Though part of the small group which conceived of SBIR, extensively involved in passage of the original enabling legislation and subsequent reauthorizations and have been a long-time Program Advocate - contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, we have never actually been in the business of helping people get SBIR awards. What drove many of us initially engaged was the compelling evidence that technology-based small firms were a primary source of new technologies and of new job creation and, by extension, of the health of an industrialized economy. Yet, despite that
