Friday June 4th, 2004

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Left to Right: Ralphine Beaton, Jacques Abadie, III, Gregg Irish, John Taylor, Ronald Langston, Harold Brazil, Reginald Richter, and May Mathews.

The new Minority Business Development Center in Washington wants to involve more minorities in the "American dream," and is aiming to work with 152 businesses in its first year.

The center covers firms from Baltimore, Md down to Fredericksburg, Va., and has partnered with the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park.

The Washington center will focus on gaining high-growth minority businesses -- not traditional mom--and-pop shops -- access to capital and markets, as well as providing general business consulting services to improvement opportunities and economic performance, said center Director Reginald Richter.

The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) primarily funded the center through a grant won by the Washington-based National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

"In order to have a greater impact with the limited resources that they've been given, MBDA decided to focus high-quality technical assistance" on minority business that are either growing rapidly or have more than $500,000 in annual revenues, Richter said.

"So in terms of job creation, wealth creation, revenues " if you're going to move the needle on performance of minority businesses and the impact of minority businesses in the United States, then you focus on those two narrow sectors of minority business," he said.

The center, which already has started work with a few companies, is housed at Washington's Department of Employment Services.

The Dingman Center is offering more than 150 mentors as well as Dingman fellows, and will create teams to help companies solve problems, Richter said.

Over its nearly 20 years of existence the Dingman Center has established ties to various economic development agencies and companies across Maryland, said Laura Dromerick, associate director of business services at Dingman.

"We're basically going to be doing production consulting services to these " minority clients that need high-end, high-quality services that can't afford the Price Waterhouses of the world," she said. "Basically we're looking at a company and saying, 'OK, here's the company. Here's the strategy. Where's your need? How can we help your company grow?'"

Richter said the center has an important role as minority businesses are growing at a faster rate than all U.S. firms combined in terms of numbers and revenues.

"While we represent 30 percent of the population, we own only 15 percent of the companies out there," he said. "Our performance is not on par with non-minority firms in terms of revenue and employment."

The new Center is located at 64 New York Avenue, NE, Washington, DC.  Their telephone number is (202) 671-2181.