Big Companies Widen Their Networks

African American entrepreneur Christopher Powell, who founded a furniture supply and moving business in the District in 1989, at first found Marriott International Inc. impenetrable.

Eager to sign on as a supplier for the Bethesda-based company, he made repeated calls to Marriott's procurement department, which were not returned.

"They were not easy to get into," Powell said.

In the mid-1990s, he happened upon Marriott's diversity department when he was invited to a meeting to discuss better relationships between Marriott and minority-owned businesses. At the time, Powell's Configuration Inc. had several small contracts with the federal government and about 20 employees.

After the meeting, Marriott diversity officials introduced him to the right contacts in procurement and he won a contract worth more than $1 million to supply furniture, dishes and moving services to a Marriott hotel. The help was invaluable, he said.

"A lot of times you can't get to these guys," he said. "Somebody has got to get somebody to hear you."

Programs to encourage supplier diversity date back to the late 1980s, when they were created to give small, minority and women-owned companies more opportunities to win contracts with big companies. They have since become a large part of the corporate diversity goals set by many of the Washington area's largest companies.

Interest in working with diverse suppliers arises from the understanding that a company that promotes women and minorities to management positions transforms itself internally, but when it gives business to minority-owned firms, it can set off changes that ripple far beyond its offices.

Armentha "Mike" Cruise, owner of the Aspen Group Inc., can speak to that. In 1996 her Silver Spring company was a tiny personnel services firm with a few small contracts and no large clients. She needed to drum up business.

Early one morning, she called Barbara B. Lang, who was mortgage company Fannie Mae's chief supplier-diversity officer. The cold call turned warm. Lang helped Cruise get a contract with a larger staffing firm, and the business was on its way. This year Aspen expects about $30 million in annual revenue.

"Barbara was ahead of her time," Cruise said. "Once she opened the door, she gave us our big break. She gave us an opportunity to show what we could do."

Cruise described the relationship with Fannie Mae as a model for efforts to build supplier diversity. Fannie Mae's chief executive had given Lang the authority to come up with inventive ways to do more business with companies owned by women, blacks, Hispanics and Asians. She used that power to require the larger company to work with Cruise when a large staffing contract was being rebid.