when dealing with multimillion dollar contracts, it is counter- 

 productive to a small startup business where the focus must be de- 

 veloping new products and technologies. 



Second, simplify the accounting system requirements. Phase II 

 accounting system requirements are another area where too much 

 emphasis is placed to the detriment of the small startup business 

 firms. Requiring elaborate accounting segregation of unallowable 

 costs, types of costs, et cetera, does not enhance small business re- 

 search activities. The Government can assure it is receiving a fair 

 and reasonable value by relying on progress reports and program 

 review meetings that are already a part of the Government's man- 

 agement process. 



Third, offer contract alternatives. One of the reasons for the 

 elaborate accounting system requirements is the use of cost-plus 

 fixed fee contracts. This can be easily remedied for the small start- 

 up business by authorizing the use of firm, fixed priced contracts 

 that are much easier to accommodate. 



Fourth, review terms and condition requirements. It is not un- 

 usual for Phase I contracts to contain over 90 contract provisions. 

 This is overkill and unwarranted, again placing unnecessary bur- 

 den on small startup companies. 



Finally, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I ap- 

 preciate having this opportunity to share our experience with the 

 SBIR Program with you today. Keep up your excellent work in 

 helping to make the SBIR Program even better. I will be pleased 

 to answer any questions that you may have our testimony. 



[Mr. Bassilakis' statement may be found in the appendix.] 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Bassilakis, 

 for your testimony. I now would like to ask Mr. Roger Little, presi- 

 dent of the Spire Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts, for his 

 testimony. 



TESTIMONY OF ROGER G. LITTLE, PRESIDENT, SPIRE 

 CORPORATION, BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 



Mr. Little. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am the president of 

 Spire. We are in Bedford. We have been in business a number of 

 years. The SBIR Program has been instrumental in our growth. 

 When we started about 12 years ago, we were a $6 million com- 

 pany and today we are $18 million plus in sales. 



The SBIR Program contributed to our technology base and prod- 

 ucts in a number of ways. I want to give you two examples. One 

 is in photovoltaic. This is a solar cell. This is a silicon device which 

 converts sunlight to electricity and under DOE support about 10 

 years ago, we began to develop the technology for this. Today, we 

 manufacture and sell the capital equipment to produce photovoltaic 

 modules and we sell it all over the world. We export to Third World 

 countries, as well as Europe and Japan, the seeds of which were 

 developed under the DOE SBIR Program. 



More recently, we have had support from NASA to do space solar 

 cells and we have developed a very efficient cell which will be used, 

 we believe, in satellite global communications. It will take us a lit- 

 tle while to get it there, but we think it is going to make a big im- 

 pact on systems such as iridium. 



