The State of Minority- and Women- Owned ... - Cleveland.com

The City of Cleveland’s Cleveland Small Business, Minority Business Enterprise, and
Female Business Enterprise Program: Overview and Feedback Interviews
been fine. I mean, we try to give them the experience. They were looking to try and get
some experience in the area of bridge design. And we worked with them in that area.
Mentoring is a huge part of our business.
We’re really pushing mentor-protégé. One of the things that we find is that a lot of the
contractors just don’t have all the skills it takes to run a company. They may have the
physical skills. But they’re not good manager people, they’re not good estimators, etc.
One of the things we find just from our business is that money management is something
they have a very difficult time with. They really don’t know when they’re in trouble.
They don’t know, we think they have a great estimate because they’re pretty close to
somebody else. But whether they’re managing properly. So I think training is a big issue.
And unless they go through some certified training, not just in trade work but also in
management skills, I don’t see them growing. I just can’t see them surviving without
getting the skills that we all need to run our business.
I think the mentor-protégé thing is already happening on an informal basis. When we
opened our office here in Cleveland we reached out to another firm and said hey, what do
we need to do to be successful here in Cleveland? And that firm, an individual from that
[MBE] firm, was really helpful in getting us set up. And I think, you know, we’re giving
back to others that have moved into town that we know that opened new offices for a
company. And it happens anyway. But to formalize it, I don’t know you know, how
necessary that is. It certainly could be helpful.
[The protégé] did a great job in the sense of … they actually spent the time, the money
and the effort and all that [on drafting the proposal].… There were just a couple issues in
the sense of them being smaller.
The mentor firm can help with some of that secretarial sort of stuff to put the proposals
together as you’re chasing them. You would still be the lead I think in the mentorprotégé,
but we have a lot of support to help get that stuff moving.
There needs to be an annual or a series of get-togethers for firms that are like each other
to learn from each other and then also, and I think this needs to be sponsored by the City,
there needs to be attendees from the City there to understand what the issues are for those
like firms or like vendors.… Maybe part of that get-together would be the mentor-protégé
[program].
10. CSB Set-asides
Many participants, both M/WBEs and non-certified firm owners, supported the concept of
setting aside some smaller contracts for bidding solely by CSBs.
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