Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 4-29-22

Feature
Ken Jones Is The County’s Director Of Minority And Small Business Enterprise Division
BY MONIQUE STAMPS Sentinel Staff Writer
With the need for minor- ity participation in subcon- tracting and participation on bids, Hillsborough County is moving on its expansion plans to increase minority participation.
Last October, County Commissioner Gwen Myers asked for recommen- dations to enhance the County’s MBE Program.
The aims were to: provide more notices to the MBE community so that they can have more time to plan and prepare for subcontracting opportunities; and to ad- dress contracting opportuni- ties for MBEs when the County is supplying funding to a public partner.
At the time, the MBE and SBE were independent de- partments within county government.
In late February, Hills- borough County named Ken Jones as its new director of the expanded Mino- rity/Small Business Enter-
prise Division, along with hiring two program coordi- nators. This doubles the per- sonnel for the M/SBE Enterprise Division.
Jones is responsible for managing the division’s ef- forts to increase participa- tion of minority-owned, women-owned, and small firms doing business with Hillsborough County.
His role is to keep the de- partment in line with the Board of Commissioners’ ob- jective to connect minority and small businesses with opportunities for greater economic equity.
Jones has more than 25 years of experience in eco- nomic development which includes small business as- sistance, business recruit- ment and retention, business ownership, and business de- velopment.
Previously, he served as manager of Workforce De- velopment And Community Stabilization, and led the County’s efforts to increase opportunities for unem- ployed and under-employed
KEN JONES
residents.
In that role he helped
county residents obtain in- dustry recognized certifica- tions and paid work experiences that strategically focused on high-demand oc-
cupations with career path- ways.
As Director of M/SBE, some of the new changes in- clude an expansion to a max- imum of fifty employees and to increase the maximum net worth for qualifying busi- nesses to $5 million for firms in the construction industry and $4 million for other in- dustries in the MBE pro- gram. The program is open to minority businesses throughout Florida.
“Our goal is to have our registrations reflect the di- versity of Tampa Bay. We want increased minority reg- istrations and an increased variety of minority busi- nesses.
“We have a large number of businesses, and we accept registrations that may come from the City of Tampa as well. We have a reciprocal agreement with the city. We want to make the process as easy as possible for our mi- nority businesses,” states Jones.
Jones holds a MBA de- gree from the University of Florida, a bachelor’s degree in business from the Univer- sity of Redlands, and a cer- tificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from the Uni- versity of South Florida.
For more informa- tion, visit https://hills- boroughcounty.diversity compliance.com/
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2022 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY PAGE 5-A