Outreach to small businesses looking to bid on public jobs has only gotten easier, says Teresa Maxwell.
The DBE compliance officer for Skanska Civil’s West region got her start as a receptionist, when paper and snail mail was the common practice for contacting potential subcontractors.
Now, Maxwell says the systems Skanska has in place for its in-house diverse business enterprise outreach program — not to be confused with the Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program — better enabled it to hit small business contracting goals on a $380 million Los Angeles International Airport project.
Here, Maxwell talks with Construction Dive about hitting goals on the Los Angeles World Airports Roadways, Utilities and Enabling job, the state of small business outreach and the impact of evolving federal certifications.
Editor’s note: The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: How has outreach to smaller businesses for projects with participation goals gotten better or easier?
TERESA MAXWELL: When you look back 20 years ago, we were still physically mailing plans and specs. With the invention of plan rooms and having better internet access, subcontractors are now able to access more.
The goal of Skanska’s DBE program is to level the playing field. But there's still concerns and barriers when you're on a large, billion-dollar-plus megaproject. If you’re a small contractor and you want to submit a bid for something that's $10,000, how do you do that? How do you navigate and find the way to that?
I think communication and access has gotten better. But with all this new technology and with this communication, small businesses are bombarded with invitations to bid. And so they have to navigate finding the bid invitations that actually apply to what their company does.
What are some of the hurdles for smaller companies GCs can help with?
On the large projects especially, they’ve got to find someone that they can ask questions of. If they don’t know someone on the project team, it can be overwhelming. We have different strategies to help them.
We're the prime contractor. We're putting out bid packages. But we've also got to flow down those goals to our first tier large subcontractors. And so there's a challenge then with how we introduce these first tier contractors to the small businesses.
For example, we're members of the National Association of Minority Contractors. We were at their golf tournament a couple weeks ago. And maybe I met someone there that would be great for this job or that. So it's about finding ways to match these small businesses with the opportunities, if not with us, then with our subs.
You touched on “leveling the playing field.” Are higher-ups, both with the GC and the project owner, more actively engaging with that?
Oh yeah. Our owners on the West Coast are very supportive. They understand that these projects need to be focused on the local community. We've seen a lot more project labor agreements, community benefit agreements.
On the small business side, I see more effort now, not just to train small contractors on how to get certified, but support them in delivering the contract work..
In our small business bootcamp, LAWA came in to talk about commercially useful functions. And so I see more and more opportunities for contractors to learn.
The U.S. DOT under the current administration has altered its DBE certification program. What has the impact been?
All of the states this year have been reevaluating their certified DBEs. California recently finished their reevaluation. The next step is submitting their plan and getting approval from the U.S. DOT.
So today, in California, we don't have projects with federally mandated DBE goals. So as a large prime contractor it's about understanding our role in this.
We’re not a certifying agency. But one area that we've been asked to help is the pool of certified DBEs after this reevaluation phase has gotten smaller, so we need to let them know, “Hey, here's the benefits to being a certified DBE.”
It’s about navigating those challenges when there's a change in the law and our role as the prime contractor in all of these changes. It’s been interesting, definitely nothing I have experienced before.
Has it made it harder?
Well, harder in the fact that different people will read the U.S. DOT guidance and interpret it differently. And so it's having conversations about it. It had been really clear before because there had been no changes for so long. Everybody knew how everybody operated and how things were interpreted.
I've tried to stay positive about this change. We've had our DBE program at Skanska for many years. I think this can be an opportunity for owners to look at their programs more in-depth and see the communities they're building in and the small contractors they can reach out to.
At times, there can be pushback against local hire or DEI goals, indicating that the demands of a public job don’t align with reality. What’s your message to builders in that position?
I think that's coming from someone who is given perhaps an unattainable goal. And I think it's really important that the goals are attainable, right? For example, if you're setting a 25% goal in an area where there is a lack of certified firms, as a contractor, you could do all the outreach and support and help that you want and you're still going to struggle.
But if you're given an attainable goal, it's something to strive for. You don't want it to be easy. You got to work for it.
