The new office of Utah Bid Development Solutions, or UBiDS, officially opened Wednesday in the Roy W. and Elizabeth E. Simmons Entrepreneurship Center on the campus of the Davis Applied Technology College.

A large number of Utah companies already provide products and services to the government, but figuring out how to get such contracts can be difficult for companies with no experience, said Kori Ann Edwards, director of the UBiDS office. "We're here to help provide guidance."

The program was developed as a partnership with the state's Procurement Technical Assistance Center, the Davis and Ogden/Weber Chambers of Commerce and the Utah Defense Alliance.

Armed with a $250,000 one-time appropriation from the Legislature, those groups contracted with Logistic Specialties Inc., a Layton-based government contract consulting firm, to staff and operate the UBiDS office.

Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, noted that small business in the state annually secure $100 million in federal contracts, while Utah companies big and small share in $1.9 billion in contracts awarded by various government entities.

"And those just scratch the surface" of what's available, he said.

Utah small businesses are trying to take advantage of the presence of federal facilities such as Hill Air Force Base, much as their counterparts in Oklahoma and Georgia do with their Air Logistics Centers.

Small businesses in Utah get about 5 percent of the contracts available from Hill, compared with small business owners in Georgia and Oklahoma who are fulfilling 15 percent to 20 percent of the contracts, said Utah Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse.

Killpack helped secure the funding for the UBiDS program after hearing that a $1.2 million contract to mow the lawns at Hill was awarded to an Idaho company. "The more we can do to help Hill operate more efficiently, the more it will help Utah," he said.

The Utah Procurement Technical Assistance Center, which operates under the Governor's Office of Economic Development, views the opening of the UBiDS office as complimenting its own efforts to help more companies within the state secure available federal contracts.

The center has a bid-matching program for Utah small businesses. It identifies a company's basic business and then sets up a Web page for it that daily will check as many as 12 different search engines to identify government contracts for which it might be eligible.

"Once a company identifies a contract that they are interested in, UBiDS is in a good position to help them create a winning proposal," said Fred Lange, center director.

Lange noted that businesses outside Davis and Weber counties also can take advantage of UBiDS' services. He described the program as a test using the one-time $250,000 grant. "Everyone is hopeful that it will be successful and produce results that will lead to it becoming a successful, long-term program."

steve@sltrib.com