A new approach to information technology contracting is helping 44 disabled veteran-owned companies, 27 of them local, to compete for $5 billion in government business.

The VETS government-wide acquisition program, launched earlier this year, is administered by the U.S. General Services Administration. It was created to improve opportunities for veteran-owned businesses while giving federal agencies an easier way to meet their small business requirements, GSA spokesman John Anderson said.

The federal government is required to allot 3 percent of its business to disabled-veteran-owned companies. GSA will train VETS winners on how to market themselves to government agencies, Anderson said. The first training conference for the program is scheduled for Thursday. The contract extends through 2012 with one five-year option.

“What we’ve done is kind of put all these great small businesses in one central location; we wanted to make it easy,” Anderson said.

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The VETS program, which focuses on systems operations and maintenance, and IT engineering, is the government’s first all-veteran business contract. Among the winners is Sterling-based C Watkins & Associates. President Carl Watkins called the contract critical to his company’s success.

“It allows us, as a $1 million company, to bring in partners and truly offer global capabilities ranging through the entire gamut of IT services to the government,” Watkins said.

Watkins said his firm’s 30 years of government contracting experience will help it stand out among the competitors. The amount of work contracted under VETS is expected to pick in earnest.

The first award was given to Carolina Management and Technology Inc. of Fayetteville, N.C., to do $495,523 in work for the GSA in April. Another was awarded this month to Penobscot Bay Media LLC in Camden, Maine, for $50,000 in work at Langley Air Force Base.

melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com