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A Soft Sell to Minority Vendors
Postal Service holds supplier diversity expo
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Business New Haven
11/2/1998
By: Linda Mele
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The U.S. Postal Service is one of the nation's largest buyers of goods and services and it depends on suppliers to meet its massive needs, according to David Pruett, officer in charge at the New Haven Post Office.
To that end, the service held its first-ever “Supplier Diversity Opportunity Expo” October 15 at the Brewery Street facility in New Haven to let minority and female business owners know how to do business with the Postal Service.
Organized by Chu Falling Star, Simsbury postmaster and the USPS' diversity development specialist, the event attracted some 150 people.
“We purchase everything from paper clips to buildings and just about everything in between,” Pruett says, “and there are lots of opportunities for small, minority- and women-owned businesses to become a part of our supplier network.”
The Diversity Development program was established during the 1992 postal-service restructuring and is designed to ensure the existence of internal and external programs that provide diverse suppliers with open access to all contract opportunities.
The USPS has more than 40,000 facilities across the country and each day its employees collect, process and deliver more than 570 million pieces of mail.
The Diversity Development Program is targeted toward:
• small businesses (fewer than 500 employees);
• minority businesses defined as at least 51-percent owned and managed by one or more members of a socially and economically disadvantaged minority group and a U.S. citizen (i.e. African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian-Pacific Americans or Asian-Indian Americans; and
• women (at least 51-percent owned and operated by a female or females and who are U.S. citizens.
The expo offered workshops about local purchasing and procurement and the service's needs in the areas of general maintenance, transportation and vehicle maintenance. Each attendee was provided with information packets about how to do business with the USPS and a directory of all Northeast-area purchasing offices.
In addition to the postal service, other exhibitors included a variety of businesses and organizations that promote women- and minority-owned businesses.
Speakers also included Alvin Kovaly, senior procurement specialist for the state's Procurement Technical Assistance Program, and Elaine Thomas Williams, executive director of the Connecticut Minority Supplier Development Council.
According to Susan Hoover, special projects director of the state's Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, only 2.8 percent of the business done with the U.S. Postal Service in the state is done by women-owned businesses.
“We hope to develop a directory of minority- and women-owned businesses and deliver a copy to every post office in the state so we can increase that 2.8-percent figure,” says Chu Falling Star.
“It's a joint partnership,” says Pruett, “one that will benefit both the suppliers and the Postal Service, and we hope to make it an annual event.”
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