Diverse suppliers help the energy industry

The desire for inclusion represents the utilities’ own goals, plus their need to meet government requirements and present a customer-friendly face to the communities they serve

Supplier diversity programs contribute to developing relationships

By Angela M. Hutchinson
Contributing Editor

Daniel Sung Park, founder and CEO of MBE Eclaro International, Inc (New York, NY), a Web-enabled business and technology staffing firm, notes that “Traditionally, the broad energy industry has had a decentralized purchasing culture which made it difficult for diverse suppliers to develop relationships with the right energy professionals in purchasing.” That’s changed in recent years, he adds, as many energy companies have centralized their procurement practices.

Supplier diversity programs, he believes, have been critical in helping to bridge the gap. “But of course trust needs to be cemented as new relationships develop, and trust takes time,” he reflects.

Services from diverse suppliers
Mark Sebree, manager of supplier diversity for Vectren Corp, the Midwest gas utility and holding company, notes that “We utilize contract electrical, mechanical and structural engineers in several areas of our business, as well as contract technicians to assist our own engineers.”

Throughout the energy industry, businesses owned by diverse people supply personnel or services. Diverse vendors may be women, minorities, veterans with and without service-related disabilities, other people with disabilities and GLBT folks. Bringing in diverse suppliers may represent the desire of the energy company to be more inclusive for its own goals, to meet government requirements, and to present a customer-friendly face to the communities it serves.

Debra White, manager for New York Power Authority’s supplier diversity programs, reports that she identifies and promotes the utilization of MBEs based on their abilities to meet the company’s procurement needs.

Stephanie Pryor, supplier diversity manager for E.ON U.S., agrees: “Our mission is to provide safe, reliable energy with award-winning customer service, and we look to build relationships with diverse suppliers who provide a value-added resource to help us achieve that mission,” Pryor says.

Keep on trying
Utilities are big, big companies. Newer and smaller MBEs may find it difficult to even get a hearing with the right purchasing people, let alone find a place on the list of preferred vendors. The solutions are obvious if not easy to attain: keep on trying, check the company’s website for tips to diverse suppliers, and look for contacts and advocates.

Minority-certifying organizations like NMSDC, WBENC and their regional affiliates, local chambers of commerce, and minority-oriented business fairs put on by corporations and organizations are all fertile ground. Above all, potential suppliers must be very good at what they do.

The MBEs featured in this article have gone these routes. Again and again they’ve proved themselves worthy of the contracts they’ve secured and the relationships they’ve established with companies in the energy industry.

K. C. Jain’s Americas Engineers
With more than thirty years engineering experience in the U.S. and abroad, K. C. Jain started his own company in 2004. Americas Engineers (AE) is an engineering and architectural firm located in Evansville, IN. It’s dedicated, Jain explains, to providing clients with technical excellence, proactive partnering and relationships that can be built on.

AE’s services include CE, architecture, structural engineering, ME, EE, automation and controls and project management. There are also design-build and turnkey options.

Jain was born, raised and educated in India. He earned his 1968 BSCE at the Institute of Engineers (Calcutta, India), and his 1971 MSCE at Punjab Agricultural University (Ludhiana, Punjab, India).

Before starting his business he worked for a number of consulting companies. “I am a licensed professional engineer,” he notes, “and can put my seal on all work I perform.”

AE’s global clients include GE, Toyota, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Whirlpool and Vectren.

AE serves Vectren North in Indiana
Vectren North provides energy delivery services to natural gas customers in Indiana. Jain got his chance with the utility through networking. “From my former work I knew a Vectren VP,” he explains. “He introduced me to supplier diversity manager Mark Sebree, and stressed to him that Vectren needs minority participation. That is how I got my first job there, and the rest is history.”

Mark Sebree agrees. “We selected Americas Engineers because of Jain’s scope of engineering knowledge and experience,” he says. “AE had successfully completed several high-profile projects in the area and K. C. Jain used these to catch our eye to further explore his capabilities.

“Jain’s engineering knowledge and ability to leverage contacts at larger engineering firms clued us that he would be strong in project management. We started him on a lower-profile gas regulator station project that involved locating, GIS mapping, inspection and reporting of hundreds of gas regulator buildings, some of them located in the middle of cornfields. K. C. brought the project in on budget, on time, and with extremely high quality.”

As Jain sees it, “It is hard for any employer to give a job to a foreign graduate without any references. But I kept knocking on doors. Finally I got a break because I was very persistent.”

Jain believes it’s only logical for energy companies to employ diverse contractors. Nationwide, more than a third of their customers are minorities, he notes. “The industry should be employing a similar percentage of minority engineers and contractors so the companies look like a cross-section of the country.”

J. Y. Legner Associates serves E.ON U.S.
As founder, president and CEO of J. Y. Legner Associates, Inc (JYLA, Louisville, KY), Josephine Y. Legner is involved in all phases of business development, marketing and customer relations, and oversees daily operations. Founded in 1999, JYLA provides professional services in staffing, HR management and engineering support to local and regional clients.

One of them is E.ON U.S. (Louisville, KY). E.ON U.S., a diversified energy services company, operates Louisville Gas and Electric Co, a regulated utility serving natural gas and electric customers.

“Diverse suppliers provide a variety of products and services for us,” says Stephanie Pryor, supplier diversity manager. “We have corporate-wide contracts for technical staffing, safety supplies, office supplies and light-duty facility maintenance with diverse suppliers.” The list also includes utility-specific services like tree trimming, transmission inspection, gas pipeline construction services and trench work, as well as mechanical contracting, substation design and, of course, IT software and hardware.

Meet President Legner
JYLA’s president is multi-racial: African American, Native American and Irish American, and a Kentucky native. “I always knew I would start my own company at some point,” she says. “I started working for my first engineering firm at the age of fourteen, after school and summers.”

Like every other kid she loved to take apart toys and household items. “But unlike most other kids my age I could easily put them back together again. I could repair broken things: very useful growing up in a single-parent household.”

In 1988 Legner graduated from Louisville Technical Institute with an associate’s degree in applied science and mechanical design and a minor in architectural design.

Nearly twenty years later she participated in the 2007 executive education program at the Tuck School of Business (Dartmouth, NH).

She began her career as a technician and draftsman for an engineering firm, evolving into a researcher and acquisition agent. “I’ve always been blessed with strong social engineering skills and they worked beautifully in my favor. That skill is invaluable as a business owner and entrepreneur,” she declares.

Starting with E.ON
“Originally our focus was very tight,” Legner recalls. “Matt Linville, my business partner and CFO, and I self-funded the company, and with limited resources we mostly hired CEs, CAD and research technicians because our earliest clients were engineering firms that could utilize them.

“We cut our teeth in the engineering industry from Day One. So it was a natural progression to move into the energy field, where they have the same standards of excellence and are also deadline-oriented.”

Then one happy day an E.ON VP asked Legner to find technical support staff for the company, and the excellent relationship began. Like K. C. Jain, Legner believes that the utility industry “should have a vendor base that reflects its customer base, which of course is made up of all races and creeds.”

Daniel Sung Park is founder and CEO of Eclaro International
“Eclaro was founded under principles of openness and collaboration,” says
its founder and CEO, Daniel Sung Park. Park is responsible for management, strategic guidance, business development and financial controls for his company. Eclaro’s services include staffing, global resourcing, payroll,
project assistance and technology consulting.

Meeting at the NYPA fair
Eclaro is a diverse supplier for the New York Power Authority (NYPA, White Plains, NY), America’s largest state-owned power organization. The authority provides electricity through eighteen generating facilities and more than 1,400 circuit miles of transmission lines.

Park met NYPA at a procurement fair. “I was introduced to a procurement programs specialist for the authority, and learned about a pending request for proposals (RFP) for temporary programming personnel,” he recalls. “We received the RFP and responded and were awarded a contract in 2003. We successfully re-bid that contract last year.”

Since 2003, Eclaro has sent NYPA consultants in areas of application development and support, SAP analysis and programming, and hardware and software support.

Debra White, NYPA supplier diversity manager, notes that she first met Park through the NY/NJ Minority Supplier Development Council, a regional affiliate of NMSDC. “Eclaro people came to one of our annual purchasing exchanges in White Plains and were introduced to our IT department.

“We have found Eclaro to be extremely professional, capable and knowledgeable in its field, providing us with excellent service and IT personnel. We look forward to continuing our mutually rewarding business relationship with Eclaro.”

Streamlined model
Park started Eclaro because he thought conventional IT service companies would be challenged to maintain their level of service during lean economic times. He envisioned, and created, a new type of streamlined service company that could more effectively meet client’s long-term needs.

That was in 1999. Eclaro has since grown from $20,000 to more than $40 million in annual sales. “My plan,” reflects Park, “was to create a company which embraced the new trends in corporate America. Our strategy was to target companies like NYPA which centralized their acquisition of IT services through procurement rather than individual hiring managers. We aimed to use technology to accommodate clients throughout the U.S. from one office location.

“By more efficiently providing the same level of service, Eclaro weathered economic storms and has grown and remained profitable.”

The early entrepreneur
As a first-generation Korean American, Park shared his parents’ work ethic as they ran their small store. “I worked at the store as a very young child out of necessity, since there was no money for babysitting. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my parents were actually giving me very valuable training,” says Park. “I learned that in entrepreneurship, especially in small companies, leaders need to wear many hats.”

Park graduated from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) with a BA in English in 1994. Five years later he completed an MBA in finance at New York University.

He began his career at Merrill Lynch. “My parents pushed me to work for corporate America, but my interest in entrepreneurship came to a peak in 1998, where I was asked to study Asian markets and trends for Merrill Lynch.” The next year Eclaro was launched.

“The primary focus of the energy industry is reliability,” Park believes. “Whether the organization’s function is the delivery of utilities or the manufacturing of energy-related materials, the overwhelming requirement is a high level of reliability. This is also an attribute they seek in their relationships with suppliers.

“The industrial footprint of the energy industry is immense, and includes the complete range of professional disciplines and corporate services. As a result, this industry has the ability to integrate a wide array of support services into its supplier diversity programs.”

Critical for success
E.ON U.S. supplier diversity manager Stephanie Pryor reiterates that diversity is essential to the company’s long-term success. “We are committed to working with diverse suppliers. This facilitates economic development throughout the communities we serve, reflects the diversity of our customer base and business community, and creates additional sources of supply that provide opportunities for innovation, cost efficiency and a competitive atmosphere.”

MBE Park concludes that “The supplier diversity programs established within the energy industry are imperative for the industry to obtain the business value that MBEs have provided to so many other industries in America.”

D/C

Angela M. Hutchinson is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA.

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