Prince George's County sees new SBA grant path for manufacturers
Up to $50 million is on the table, but the money will go through as many as 10 SBA-backed trainers before it reaches Prince George’s manufacturers.
Prince George’s County manufacturers now have a new federal funding lane to chase, but the money will not go straight to shop floors in Largo or anywhere else in the county. Up to $50 million will go to as many as 10 organizations that can train and advise small manufacturers, and local firms that qualify could use that support to hire workers, modernize equipment and sharpen their bid for government work.
The U.S. Small Business Administration announced the grant competition on May 6, saying the recipients will provide training and technical assistance to small manufacturers in its Empower to Grow program. E2G offers free business courses, tailored training and one-on-one consulting for eligible small businesses, with help aimed at growth, operations, hiring, regulatory compliance and government-contracting competitiveness. Because the awards go to a small pool of applicant organizations, the immediate competition is for the intermediaries that can deliver the training, not for individual manufacturers themselves.
Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation has been pitching the federal opening as a practical tool for the county’s industrial base. The agency says it focuses on business retention, expansion and attraction in targeted sectors, and Maryland says the county’s private-sector industries generate $34.5 billion in economic output. That matters in a county where small manufacturers, light industrial firms and logistics-oriented businesses can get squeezed when financing tightens or equipment needs replacing.
The county already sits in a favorable place on Maryland’s manufacturing map. Maryland says Prince George’s is a Tier 1 jurisdiction for More Jobs for Marylanders manufacturing tax credits, which can run for up to 10 years when firms locate or expand and create new manufacturing jobs. The state also points to the county’s federal footprint, including Joint Base Andrews and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as part of the region’s economic ecosystem. In other words, manufacturing policy here is tied to real payrolls, real contracts and real production capacity.
The harder question is whether county outreach reaches the smaller industrial businesses that are not already plugged into the county’s economic-development network. A Prince George’s County Planning Department report has already treated small-scale production-based businesses as part of an inclusive economic-development strategy, and PGCEDC says the county had 22,452 business formations in 2022, the most of any Maryland county. If those firms hear about the SBA opening early enough, the dollars could help keep more jobs, equipment upgrades and production lines inside Prince George’s instead of sending that growth to nearby jurisdictions.
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