Supplier Diversity Matchmaker Event

We are the maintainence department and we do a lot of purchasing and we find that we
use the same vendors 'cause we've done business with them, we know them and we really wanted
to take the opportunity and let our supervisors and management team get to know minority vendors
that we can, um, use other resources to do purchasing and resources for the maintainence department.
This is such an amazing opportunity for business owners, for minority and woman-owned businesses.
Prior to, we met with twenty-one business managers of facilities management and we talked
to them and asked them what are they looking for in businesses. We sat down and we selected
businesses that they thought they'd like to meet and we brought them here and we created
a mapping we had an appointments scheduled at specific times and we got everyone in.
The great thing about, uh, having an event like this is we're able to attract a lot of
different suppliers from a lot of different areas and, uh, they win this business based
off of competitiveness and, uh, we're trying to develop our supply base in order to get
the best possible cost for Kent State University.
This has been huge for us because I was able to meet the right people, give them the right
information and I'm the only certified door commpany in Ohio, I don't think most people
knew that so I think we have a tremendous opportunity to do work with Kent State in the future.
Well what's truly unique is how committed Kent is to the process of identifying and
developing minority companies to do business with. Uh, they are very diligent and their
staff and the team at Kent State University really works hard to, uh, to help us develop
and identify opportunities with them.
I'm very impressed with how well organized it is. You come in and you're assigned to
certain tables at a specific time and when that time is over you move to the next table
so they value your time, which I, uh, am greatful for.
The events that I've attended in the past, uh, the vendors are kind of just, you know, thrown in
a room with other, with people that could have potential business but they don't actually
have a match and in this, you know, matchmaker event, we matched everybody up previously
and so they're coming here and they're talking to the right people directly.