State Minority-Business Office Opens in Youngstown
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Youngstown Minority Business Assistance Center means to live up to its name, David Goodman, Jacqueline Williams and Michael R. Conway announced Tuesday.
Goodman is director of the Ohio Development Services Agency, Williams chief of the agency’s Minority Business Development Division, and Conway executive director of Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corp.
Billed as the opening of a site to help the owners of minority businesses take advantage of free professional consulting services available through the state of Ohio, the Youngstown office, 2123 Belmont Ave., is one of seven across the state.
It is housed within the Youngstown Area Development Corp.
Besides providing free professional consulting services, the center will focus on certifying business owners so they are qualified to do business with the state in its minority set-aside programs.
When Gov. John Kasich was a member of the state Legislature, Williams said, he voted for the 15% set-asides for minority-business owners who want to do business with the state. That 15% goal has never been met, she said he told her, even though Ohio spends $2 billion annually on goods and services with minority businesses.
One reason more minority enterprises don’t do business with the state is the red tape involved in attaining certification. “Many more businesses are getting certified,” Williams said, and said she would work to see that even more are.
One challenge owners of minority businesses confront, as do all owners of small businesses, is funding, especially securing working capital. MVEDC’s Conway pledged his agency would do more to work with minority enterprises as well as provide other technical assistance.
Conway spoke of the need to create synergies that would allow minority businesses to take fuller advantage of the federal and state programs MVEDC administers that fund small businesses. Certification as a minority business is critical, he said, before MVEDC minority-business staff can serve owners who make up this constituency.
A panel of six owners of minorities businesses met before the public announcement to brief Goodman, Williams and Conway on what they face.
Three, including a husband and wife who own their own businesses on the South Side, spoke to The Business Journal about what they contend with.
Charlesetta McKinley is the owner of McKinley Construction Plus LLC, her husband, William, owns McKinley Industries, both on Idora Avenue. Bill Williams is owner of Imaging Results in the 16 Wick Avenue Building.
Both McKinleys would like to add to their workforces, they said, and William spoke of how hard it is to compete with larger, better-capitalized companies. Both said the banks they approached for credit refused.
“Banks say my credit [score] wasn’t high enough,” Charlesetta said, noting the lack of customers hurt her score and led to her “credit problems.”
William expressed frustration that banks not accepting the equipment, which he owns outright and values at $130,000, as collateral.
He expressed hope that the office to serve minorities will improve his situation and that the Minority Business Division will monitor lenders more frequently if not more closely.
In a separate interview, Williams says her division works in conjunction with but its other offices in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo.
Bill Williams, owner of Imaging Results, hopes the office on Belmont Avenue will notify him sooner of opportunities to do business with the state, and thus allow him more time to prepare the bids he submits. “I believe that by having this office,” he said, “we’ll get notified in the proper amount of time to submit bids locally. It’s hard to sift the information [the state makes available] and know where the opportunities are.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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