2016, the NIH OALM launched the PEI Pilot Program. The pilot was designed in accordance with Presidential Executive Order 13779 to address inequities in contract awards to HBCUs. This program included 6 HBCUs with medical capabilities and 12 small business partners. During the pilot program, Hampton University received a $32 million cooperative agreement for proton studies at the National Cancer Institute.
BDPA DC • 2023 Community Services and Technology Awards
2023 Corporate Sponsor of the Year Award:
• Octo, an IBM Company
2023 HSCC Sponsors’ Award:
• Premier Enterprise Solutions, LLC
2023 Lifetime Achievement Awards:
• Annette Owens-Scarboro, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
2023 President’s Awards:
- Krystle Irby
- Dominique Meriedy
- Thaddeus Miller
- Mike Payne
- Ricardo Stepney
2023 Entrepreneur of the Year Award:
• Tina Williams-Koroma, Esq., CyDeploy
2023 Member of the Year Award:
• Terry Wilson-Brox, CACI
2023 SITES Alumna of the Year:
• TurKenya Herring, Accenture Federal Services
About BDPA DC
Founded in 1977, National BDPA’s Greater Washington, D.C. Chapter (BDPA DC) was chartered by BDPA in 1978. Established in Philadelphia, PA as Black Data Processing Associates, BDPA is the premier organization focused on nurturing and developing diverse working professionals and future IT leaders across Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) industries and all digital technology fields. For almost 50 years, BDPA has enabled the upward mobility of African Americans and other minorities in Information Technology (IT) and STEM fields since 1975.
— Cover photo NIH • bdpatoday® photo ©2023
