Check out how much Stimulus your area is receiving...

Interested in finding out how much federal spending your congressional district receives? How about checking up on your top competitor to see how many federal contracts they have worked on?

All this is available at USAspending.com, which tracks federal spending, and allows you to search under Congressional District, contracting agency, or contractor name.

I searched under Congressional District # 7 (Greater East Bay excluding Alameda County), and learned that our district received $432,867,081 in Federal contracts, but only $2,346,575 in Recovery Act Contracts. Click (HERE) to see the search.

A list of the top 10 Contractors is below:

1. Health Net, Inc. $305,226,021
2. L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc. $25,250,058
3. McKesson Corporation $14,195,289
4. Weston Solutions Holdings Inc $9,132,556
5. Boise Mobile Equipment, Inc. $4,861,937
6. County of Contra Costa $4,689,241
7. Chaduxtt JV $4,632,634
8. Micro Assembly Technologies, Inc. $4,583,482
9. Jet Investment Inc $4,536,421
10. American International Group, Inc. $4,423,167

BART Extension to Airport is Cut -- How this impacts an office furniture dealer

Federal officials have denied the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency, $70 million in funding for a planned extension to the Oakland International Airport. What does this have to do with Office Furniture?

Well, lets follow the money... This $70 million in Stimulus funding required engineering firms who were going to design and build the extension. These engineering firms were prepared to hire engineers, construction personnel , and support staff to work on the 4 year project. These newly hired support staff required facilities to work in, which in turn required office space to lease, and furniture to furnish the offices. The office furniture company which supplied the furniture required salespeople to sell the furniture, accounting staff to bill the furniture, and warehouse and delivery staff to install the furniture (getting the picture).

In the Fed's decision to deny the project funds, my little company has lost the revenue we would have derived from the office furniture sale, which in turn impacts all the downstream staff in my organization.

It is way too easy to throw up your hands at the $787 Billion Stimulus figure, and say how does rebuilding a bridge, or extending BART to an airport, really help the economy. As one of the cogs at the very downstream end of the machine, I am telling you that the Stimulus funding is absolutely helping, and is absolutely necessary for the recovery to take hold.

Stimulus $ at work...

The "trickle down" effect of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (aka the Stimulus), has finally reached our little corner of the United States. Specifically we are working with two different clients who are in the process of procuring office furniture for project staff, who will be managing infrastructure projects that are funded by the stimulus program.

Both projects will be on-going (3 to 5 years) - one involves construction of the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel (which connects Alameda County to Contra Costa County), and the other involves the construction of a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) extension to the Oakland Airport.

Happy to finally see our tax dollars at work!

Show me the money...

The "stimulus fairy" has sprinkled federal stimulus money to five Bay Area companies and one university, all which focus on "high risk" energy technology . Recipients of the most recent awards are:

• Envia Systems of Hayward - $4 Million
• NanOasis Technologies of Richmond - $2 Million
• PAX Streamline of San Rafael - $3 Million
• Porifera in conjunction with Lawrence Livermore National Labs - $1 Million
• Stanford University - $5 Million

The money was initialy designated under the Advanced Research Projects Agency - the actual funding for the programs came from $400 Million in Federal Stimulus money.

Waiting On The East Bay Stimulus Funding To Flow...

Listening to the news or reading the papers, one would think that most of the Stimulus funds have been spent. In fact, look a little closer and it appears the spending hasn't really yet begun (at least in the East Bay).

click above for a link to the source information

Looking at the East Bay Congressional districts a total of $46,519,252 in Stimulus Contracts has been awarded (which sounds great), but it breaks down as follows:

• District 7 Congressman George Miller: $809,208 in a single contract to a consulting firm working with the Forest Service


• District 9 Congress woman Barbara Lee: $44,811,00 in a single contract to Lawrence Berkeley National Labs


• District 10 Congress woman Ellen Tauscher: $0,00


• District 11 Congressman Jerry McNerny:$899,044 in a single contract to a produce company for "fruits and vegetables"

Looking for the good news... this means that the bulk of the Stimulus money still hasn't been disbursed. I have never been a believer in "trickle-down" economics, but being that our industry tends to be at the "bottom" of the food-chain, I guess now is as good a time to start believing as any!

No Stimulus for Local Battery Makers

$2 Billion in Stimulus grants were given out this week to companies developing "new battery technology" for electric cars, but virtually none of those dollars are heading towards the Bay Area.

Out of the entire $2 Billion in grants, a grand total of $500,000 was awarded to a Bay Area organization (City College of San Francisco). The vast majority of the funds are heading towards companies in the Midwest, which is a little hard to swallow when you think about the number of local companies focusing on this type of technology. Click (HERE) for a list of grant recipients.

The SF Business Times had a great article on the Bay Area "hub" of companies focusing on "new" battery technology (click HERE to view the original article). I'm looking for any "green-shoots" to get our local economy hiring again...

Update on the Stimulus Front

Lots of chattering in the news about whether the Stimulus (formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is working. I can tell you that I am currently working on a "nice" project that is Stimulus funded, so from my perspective it is working!

Here is a broader picture:

map of current Stimulus funding in California

Approximately $85 BILLION in funding has flowed through to California, with a good portion of that money ending up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Is the money stimulating job creation? Again from this small corner of the country - YES... my clients are hiring fast (they have 30 days to put butts into seats once they receive their funding).

To see specifically whats happening in California - click (HERE).

Stimulus Arrives!!!

It looks like the "stimulus" (formally known as the American Recovery Reinvestment Act) or ARRA has arrived!

We received our first formal "bid" request this morning for a project funded by the stimulus program. The project came from the a local city transportation agency, requiring office furniture for a new dispatch center. (hopefully the first of many).

Nice to see our tax dollars circling back around, and a hopeful sign that we might finally be closer to the start of the recovery...

Waiting for the Stimulus

I have never seen the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, but I imagine that Beckett would greatly appreciate the experience many of us in the commercial interiors industry are going through as we wait for the Federal Stimulus money to hit.

If you google Federal Stimulus you will find 28,100,000 entries, which is a bit overwhelming for those of us simply looking to get a small bite of the apple. Since I've had a little more time on my hands lately, I'll share some of what I've found while "waiting" for the Stimulus.

1) As of today (6/5/2009), the money is just beginning to flow to the local level. I have verified this ancecdotally with some of my local and state clients who expect funding within the next 15 to 30 days.

2) Look at: Recovery.gov which gives the macro view of where the money is going.

3) Look at: Recovery.ca.gov for what California is doing (within this site is very cool map that details by county or congressional district where money is allocated).

4) Local county and city websites all detail specifically what they are "waiting" on in relation to stimulus dollars.

I personally believe that at least some of the new "goals" for government transperency are being met. It took a little effort, but the information on where the federal dollars are heading is available.

In the meantime we wait...and wait... and wait...