At Warwood Tool, we take enormous pride in the fact that we’re a small American business forging tools in Wheeling. Our products speak for themselves: quality, durable tools built to meet the highest standards. When foresters, railroad workers, construction workers and craftsmen choose Warwood, it’s because they trust the steel in their hands.
So, when government agencies make efforts to prioritize small businesses like ours in the procurement process, we’re genuinely grateful. These programs are well-intentioned. They’re supposed to level the playing field and give companies like Warwood Tool a fair shot at competing with multinational corporations.
But the truth is those good intentions often get buried under a mountain of bureaucracy.
We recently tried to do business with a state forestry agency. They wanted our tools. We wanted to provide them. But before we could even submit a quote, we had to:
Create and maintain a profile in their procurement portal
Agree to a dozen different boilerplate terms and contracts
Complete multiple internal onboarding steps
Then, once that’s all done, get certified through a completely separate state agency (like SWaM in Virginia, SBR in Maryland and Pennsylvania, or MWBE in New York).
The kicker? The state administrators have told us, point blank: If you can’t get through all this, we’ll just buy your tools through a third-party distributor who is already set up in the system.
That’s not a win for small businesses. That’s a workaround that keeps the system running as-is — one where the only entities who can consistently win contracts are the ones with full-time compliance departments. We’re a team of fewer than 20 people. We make tools. Good ones. And we spend our days forging, grinding and shipping — not navigating a maze of portals, paperwork and certifications for all 50 states. The tools still come from us, but, now, we’re losing margin, losing the relationship and losing out on exactly the kind of business we’re told we should be pursuing.
We believe states should be able to buy what they need — quickly, directly and from the companies making the products. Red tape doesn’t serve the boots-on-the-ground workers in forestry or wildland fire. It doesn’t get hammers and pry bars to the crews rebuilding our country’s aging infrastructure. It just slows things down and shuts out the very businesses these programs were designed to include.
To the government buyers and procurement professionals who do go out of their way to work with us: Thank you. You know who you are. You’re the reason we keep trying.
But to those writing the rules: If you want small businesses to compete, don’t just open the door. Clear the path. Let us do what we do best: make great American tools and get them into the hands of the people who need them.
Christopher Novak is the marketing director for Warwood Tool, in Wheeling.
