By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Assistant Secretary Tony Bridges sat down with the AFRO to give a preview of this year’s Governor’s Minority and Small Business Outreach Summit, which takes place on Nov. 19 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) speaks at the Maryland Business Opportunities and Entrepreneurial Training Summit on Sept. 26, 2023. The 2024 summit is focused on reaching minority-owned and small businesses.
Photo credit: Photo courtesy of the Office of the Governor
“It’s a day of networking for small, minority, women and veteran-owned businesses to get an upper hand on how to do procurement within state government,” said Bridges. “We don’t want to leave anyone behind when it comes to procurement.”
Eric Solomon, director of communications for the Maryland Department of General Services (DGS), helped give background to how this event came to be and how it will unfold.
“The Governor’s Business Summit is a collaborative partnership between the Maryland Department of Transportation, the University System of Maryland and DGS,” said Solomon. “Participants will have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with state project managers, procurement officers and key decision-makers from agencies across Maryland to learn valuable information about the state’s procurement processes and contracting opportunities.”
This year’s summit is expected to garner around 800 minority-owned, local, small, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses and dozens of prime contractors.
“The state has a goal of 29 percent for minority businesses on state contracts, and this is a way for us to help make sure that those prime contractors are getting in touch and coordinating with those small and minority businesses,” said Bridges. “There will be over $7 billion worth of procurement opportunities for the state that we will be talking about at this one-day summit.”
Solomon elaborated on where that $7 billion comes from.
“Between the three agencies, the State of Maryland procures goods and services valued at over $7 billion annually. DGS alone oversees over $1 billion in contracts each year,” said Solomon. “In Fiscal Year 2024, DGS awarded Minority Business Enterprises (MBE) over $144.8 million. Of that, $71.6 million were made to women-owned businesses and $13.7 million to veteran-owned businesses.”
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Bridges discussed some of the features of this year’s summit.
“The great thing about the conference is the workshops that we have,” he said. “We give tips on how to navigate the procurement process how to navigate a winning bid.”
One of those workshops will be about addressing opportunities around the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed on March 26.
“We will have the organization that’s in charge of rebuilding the bridge doing one of the workshops to talk about upcoming opportunities for the bridge rebuild,” he said. “These are real opportunities that we want people to take advantage of.”
Bridges said there will be procurement officers there as well.
“We have what’s called ‘meet the primes,’ where businesses can meet with prime contractors, discuss contracts and upcoming procurement opportunities and start fundamental conversations to ensure they have partners moving forward when reaching out to do bids,” he said. M
MDOT is the state’s official certification agency for businesses looking to be recognized as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) or Small Business Enterprise (SBE).
“We currently have over 9,700 minority businesses that are certified here in the State of Maryland, and they all go through the certification process here through the Department of Transportation,” said Bridges.
Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) spoke with the AFRO on the upcoming summit and what it can provide to Maryland’s economy.
“As a member of the Board of Public Works, I continually work to ensure we achieve the best value on our state contracts and that we are intentional about where and with whom we spend our money,” said Lierman. “I am happy to see that state agencies are conducting more proactive, targeted outreach to minority- and women-owned businesses, and providing resources that will assist them in becoming certified as Minority Business Enterprises.”
