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Hochul: “As I mentioned, we want to have more minority and women businesses break into the areas that are well-paying, create generational wealth, but traditionally have been too many institutional barriers. We think about construction, management, engineering, architecture, and technology.”
Earlier on Nov 12th, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York State has surpassed its 30 percent Minority- and Women-owned Businesses utilization goal for the fourth year in row – every year since the Hochul Administration took office. This year’s 32.21 percent utilization rate represents nearly $3 billion in public contracts awarded to certified MWBEs in FY 2023-24, and nearly $12 billion since Governor Hochul took office. The Governor made the announcement and unveiled a new MWBE certified decal at the 14th Annual New York State MWBE Conference Forum in Albany.
VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).
AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.
PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page has photos of the event available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning. ?First of all, I want to thank Commissioner Hope Knight for just really embracing the challenges that we inherited when we became Governor and head of ESD back three years ago now. And some of the most frequent complaints we heard were about the MWBE program and how long it took to be certified, and why it had to be such a hassle, and why so many people wanted to do it were being left on the side.
So I want to thank her for helping drive the energy behind the changes that we're celebrating today. Let's give another round of applause to the Commissioner and CEO of Empire State Development.
I'm also joined by Commissioner Jeanette Moy, the Office of General Services, who basically runs everything – every building, every facility in our state. I want to thank her. Clarissa Rodriguez, the Chair of the Workers Compensation Board. Thank you, Clarissa, for all you do for us. Julissa Gutierrez, New York State's Chief Diversity Officer. Jason Clark, our Executive Vice President. of the MWBE program, and I believe that Senator, former Senator, but always a Senator to me, Ruth Hazel Thompson is in the house. Is that true, Ruth? There she is, right there.
As you heard from the Commissioner, this is our 14th year of the forum. I became Lieutenant Governor a decade ago, and I think I've been at just about every one. And I see it grow and I see the energy and the collaborations and all the opportunities when you come together here to be enlightened about some of the new policies and just really build a network. And that's what– sometimes it's a barrier for so many members of the MWBE community that they need people to support them and linkages to other opportunities. And that's what this gathering is all about. So I want to thank everyone for participating here.
Yes, some of you may know this is personal to me. I come from a family of strong women. My mother decided she wanted to start a small business in a town that literally the signs going out of business were all over my little downtown when the big steel plants left and the 20,000 jobs left and people went to Raleigh and they went to Florida, our greatest export from Western New York was our children, the young college graduates and people in search of a better life. But that was the environment, my mother decided she's going to start a business. And her daughter, the lawyer, who had just been out of law school about two weeks, would somehow start this for her because she would know what to do. I had no clue. I will be honest with you, they don't teach you real practical things in law school, be honest with you. And I needed to get a lot of help from people. And I called the local Chamber of Commerce and I tried to call on other lawyers. I didn't even know how to file the paperwork at the Clerk's Office, and years later I became the County Clerk. So it all started with just not understanding anything – about how to get insurance for my employees, how to make sure that they had work. I had no clue, but my mother counted on me to do this. Not everybody has a daughter who's going to be able to figure it out for them, and it's a challenge.
But in the meantime, we're holding people back from realizing their dream to do something spectacular and to lift themselves up and their families up and create generational wealth. So I was able to help my mother and years later, my sister decided to start a technology business about 30 years ago when women were not in technology and I helped her get her certification. It took a long time. But I realized, we have to do so much more.
And I became governor after hearing from the voices of so many over this long period of time where I would go into the small towns and the cities and just say, “What is holding you back?” And the backlog that was then in place when I became governor was appalling. It was absolutely appalling. I heard about it in every corner of the state. It took 500 days on average to hear back on whether or not you were certified. You know what I'm really proud of when I think about our accomplishments — and there are many. It now takes on average 65 days, no longer waiting well over a year and a half.
So, we've also grown our community of MWBE’s to over 9,200 of you. I mean, that's amazing. That's a huge number, I'm so proud of that — 9,200 and still growing, and, for the fourth consecutive year, because I always raise the bar higher every year, those who work with me have to deal with this, I'm sorry. But, it's always about doing better. Fourth consecutive year, we've exceeded our MWBE participation goal, generating nearly $3 billion dollars in contracts.
When I used to go around the state and talk about this, we'd say, “Oh, we hit a billion dollars, a billion dollars — isn't that great?” Three billion dollars in contracts. Give yourselves a round of applause for that.
As I mentioned, we want to have more minority and women businesses break into the areas that are well-paying, create generational wealth, but traditionally have been too many institutional barriers. We think about construction, management, engineering, architecture and technology. I just want to give you a couple examples, because I want you to know whose lives are being affected by this program.
Jackman Prescod of 5D Architecture and Engineering on Long Island. His Black-owned firm is only one of a handful in the nation, and he's using drone technology for bridge inspections. This industry didn't even exist a few years ago, but he has become a national leader. Today, he's working on the transformation of JFK Airport.
My hometown of Buffalo, Luis Rodriguez, who built a Rodriquez Construction Group into a powerhouse. They're doing over $18 million dollars in construction projects every year and employing 65 people. He's now ranked one of Western New York's largest general contractors — that's what we're talking about, that kind of success, I'm so proud of that.
Dianna Rose who started a zero-waste catering company. She now oversees the Institute of Concessions at JFK Airport, creating opportunities for more minority owned businesses at one of our nation's busiest airports.
These are stories that tell what's possible when people just get that open door, that entry opportunity that wasn't there before this program, but we still have to do more. When we talk about recertification problems, people have challenges. Penda Aiken's firm had technical issues, our team stepped in to help. When Sapphire Recruitment needed a small business waiver, we worked to get that certified.
So, this is about solving people's problems at a real micro, personal level because when you help the small business, guess what? I figured this out a long time ago. Nobody starts as a large business, right? Think about the largest companies in our nation. They didn't start like that. They started as a small business. Sometimes like my sister's business in her attic with my brother, and it grew to becoming a large technology firm — one of the fastest growing technology firms, unfortunately, in a different state, because there were no jobs in my area growing up. But, that's what I'm talking about. They all start where you are, and then they just keep growing and growing and growing because we could give more opportunities and you prove your success. And, so, I'm so excited about opening more doors for MWBEs — ways we can embark on a whole new era, and really just talk about this.
And, what I want to do is also just rebrand this, create some energy around it, so we have a brand new logo and a decal so that you can put in your stores. You want to be proud of your storefront or your business? Stick it on the door, put it on your logo, put it on your letterhead. This is what I'm talking about. It's going to help increase MWBE visibility, position you for other opportunities and use it as a marketing tool, and, again, this place is a great venue to foster partnerships and relationships, but let's take that out there, let's continue to build on that in the larger communities.
So, with that, I want to thank you all. This is an energetic group. I can tell you're all fired up to just really march into the world of commerce and opportunity and jobs together. Knowing that you have the State of New York — not on your back, but on your side — and that's the difference, that's the difference we're talking about here.
So, thank you, everyone. Delighted to be here with all of you. Enjoy the conference. And, with that, let me welcome Commissioner Knight as we show you the first time, the first ever unveiling of our new logo.