TVBA Expo coming with record attendance and exhibitors
More than 3,000 individuals – triple the number from the inaugural event three years ago – are expected to attend the Tennessee Veterans Business Association’s (TVBA) 2013 Expo January 28 and 29 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Since our initial interview a year ago with TVBA founder Jonathan Williams, we have kept in contact and sat down recently for an update a few weeks ahead of the Expo.
“We have a lot of the bigger companies involved this year,” he said. They include three prime contractors in Oak Ridge – UCOR (environmental clean-up), UT-Battelle, LLC (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and B & W Y-12, LLC (Y-12 National Security Complex).
Williams also talked about smaller veteran-owned businesses that will be part of the Expo – EnergX, LLC; Xcel Energy; Strata-G; Alliant Corporation; and Ameriphysics, LLC – and companies non-Department of Energy contractors like Stowers Machinery Corporation, Pilot Flying J, Phillips and Jordan, and Harrison Construction Company.
“We will have 150 exhibitors, up from 122 in the first year,” Williams said, adding that “our model does work.”
In his view, the model works because “government and non-government come together” to make things happen. “It’s the power of relationship building.”
To prove it, Williams shared the attached example involving BES Technologies, LLC and UCOR – BES_TVBA Press release
The event begins with a reception and dinner Monday night, January 28. The full workshop sessions and Expo run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. January 29.
More information, including the full agenda and registration, is available at http://www.jointvba.us/tvba-annual-expo-2/.
