Derek T. Dingle: Rick, thanks for joining us. In your role as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Adviser, how do you impact minority business?
Rick Wade: Well, I’m one of the Secretary’s top advisers and challenged with the responsibility of helping to advance President Obama’s vision, his plan for minority businesses across America. So on the one end of it, advising him on policy that takes us on outreach strategies that help us, make minority businesses more aware of opportunities to procurement. Establishing business-to-business relationships. Just creating an environment where minority companies can be more competitive, not just domestically, but also abroad.
Dingle: A large part of that I would imagine deals with the RecoveryAct?
Wade: Yes.
Dingle: How do you make sure that minority businesses gain access to the contracts? We’ve gotten feedback that there is a great deal of frustration in terms of accessing these contracts. How do you play a role in making sure that they get the contracts so that they can grow their businesses?
Wade: Let me first say, Derek, that this as a major priority of the administration. You may be aware that the president has designated Vice President Biden to oversee the implementation of the Recovery Act. He has made minority and small business participation a huge priority and designated Secretary of Commerce Locke and I to help shepherd that process.
So there are a number of things that we’re doing. One, throughout minority business development centers across the country, through the Small Business Administration centers, probably 2000, all the centers are engaged in outreach at the local level, hosting webinars and seminars, technical assistance they are providing to minority business owners. We are using online strategies where businesses can come to our website and get a listing to be able to see where the opportunities are. The fact is that navigating the government bureaucracy can be daunting and a challenging process, so what we’re trying to do is to break and unbundle this Recovery Act and make it more user-friendly, pushing that information out to minority companies and providing the technical assistance that they need to be able to submit successful applications, complete and hopefully will be announcing some big wins.
Dingle: In terms of looking at dealing with the bureaucracy, it’s one thing to deal with the federal government, but how do you make it uniform across local and state governments, in terms of the administration of these contracts and accessing them?
Wade: Well, you know, the federal government certainly has its requirements, goals and they are not necessarily the same as each state. Each state has its own goals and platforms and programs around small and minority business participation. However, under the Recover Act, which is obviously an incredible amount of resources moving across our economy, we are working closely with the governors. We are working closely with the state Recovery Act coordinators or state Recovery Act czars to make sure a that they understand that this is a commitment, a priority, not only to the President, but to Vice President Biden who is overseeing this process and that they are being encouraged to do just as much of aggressive outreach as we’re doing on the federal level.
So we think that we are moving in the right direction. The good news is that most of the Recovery Act funds have not been dispersed or awarded, so our challenge now is to make sure that we are being aggressive in moving this message all across the country and to bring as many minority companies as part of this dialogue as possible.
Dingle: As it relates to Recovery Act contracts, how do you measure success? A year from now where should we be?
Wade: Well, you know, we don’t have a numeric number yet. We’re putting together a process, a tracking and reporting system in place, through our Minority Business Development Agency. SBA does have some criteria and they do have tracking processes as relates to small businesses, but, you know, we’re hopeful that we’re going to see more small businesses and medium businesses, medium-size businesses and more large minority companies raise up and become competitive and be successful in this process.
Dingle: I talked to the Commerce Secretary and one of the issues that he raised was financial. Small businesses, especially minority businesses are having a hard time gaining access to capital. The credit market is still tight. How are you going to make sure that they gain the loans that they need? What are the financing mechanisms Commerce is putting in place, beyond the guaranteed loan program, to ensure that minority firms gain contracts?
Wade: This has been an age-old question or issue, access to capital, and it is just so simple. These businesses need access to capital to be able to survive. I’ve spent a lot of time out in Detroit, as a part of the Auto Recovery Task Force, and the one thing that I’ve heard over and over and over from these suppliers is that they need capital and they need it now. They’re all understanding that they have to reinvent for the future, but it’s about keeping their doors open.
So, as you may be aware, the President has made a commitment through SBA, has freed up some $15 billion in financing, as well as from MBDA with some of the loan programs. So there are loan programs and grant programs and some of us also — and I think what David Hinson, our new MBDA Director, brings to this conversation is just a wealth of experience in how to create successes through creative financing, through partnerships, through acquisitions, through mergers. Because partnership is critical in this whole process if we want to create the big business success stories that we hope that we will be engaged in. I think he’s going to bring that leadership and relationships to get that job done.
Dingle: So how do you facilitate these partnerships? That’s always been a challenge for entrepreneurs to come together in order to access, in order to gain contracts, either on the public level or the private level.
Wade: Well I think one of the things that minority business development agencies across the country have done an incredibly successful job is brokering relationships. For example, if there
is a small minority company in Cleveland, Ohio that is manufacturing widgets and doesn’t have a scale and there is a major company, they know and have the market intelligence to know who is doing what and how. They go out and bring those two and together.Dingle: Is it a matching program?
Wade: It’s a matching program. We have a database that has the specs of all the companies that we work with and we’re able to match them with other potential partners, other potential federal companies that are competing for federal contracts. This is not just within the United States, but we are looking to expand this so that we can also partner and help minority companies compete globally. I just returned from Africa and met with a number of companies there in Africa who want to do business with the United States. So we’re trying to expand even beyond the domestic marketplace and open this up on a global level.
Dingle: As Karen Mills said you’re not emphasizing speed dating, you want e-harmony?
Wade: That’s right.
Dingle: So, in terms of looking at innovation, and I’ve talked to you before, you said that you want to make sure that minority businesses are positioned to take advantage of the redesigned economy.
Wade: Yes.
Dingle: What do minority businesses need to do in order to access the industries of the future?
Wade: There are so many industries of the future and we have to make sure that minority companies are competitive.
Dingle: Let’s say the green economy.
Wade: The green economy is one, I mean that’s a good example. We know that that is the economy of the future and if you’re going to compete and sustain yourself in the future, we have to help them understand what the green economy means. We have to help them transition to use clean technology. We have to help them understand the importance of using technology period, and being more efficient and faster and getting products to market. So there are a lot of tools in the toolbox that we are using to reinvent this economy. And, you know, our challenge as the federal government is to figure out a way how we will get those resources and get that information, to get that knowledge infused into our minority business infrastructure.
However, on the other hand, as I tell minority business leaders all over the country, we need you to do some homework. We need you to do some research. We need you to be aggressive and think about how you position yourself in this new economy of the future.
Dingle: So the emphasis is on retooling established businesses or creating a pipeline for new businesses?
Wade: Well, it’s both. I mean, I think that is the future of the economy. We are transitioning, we’re reinventing current businesses to compete in a domestic and global marketplace of the future, but it’s also creating a pipeline for entrepreneurism, innovation, ideas that we can commercialize and take to market.
Dingle: So is that pipeline going to come from historically black colleges and universities, colleges, where are you going to find a new breed of entrepreneurs to take advantage of the new economy?
Wade: Well, you know, you mentioned HBCUs. I’ve always been an advocate that historically black colleges and universities, and
other minority serving institutions, could be an incredible resource. They should be centers for entrepreneurism, centers for innovation, not just tapping into the incredible faculty and an academic talent that we have, but the ideas, the new ideas that students bring in the academic environment. Then our job is to take those ideas and let’s figure out how we can transform them into commercial opportunities and products and services. So, yes, I think our institutions of higher learning can play a very valuable role in creating new innovations and ideas, and being a pipeline for future business leaders across America.Dingle: As you know, we have the BE 100’s, the nations largest black owned businesses.
Wade: Yes.
Dingle: One of the goals that was stated at the MED Week conference is that we want to take small businesses and make them large businesses, so the smaller black businesses can become BE 100s companies.
Wade: Sure.
Dingle: What are the stages to get there?
Wade: Well, I mean, some of the things that I talked about earlier. I mean, how can we make sure that they can compete, which means knowing the market information, market intelligence, where are the sectors for growth and expansion. Creating partnerships with larger companies, mergers and acquisitions and other kinds of configurations that yield success.
Magic Johnson talked a great deal about this at the conference, the importance of partnering and having the right partners. So those are the kinds of strategies that we believe can work and we want to be that advocate, as Secretary Locke said, to help take the small business to a medium-sized company, a medium-sized company to a large company. I think with our relationships across the Department of Commerce, across the world, but you will see us playing a more aggressive role as well in building and brokering these relationships. The fact of the matter is there are a lot of countries, as well, who do business in America and we need to make sure minority companies are part of those business processes as well. So it is a two-way street, doing business abroad, companies doing business from abroad, in America, making a direct investment. There are a lot of ways I think in which the federal government and this administration can play in helping to advance this.
Dingle: One of the challenges that we have, we find a number of minority entrepreneurs that don’t want to access the international market or they are intimidated about accessing that. How do you bring down the barriers? How do you communicate to black businesses that this is the wellspring of opportunity and how can you communicate the tools that they need to access those international opportunities?
Wade: Well some of it is helping minority companies understand that the economy is not local, the economy is indeed global, and trade is obviously a very important part of commerce. And so I think once we help companies understand that we have a wealth of resources, take for example the International Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce, and within that the Foreign Commercial Services Office all across the world, that will literally take you by the hand and walk you through the process and broker relationships with the right principles in other countries. That’s what we do and we do very well.
So we’re committed to doing this and providing the market intelligence so companies know where they can compete abroad. But, when you look at countries like China, when you look at even opportunities in Africa, while there are challenges that are incredible opportunities, so we want to make sure that we can transfer that market information back to our American small businesses and minority businesses can help them move along that pathway to global competition.
Dingle: You talked about Africa, considered one of the frontiers for opportunity. How do you go through the process of helping minority entrepreneurs, or businesses in general, figure out what countries they should do business with, where are the danger spots and where are the areas of opportunity? Do you do that through the ITA?
Wade: Yes.
Dingle: If you can elaborate on that —
Wade: Well, I think the International Trade Administration, you mentioned ITA, they have a wealth of knowledge and information about what the market opportunities are in Africa, as well as in other parts of the world. So, yes, that is where we start. Ultimately we would like to be able to do some trade missions where we could take some of our companies, business leaders here to Africa, and vice versa, bring those leaders to America. Because they too want to understand our economy, what we will be bearing in this new economy and where the opportunities are. So it is a two-way exchange and that is precisely what Commerce, through ITA, does.
Dingle: That’s almost going back to what Ron Brown did when he was in the Clinton administration as Secretary of Commerce, having trade missions, making it inclusive with small and minority businesses, so that they can really access those international opportunities and start building relationships. Is that the model you’re talking about?
Wade: It is the model and Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, certainly, I think elevated this model to historic dimension in really advocating in pushing for this type of exchange and that’s exactly what we’re set out to do.
Dingle: I think the — it sounds like the big piece of outreach is making sure that minority businesses know that they can go to Commerce, access resources, so that they can take advantage of opportunities that may not even be on their screen.
Wade: Correct, that’s right. And that’s what this is all about. Listen, the bottom line is minority businesses are critical to America’s economy and certainly to our recovery. When you look at the fact that there are over 4 million minority companies who contribute, based on recent census data, $661 billion, that’s significant. The more that we can work with minority companies to create jobs, to create wealth, to innovate, to expand, to grow, to prosper, to contribute to America’s prosperity and we fundamentally believe that and we’re excited about what the future holds.
Dingle: Thank you, very much, Rick.
Wade: Thank you, as always.
Further Reading:
— Mission Prosperity
— Transcript: Q&A With Commerce Secretary Locke
— Transcript: Q&A With MBDA National Director President David Hinson