Akyea heads Commerce's Bureau of Minority Business Development
In the interests of MBEs
In the interests of MBEs
| By Jonathan Gramling If anyone could wear the mantle of Mr. MBE,” a strong case could be made that it be Aggo Akyea, the newly appointed director of Wis. Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Minority Business Development. As we talk in Commerce’s offices on W. Washington Avenue, Akyea looks right at home. It’s a kind of homecoming for Akyea, who worked in the bureau for 15 years, most recently working on economic development on what Akyea called the “macro level.” In 2006, Akyea left the bureau and assumed a position with the Wis. Dept. of Transportation (WisDOT) after being passed over for promotion to the bureau director’s position. It ended up being a good move for Akyea because he got a better view of performing economic development on the micro level. Akyea was put in charge of establishing an MBE program for WisDOT. While WisDOT had a DBE program, composed of women and minority-owned businesses, for its federal contracts, it didn’t have any mechanism in place to assist it in meeting its five percent commitment to purchasing from minority- owned businesses. He was the first person to start an MBE program at a state agency. And he got deep into the details of involving MBEs in WisDOT’s purchasing program. “You have these businesses and state contracts,” Akyea said. “How do you put the two of them together? The purchasing program is just one leg of the three-legged stool. You create a business, you fund it and then you need the markets. The public market is just one of those legs. There are businesses in unique lines of business that do well with the state if we hook them up together in the right way.” There are many intricacies to state purchasing. And while most people envision a very formal bidding process on large levels, there are also simpler processes for smaller amounts. Akyea’s goal was to bring the MBEs into this system and to make purchasers aware of the MBEs. “One of the things I did at WisDOT within six months of my tenure there was implement workshops around the state: Madison, Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay,” Akyea said. “They were half day workshops where we invited up to 30 minority vendors. We talked about what WisDOT is, what it buys, the major areas such as DMV and DSP. Then we talked about our minority program, exactly what we are looking at and what we are looking for. And then we talked about how WisDOT buys. Any person with purchasing authority can pick up the phone and call any vendor and ask ‘Can you bring me this’ for up to $5,000 in value. From $5,000-$25,000, you only need to call three vendors. Anything above $25,000 will have an official sealed bid. Directly due to those workshops, we were able to secure $250,000 in business with minority vendors. At WisDOT, we have a management commitment and then internally, we talk to our purchasing people and people with purchasing authority such as program assistants so they are cognizant of the fact that we want to buy from minority vendors. Then we have to go out there and talk to the MBEs and tell them what we expect from them. So we bring everyone together.” Armed with this new approach to minority business development, Akyea was now ready to assume control of Commerce’s program and begin to expand the bureau’s abilities to impact the level of participation MBEs have in providing goods and services to state government. Akyea is committed to providing the same quality services to MBEs that it has in the past including certification of MBEs, administration of the bureau’s $1.2 million loan program for minority businesses, providing training to MBEs and working with the Wisconsin Entrepreneur Network to aid people start up new MBEs. Akyea is looking to support efforts to assist the development of MBE programs like he established at WisDOT. “DHFS actually came to study what we were doing at WisDOT and they are looking to establish a position like mine,” Akyea said. “I know Corrections has also assigned somebody 25 percent time to do the same thing. I remember when we started the commission the Governor appointed to look into why since 1983 the state has not met its five percent goal. Spencer Coggs and Ralph Holman are the co-chairs of DOAC. At the first meeting, they asked the big agencies to do a report. Corrections didn’t even know how much it had spent with MBEs.” Yet, Akyea feels that there has been something missing from the approach that the bureau has taken. The bureau needs to take a more activist role in assisting the MBEs themselves in forging a better business climate for themselves. One of those tasks is changing the perception of MBEs for they aren’t just the small barbershop anymore. “In stepping away from Commerce, it became clearer to me that it is a question of perception,” Akyea emphasized. “We always talk about small minority businesses. How do we change that perception? How do we bring to the fore the idea that minority business development and economic development, in general, is essential for the state as a whole? Now the next step is make the case for minority business. For instance, we have minority businesses that are capable, that are doing good work, and that are big. There are construction firms like Brian Mitchell, Erv Palmer, Straight Arrow Construction and Traffic Cast. Traffic Cast provides all kinds of on-time, live traffic data to WisDOT. When was the last time you saw a report that detailed how many minority businesses are in Wisconsin? What are their sales? How many people do they employ? What are their revenues? Where are they concentrated? What industries are they in? We need to make this case. I don’t want to say we need a lobbying group, but we do need a lobbying group. We need to put out this kind of information and say this is the status. These are specific things that we can do to move from here to there.” And Akyea feels it is time for MBEs to make their presence known on a state-wide level. “We are going to try to organize the minority business owners themselves,” Akyea confided. “And we don’t want to begin right away forming a big committee with government officials and politicians. We’re just going to put together minority business people to meet occasionally, perhaps every 2-3 months and discuss issues that affect them, put it together in a package and figure out a way to present it to the public. The public, of course, will include legislators and business groups. Right now, I don’t know of a good relationship between this minority group that I’m talking about and the big chambers such as Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the metro Chambers of Commerce. We need to build a relationship so that we are not always being looked upon as ‘that other business.’ I know it isn’t going to be easy. It easier said than done. But at least that is something we are looking at on the horizon.” Especially with Wisconsin’s changing demographics, Akyea feels that MBEs need to be at the forefront of Wisconsin’s economic development efforts and not an appendage to it. “In general, I want us to be known as leading the way to change the economic fortunes of minority communities,” Akyea said. “Our bureau is an intricate part of the state’s economic development and not just fulfilling and implementing the little programs that we have here. We need to get out there. We need to facilitate others’ efforts. We will never have the resources to do everything, but we do have the ability to facilitate and to change some of these things. $1.2 million in the Minority Business Fund is not a whole lot of money to develop all of the minority businesses in the state. But how about leveraging it with other groups such as the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation of Madison Development Corporation and the SBA and then look at other ways of financing such as venture and angel capital. A month ago, Brian Mitchell didn’t go to a bank. He went to a venture capital group and purchased a steel erection company to expand his business. That is something, since I’ve been in the minority business area, that I have never seen. We need to encourage these types of ventures. His deal never came through here. It happened out there in the market. We need to look at how we can get a lot more of those done.” A change of pace allowed Akyea to develop a new perspective on the role of the state in promoting minority business development. Now that he is back at Commerce, expect Akyea to preserve the quality that exists at the bureau while expanding the role MBEs play in the provision of goods and services to the state and beyond. |
