Athas Cote, however, isn't waiting for the program to improve her chances of securing federal contracts. Full implementation of the program has been delayed for more than four years, and the Small Business Administration has yet to set a target date for when it will come online.

Athas Cote has owned and operated SBH Services since 2000. The Anchorage-based business provides trucking and construction contracting services to commercial and residential customers.

As a woman-owned small business, SBH Services is eligible for the SBA's women's procurement program. A small business qualifies if at least 51 percent of it is owned by women and the daily operations of the business are managed by one or more women.

The program was established by an amendment to the Small Business Act in December 2000. It currently allows federal agencies to give bidding preference to a women-owned small business when the bid is one of at least two considered to be the best value. Once the program is fully implemented, federal agencies will have the authority to restrict the bidding on some of their contracts to only women-owned small businesses.

The women's procurement program is one of several ways the SBA is pursuing to meet the federal government's annual goal of awarding 5 percent of federal contracting dollars to women-owned businesses, said Frank Lalumiere, deputy associate deputy administrator of the SBA's Office of Government Contracting and Business Development. Lalumiere's comments came while speaking at the Small Business Networking Breakfast in Anchorage on May 9.

Since the goal was established in 1994, it has never been met.

Some 2.98 percent of the federal contracting dollars went to women-owned small businesses in fiscal year 2003, compared to 2.9 percent in fiscal year 2002 and 2.49 percent in fiscal year 2001.

"I want to see women-owned small businesses get up to that and exceed the 5 percent goal," Lalumiere said. "It's a goal the government has an interest in - (as does) the nation - to do this. Sometimes conversations get hung up on what decimal point you get to."

Women-owned small businesses - at least 51 percent owned by one or more women - make up about 30 percent of private businesses nationwide. In Alaska, nearly 22,000 women-owned businesses account for 35 percent of private businesses in the state, according to the Center for Women's Business Research.

The numbers tell the story. Women-owned businesses are not getting anywhere near their proportionate share of federal contracting dollars, said Margot Dorfman, chief executive officer of the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce.

Even though many of the 6.7 million women-owned small businesses in the United States do not offer products and services contracted by the federal government, there are enough women-owned small businesses capable of carrying out the 5 percent goal, Dorfman said.

"We think it should be raised to 10 percent," she said. "There's no reason it can't be done to 10 percent."

Lalumiere told attendees of the breakfast that it's possible for the federal government to fulfill a goal of exceeding 5 percent; but before it does, it has to first reach 5 percent.

"There's nothing magical about 5 percent," he said.

The amendment establishing the women's procurement program required the SBA to conduct a study to determine which industries are underrepresented by women-owned small businesses. While the formal regulations of the program have not been decided on, the study's information would likely be used to target industries that are the least represented by women-owned small businesses, Lalumiere said in an interview.

The SBA completed a preliminary study in 2001 and later contracted the National Academy of Sciences to review the study.

The academy released its findings in early March. Its review concluded that the SBA's study should not be used to designate which industries would qualify for the women procurement program because the study had calculated underrepresentation using inconsistent standards of measurement.

The review recommended that the SBA conduct a new study that recalculated underrepresentation using a single standard of measurement with more recent information.

"The deal is we have to accept their recommendations and move on," Lalumiere told the attendees.

The SBA currently is working on a plan that will address the academy's recommendations and outline the new study's features, such as who will conduct the study, how much it will cost and when it will be done, he added.

Dorfman of the women's chamber said it has taken the SBA an excessive amount of time to follow-through with the study.

Even though the study is not perfect, it did identify industries in which women-owned small businesses are underrepresented, offering enough information to develop a plan to fully implement the program, Dorfman said. She added that once the new study is complete, the SBA could amend the program to fit new findings.

Dorfman said it's crucial for the program to be fully implemented soon because the federal government is not going to meet its 5 percent goal until the program is completely underway.

The benefits of fully implementing the program could be outweighed by disadvantages of using the first study's conclusions, Lalumiere said in an interview. "For the sake of trying to do something, we could make a lot of mistakes."

It could be better to expedite the completion of the new study, he said.

Since the SBA is not sure when the women's procurement program will be fully implemented, Athas Cote is not relying on the program to improve her access to federal contracting dollars.

Last year, Athas Cote applied for another SBA program designed to help small, disadvantaged businesses compete for federal contracts. Her application for 8(a) certification, however, was denied. She is reapplying this year and hopes that her second application will adequately demonstrate her business is at a disadvantage.

The problem with the 8(a) program is that for any women-owned small business to qualify, it has to individually demonstrate that it is at a disadvantage, Athas Cote said.

"It is hard to justify our position," she said. "And women often times don't want to for personal reasons because we don't want to play the victim."

The women's procurement program, on the other hand, recognizes that women are underrepresented in the federal contracting arena, making it easier and more appealing for women-owned small business to participate, she said.

Athas Cote plans to participate in the women's procurement program when it's fully implemented, and hopes other women-owned small businesses also will take advantage of the program, she said. "I think they can be incredibly successful."

Claire Chandler can be reached at claire.chandler@alaska