| GNEMSDC Open House in Downtown Hartford May 28 |
 The GNEMSDC is opening a satellite office in downtown Hartford. To kick off the occasion we are having an open house at 2 Wethersfield Avenue, our new home away from home. The open house will feature local and state wide political leaders including Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra. There will be light food, drink and entertainment.
There are four reasons for opening the Hartford office:
1. We are expanding our efforts in the lucrative and growing construction industry. According to Reed Construction, in just RI, MA and CT there is over $200 billion in post-bid commercial and civil construction taking place.
2. We are moving closer to our Hartford area corporate membership.
3. Hartford has the greatest concentration of MBEs in CT. And
4. Being in Hartford puts us closer to the political and economic leadership in the State.
We invite all of our stakeholders to join us on the 28th from 5:30 PM to 10:00 PM.. Our Hartford office will be in the newly renovated Borden Mansion, now owned by one of our MBEs. For those old enough to remember, Borden Milk, this was their family home. The building is on the National Historic Registry. If for no other reason come and see what has been done to this grand old house that will now be our Hartford home.
|
| 2014 GNEMSDC Supplier Diversity Golf Classics - Registration Now Available! |
The GNEMSDC Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Golf Outing will be Monday, June 2, 2014 at Ferncorft Country Club, Middleton MA. This year we will have a putting contest at 1:00pm and the tournament will begin at 1:30pm.
The GNEMSDC Connecticut Supplier Diversity Golf Outing will be on Friday, July 11, 2014 Lyman Orchards Golf Club Middlefield, CT. The tournament begins at 7:30am.
If you are interested in a fun afternoon/morning of golf, networking, food, drinks and relationship building please register at: WWW.BOOTHLEADS.COM/GNEMSDC/GOLF2014 Please see the brochure for additional information and new Golf Sponsorship Opportunities. Enter our Putting Contest and you could win a cash prize! Not a golfer? We have several non-golfer activities or you can learn the game and be taught by a pro in the Golf Clinic. Call the GNEMSDC offices with any questions: 203-288-9744 or 617-578-8900 |
Boston MBDA Business Center Global Opportunity Forum
|
 LET'S MAKE EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES HAPPEN FOR YOU!
Featuring: David Leister, Project Manager
MBDA Global Business Center (San Antonio, TX) Additional speakers announced shortly!
June 11, 2014 * 8:30am -10:30am
The Palladium (2 Copley Place, 4th Floor * Boston, MA 02116)
The National MBDA has a number of Business Centers that provide specialized support to Business Center clients. The San Antonio Business Center focuses on exporting & is already helping a number of Boston Business Center clients with contract opportunities outside of the U.S. Boston Business Center Clients can benefit from the San Antonio Center's established partnerships in numerous countries that reduce risk and increase opportunities.
Space is limited! Please RSVP to jwang@bostonmbdacenter.com by June 4
|
GNEMSDC Annual Awards Gala Program Book Supplement
|
| Thank you to everyone who attended out Annual Awards Gala on May 6th. You can see the supplement to the Program Book, including features on all the award winners here. |
The Affordable Care Act - What it Means to Your Business
|
 The MBEIC Education Subcommittee is presenting a panel discussion to help clarify the Affordable Care Act (ACA), its requirements, and its impact on your business. Learn about the ACA from the perspectives of professionals on the front lines-the benefits broker, the health insurance provider, and the health insurance exchange.
You'll hear from:
Access Health CT, which built and operates Connecticut's wildly successful health insurance exchange Fallon Health, the only health plan in Massachusetts that is both health insurer and provider.
KJB Associates, a health insurance broker that provides coverage to businesses.
Bruce Crohn, LLC, an employee benefits firm that provides insurance brokerage and support services for small to mid-sized employers.
Come prepared with questions for our panelists! You'll walk away with a better understanding of the ACA, along with tips on how to make the most of it, and stay clear of compliance pitfalls.
Date: June 11, 2014 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Place: The MATLET Group 60 Delta Drive Pawtucket, RI 02860
Register here by June 10th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/affordable-care-act-panel-discussion-tickets-11622594493
|
1st Annual S3 Diverse Vendor Summit
|
 1st Annual S3 Diverse Vendor Summit: Synergy. Strength. Support.
June 17th, 2014-6pm-8pm - Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, 93 Worcester St., Wellesley, MA
An Exclusive Evening Event for New England Diverse Businesses!
Join us for this unprecedented opportunity to connect with other diverse business owners in New England and learn about the special business opportunities available to you. If are a minority-owned, women-owned, LGBT-owned, disabled-owned, or other diverse-owned business, you should not miss this event!
This event is being sponsored by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and a newly-formed diversity coalition comprised of the Center for Women & Enterprise, the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council, Work Without Limits, and the Greater Boston Business Council. The four founding member organizations of this coalition are dedicated to working together to promote collaboration among all diverse businesses in New England so as to promote growth, partnership, and opportunity.
Please see the event flyer for additional information. Register by June 13th. Space is limited.
|
Upcoming Events
|
There are several events coming up on our calendar that are designed specifically for MBEs to learn about corporate opportunities. We know how busy everyone's schedule is, but these are events often hosted by our corporate members with the expressed purpose of finding out more about you and your business with the ultimate aim, to make you a valuable supplier to their companies. Here are some events you should consider:
|
Corporate Member of the Week: Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston
|
 The mission of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston is to support the residential-mortgage and community-development lending activities of its members, more than 440 banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and community development financial institutions across the six New England states.
We actively promote member participation in affordable-housing and community-development lending. Our Affordable Housing Program, funded by 10 percent of our net profits each year, awards grants and subsidized loans for initiatives through a competitive process. Our Equity Builder Program providesdown-payment, closing-cost, homeowner counseling, and rehabilitation assistance to eligible homebuyers.Other solutions, such as Community Development advances, offer reduced-rate funding for a variety of eligible projects, from job creation and small businesses to affordable housing and improvements to local roads or schools.
The Bank's support of economic development extends to our own operations, too, with a commitment to diversity in all areas. To find a list of the type of business opportunities the Bank may have available, we encourage suppliers to visit our website.
To be considered for future contracting opportunities, please register on the Bank's diverse supplier registration portal at http://fhlbboston.cvmsolutions.com/.
|
Congratulations to the newly certified MBEs
|
Tom Davis, Cartus was the guest corporate presenter at the Connecticut May 2014 MBE Orientation.
|
Invitations for Bid and Opportunities
|
|
| And Finally |
At this past week's NMSDC Awards Gala, NMSDC President and CEO, Joset Wright-Lacy made the analogy that minority supplier diversity was like a contagious disease, and that there was no cure for it. Truer words could not have been spoken. Many of us whether MBEs, corporate supplier diversity professionals, or those like myself who work in organizations promoting business opportunity for MBEs eat, sleep, drink and breathe supplier diversity, at the expense of alternative uses of our time and heart. I was thinking about this "sickness" this weekend that I unquestionably suffer from, and I wondered about the symptoms and the consequences if left untreated. I have also discovered, and want to propose that there are varieties of this ailment that depend on whether you are an MBE, a corporate supplier diversity professional, or an supplier diversity non-profit organizational person like myself.
For MBEs although this disease can be fatal, it usually results ironically in either great material success, or in advanced stages of mental illness. For those MBEs who probably suffer from the latter, you should note that denial is clearly a sign! Those who suffer from this mental illness indications of the disease are often found with a cell phone seemingly and permanently glued to their ear. Many people outside of supplier diversity also suffer from "hypercellephonitis". But for MBEs suffering from this disease they can often be heard calling over and over and over and over again the same corporate representative they have called each day for the past 473 days, only to get an answering machine message. The treatment for this is radical abstention from all forms of technology.
For corporate supplier diversity managers, the disease manifest itself in ways that are most visible only to those inside the corporations where they work. Never having served as corporate supplier diversity professional, my analysis and prognosis is based on theory not direct observation. Afflicted SD professionals are often reported to be roaming the cavernous halls of Corporate America with sheets filled with MBISYS information hoping for a brief substantive conversation with a corporate buyer. Most cases do not get elevated to this level of hopelessness, but when it does there are only few treatments that seem to work. One is being moved out of supplier diversity into something less intellectually demanding and substantial within the corporate environment, like corporate finance, legal, or marketing. Some have even suggested that being moved into the CEO chair would result in improved corporate performance and a return to health.
For organizational folks like myself and my colleagues who run and work for regional and the national Councils, there is no hope and no cure. While we cannot be quarantined like sufferers of yellow fever or rabies, it is best that if you see us walking down the street, like Issac Hayes sang, "just walk on by". (Yes I know IH was not the first to sing it, but his version is the best.) But if you stop, you will be entrapped and mystified like a 3-card Monte player on 48th Street in New York City. Hold on to your wallet, because we are after it, and everything in it, because we know (believe) that we have a better use of your money, time and resources than you do. If you stop and listen to us you will be entranced and enchanted by the logic and wisdom that we speak. Without doubt, those who make their living like myself are the Alpha carriers of this ailment. Miraculously, we have no outward symptoms. We seem perfectly normal. In fact, we have a vitality that has confounded the medical profession. We appear brighter, more social, more humorous, simply better than the average guy or gal. But these looks are deceiving. There will come a day, a last day in our current positions, and when that day comes, all is lost. There is no peaceful, blissful retirement. There is only hopeless painful expressions of our work of connecting people and businesses. I know of cases of former colleagues who have started very unsuccessful dating services for those allergic to peanuts. There is even a very extreme case of a former colleague trying to breed cats with dogs, only to be arrested by the Humane Society. This is the fate that awaits me, unless a cure is found.
Oh, the humanity of it!
In your service
Dr. Fred
 |
