The US Department of Education has awarded BayFirst Solutions a five year contract to provide Sign Language Interpreting and related accessibility services to department Department employees nationwide. The contract was developed and awarded under the US Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Program for selected small, disadvantaged businesses. Under the contract, BayFirst will provide scheduling, fulltime interpreting, and other services such as remote captioning and computer aided real-time translation (CART) captioning. “We are honored that the Department has shown its support to a small deaf-owned company with innovative approaches toward providing accessibility to deaf and hard of hearing professionals” says Robert Rice, President of BayFirst. Martha Prine is serving as the Program Manager.

SBA has awarded 8(a) status to BayFirst and waived two-year operating requirement. BayFirst is now admitted to the US Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program, a program created to help small disadvantaged businesses compete in the American economy and access the federal procurement market. We are also the only deaf-owned company to ever have the required 2-year operating period needed for 8(a) program acceptance waived due to our recognized business experience and perceived ability to succeed.