The Michigan Daily- Friday, March 26,1993- Page 5 .BREA G BUSS B RS Through an aggressive recruiting campaign, the University has increased the number of minority- and women-owned companies it does business with flvefold over the last decade by David Rheingold Daily Staff Reporter sk Tanya Allen why she founded her company ForeverFresh, and she'll tell you about countless pairs of underwear women stain during their menstrual periods. So three years ago, Allen began marketing a brand of disposable panties that a woman could wear once then throw out. "There was nothing on the market that could guarantee her against staining her $15 linge- rie," Allen explained last week in her office, located in Detroit's Renaissance Center. But she didn't expect that the undergarments would become a hit at University of Michigan Hospitals among mothers who had just given birth and needed to restrain their bleeding. After a successful trial run last fall, Univer- sity Hospitals bought 4,000 pairs for their niother/baby unit. Yet the transaction would not have taken place if the University had not discovered Allen at a trade conference in Lansing last year. University representatives attended the con- ference as part ofa program that aims to recruit minority- and women-owned companies to do business with the University. It is an intense, quiet campaign the University's purchasing department has been running for 21 years. Theintent is to give a fair share of business to minority- andwomen-owned firms, which rep- resent a tiny portion of all firms that provide outside services to the University. These services encompass dozens of fields, such as catering, construction, medical supplies and landscaping. "You've got a whole group of people out there that really need some help in getting started, where the normal business doesn'thave the same kind of problems and complications," said Senior Purchasing Agent Dick Throne, who has headed the program since the early '80s. "We come in and we help them get established at the University." Over the last decade, the University has , enlistednearly 500minority-owned businesses and nearly 1,500 women-owned businesses - a. fivefold increase overall. T he increase is a result of an effort that began when Eugene Ingram wrote an affimative action policy for the purchasing department in 1972. "It was just after the Board of Regents de- cided they were going to have a policy on affirmative action for employment, so we thought we should be doing the same thing in purchasing," recalls Ingram, now the University's director of purchasing and stores. Because the University prefers that its sub- contractors already have experience, minority- and women-owned firms were inherently at a disadvantage when competing for large projects. So the University would give them small projects "as a test or a trial," enabling them to build experience, Ingram said. "Initially, the big challenge was finding mi- nority vendors that could furnish products at a competitive price. We did have to go through a lot of effort to get vendors developed to the point where they could serve the University." The program evolved in response to federal legislation requiring acommitment to minority subcontracting, and today it focuses on making the University purchasing department user- friendly. Throne and a small corps of staff members seek minority- and women-owned businesses at trade fairs, through business associations and over computer networks that list businesses. But the University will not give them prefer- ence on the basis of race or gender when they compete againstotherfimns for aproject, Throne said. And that's how some of them like it. "I don'tliketobelumpedin as aminority.... We feel we can compete with the majority if The Universityrecruits businesses owned by women and minorities through a pro- gram that began in 1972. This is how it works: Senior Purchasing Agent Dick Throne and small corps of staff members seek minority- and women-owned businesses at trade fairs, through business associa- tions and over computer networks that list businesses. The University adds these companies to its overall pool of companies that provide outside services- such as cater- ing, construction, medical supplies and landscaping. Throne invites the business owners to campus, where he explains how the Uni- versity selects a company to provide out- side services. When outside companies submit bids for University work, minority- and women- owned businesses do not receive prefer- ence on the basis of race or gender. But if a minority- or women-owned firm does not win a contract for University work, Throne will invite its owner to a meeting to explain why. "We don'ttrytoturn anyone away," Throne said. "If theywalk outof here and they can do business with us, we want them to walk out understanding why they can do business with us - and with a smile on their face. They're still a part of us. At some point maybe they can come back and do business with us." f Also under the program: The University may expedite payments for small businesses that do not have the same assets as larger corporations, but- need money quickly if they are working on a long-term project. Fifty-six employees scattered through- out the University, called "buyers," coor- dinate bidding for outside services. At a special year-end dinner, the University gives plaques to the buyers who have placed the most business with minority- and women-owned companies. A committee of buyers sets annual goals for the program and gauges the program's progress. Above: Tanya Allen, founder, president and CEO of the Detroit-based ForeverFresh, Inc., displays a pair of women's disposable panties, which her company markets. Allen sold 4,000 pairs to University Hospital in December for mothers who had just given birth. Below: Dick Throne, the senior purchasing agent who heads the University's minority contracting program. These are the numbers of minority- and women-owned businesses that provided outside services to the University in 1983 and 1992. 4 P rt Minority-owned businesses Women-owned businesses .£684 3'w 683 197 1983 231 1992 1992 given an opportunity," said Coleman Sudduth, owner of the Detroit-based Colfam, Inc. Colfam, a fax machine dealership, began working for the University after Throne invited Sudduth to campus. Sudduth disdains minority-contracting pro- grams that "set aside" work only for minority- owned businesses because he said they impede his company's ability to do more work than the quota requires. ForeverFresh's Allen said, "We need the opportunity to get experience, but (the Univer- sity) didn' ttreatme any better or any worse than a major vendor.' Throne credits the University's buyers with much of the program's growth: In the last 10 years, the University's minority-owned ven- dors have multiplied from 197 to 683, and the number of women-owned vendors has soared from 231 to 1,684. KRISTOF FEiILLTT 'aily "We're really very proud ofour program. We think we've made tremendous strides," Throne said. Still, the dollars the University awards to minority- and women-owned businesses make up a meager percentage of the total dol- lars awarded to outside businesses. In 1992, the University spent $10.4 million with women-owned businesses and $6.6 mil- lion with minority-owned businesses - 1.7 percentand 1.1 percent of the total $600million itspent subcontracting with outside companies. Throne said the difficulty with these statistics is that a few companies hold monopolies on large, multimillion-dollar contracts - such as heating, water and telephone services - thus eliminating the chance for competitive bidding. He said other corporations with minority- contracting programs will not include these multimillion-dollar contracts in their statistics because there areno women- or minority-owned firms that can compete. Buthe said the University keeps all its figures together so it can more accurately gauge its progress. "Just to divide the amount of business you're doing with minority- and women-owned ven- dors vs. your total dollars doesn't really tell the whole story. You have to look at where you have been and where you are going, and what you are doing to get there. And that's what we're looking at." Throne expects the University will see more minority- and women-owned companies look- ing for business because of the financially- strapped Big Three automakers' downsizing. Max Grayvold, owner of the Birmingham- based Alpha Data, Inc., called the economy "a tough business environment." "Some of my competitors have fallen by the wayside because a lot of corporations have changed their purchasing policies - such as; GM - and that's been a basic downtrend in business," saidGrayvold,whosecompanyprints computer forms for the University. The minority contracting program has re- cently expanded to include companies owned by people with disabilities, as a result of the Americans with Disabilities Act.k Combined with the minority- and women- owned vendors coming out of Detroit, the Uni- versity could see a flood of new businesses. And, said Throne, it's prepared to handle as many as it can. "We've taken the stance that we are notgoing to shrink our database," he said. "We're going toletour database grow, and we will work with all the vendors that can meet the competition in a level of pricing that we're looking at." 'U'strives for diversity among research subcontracting businesses by David Rheingold Daily Staff Reporter The increasing number of minority- and women-owned businesses that subcontract with I the University mirrors a national growth in that do business with the University cut across dozens of fields, from advertising companies to zoological supplies. Many of these vendors work in professional fields: publishing, computer software and sup- .rv. and Ptinentinnai traininga nti enrvics e "With hi-tech, the potential amount of cus- tomers is very few, and it requires a large amount of money to get into it," he said. Nationally, there were 1.2million minority- owned businesses in 1987, up from 743,000 in 192. accrdine to the mostrecentU.S. census Rich Stevens, chief of the research division for the U.S. Department of Commerce's Mi- nority Business Development Agency, said, "Twenty or 30 years ago, minority firms were in traditional industries-restaurants, drinking establishments. nersonal services, laundry ser- can put profiles of their companies on PASS. Agencies that need an outside service can then contact companies listed on the network. 'The University of Michigan would benefit if all research universities had their data in PASS," Ingram said.