The more I look into this, the more I'm confused! I work for a woman owned small business in CA. They want me to research becoming certified. It looks to me like unless the owners of the company live in California, which they do not, they cannot qualify for a small business in CA. The State of CA web site specifically states that the owners must be "domiciled" in California.

Next, I cannot find anything about being a certified woman owned business. What I have found states that there is no certification, it's self-certifying. But then I find companies that do help business become certified. I'm very confused and there are tons of references to MBE/WBE certifications. MBE/WBE just refers to minority and woman owned, is that correct?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

To answer one of your questions; yes WBE is a woman owned business. Most WBE, set aside a percentage of the business for WBE and MBE. By the way MBE members are American Indians, African Americans and Hispanics.

I own a commercial cleaning company near Chicago, most contracts for building cleaning given by the City, State and Federal are MBE and usually about 15 to 20% of that building is set aside for WBE. And you must be a registered business in the State for City and State set aside business. A number of larger companies, especially those doing business with the City, State or Federal are reuired to have a certain percentage of set aside vendors.

It has been quite a while since I have dealt with this but I believe that you are certified by the State. Although some larger cities require you to certify with them also. I do not go after this business, not because of the set asides... but because all these jobs are very slow pay. Even more so now with the economy.

Stringer