CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Texas Comptroller’s Office is narrowing eligibility for the state’s Historically Underutilized Business program, known as HUB, a move that has caused confusion and concern among many small businesses across the Coastal Bend who rely on state-funded projects for work.
Created in 1999 by the Texas Legislature to give minority-, women- and disabled veteran-owned businesses additional consideration when competing for state-funded contracts, the HUB program will now be rebranded as “VET HUB” and limited to businesses owned by veterans with at least a 20% disability rating.
By Wednesday morning, the APEX Accelerator program at Del Mar College — which assists hundreds of local contractors with state and federal procurement — began fielding a wave of calls and emails from clients trying to understand how the change would affect them…