Power of SDMWVLGBTBE Listings

The intent behind SDMWVLGBTBE (Small, Disadvantaged/Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered Business Enterprise) participation goals is to help the SDMWVLGBTBE firm mature and grow our own capacity to directly support large companies and government agencies.  A New York State Comptroller’s report says the programs are “…  intended to provide direct economic benefit to…

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Learning From Fangirls (and boys)

We’ve been reading rather than writing, lately, and two books made such an impact we had to share the insights we’ve gained with a wider community — we’ll talk more about The Confidence Code in our next blog as our most recent discussion happened when one of us posed the question: Can you be a…

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Intentional Diversity

We started this blog five years ago, with a sense of continuing hope that remains strong despite recent and recurring public incidents of violent bigotry. Last year we published multiple entries about The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan. The theme of these entries centered…

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DOT UCP Changes

Not a month goes by that we don’t wonder what to write about.  Sometimes it is easier, like when massive change forces your hand! To refresh, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) is the parent agency that fosters Unified Certification Programs (UCP) for SDMWVBEs (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprises) by state DOTs. Back in…

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Networking Choices

Time has simply slipped away so fast, part of it consumed by attending SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women, or Veteran Business Enterprise) events in multiple states. Not a day goes by that that we don’t get at least one invitation or notice about an event in one of the states where we’re certified. Networking is working…

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Change in the UCP Program: What does the Interstate Certification process mean to the DBEs?

Earlier this year states began implementing the Interstate Certification (49 CFR 26.85) process, a change made at Federal level to the UCP (Unified Certification Program). As of mid-June, twenty of fifty states – Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina,…

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Size Standards Revised!

Claiming Small Business Status? It is important to know that there are sizing rules and regulations that you must use to determine whether or not your business is considered small. And, the definition of small depends on your business’s industry based on NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes. At the federal level, being classified as…

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Certification Alphabet Soup (or fun with acronyms)

In the world of diversity certifications there are many acronyms, some more familiar than others. This alphabet soup contains WBE, MBE, DBE, SBE, VBE, DSBE, HUB, LGBT and that’s only half of them. Some of the abbreviations are shared by government and third-party certifiers (MBE, WBE) and others are specific to the Federal government (8(a),…

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Similar, But Not the Same

Having researched the UCP (Unified Certification Program) for all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands; I thought I had a pretty good handle on what to expect from the certification process. Recently though we’ve experienced some new quirks as we’ve sought certification in additional states as a part of our…

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