Clayton County has implemented a Mentor Protégé Program to help eligible small businesses (protégés) gain capacity and win County contracts through partnerships with more experienced companies that are willing to fill the mentor role. The MPP’s primary objective is to facilitate the enhancement of business competencies thereby increasing the capacity of participant firms.
Intro:
You’re tuned in to the Clayton Connected podcast in Clayton County where the world lands and opportunities take off.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Hello and thank you for joining me. I’m Valerie Fuller, your communications administrator for the Clayton County Board of Commissioners Office of Communications. Today on the Clayton Connected podcast, we have two very special guests in the studio. We have Miss Tamisha McKenzie. She is the contract compliance manager in Central Services. Welcome. Thank you, thank you. And we also have contract compliance program coordinator, Mr. Eddie Eads. Welcome.
Eddie Eads:
Hello, hello. Thank you, Clayton County.
Valerie L. Fuller:
All right, so today’s topic is about our Mentor-Protege Program, but we want to get some more information out to people to tell us how we even came about to the Mentor-Protege Program, right? So, Ms. Tammy, talk to us about the Small Local Business Ordinance. What is that?
Tamisha McKenzie:
Okay, the Small Local Business Ordinance was approved by our Board of Commissioners back in 2013. And what it does is it includes our non-discrimination policy. And it allows us to include small businesses in our procurement and purchasing practices without discriminating. So, with the Small Local Business Ordinance, my understanding is that is how the Mentor Protégé Program actually came about. So, what is the Mentor Protégé Program? Correct. The Mentor Protégé Program was written into our Small Local Business Ordinance originally upon its inception. The language was already there so that it would allow us to expand the program and our technical capacity for growing small businesses. So, the language was there, and over the years, as we grew the Small Local Business Program, we are now able to branch out and have staff and capacity to be able to afford to bring in those resources. And that’s why Mr. Eddie Eads is here as our coordinator to take on those day-to-day responsibilities of managing that program.
Valerie L. Fuller:
And we are definitely happy to have Mr. Eads here. So, we’ll segment over to you. Talk about the Mentor-Protege Program, and what’s the goal, what’s the aim?
Eddie Eads:
Absolutely and very happy to be here Clayton County. So, the mentor protege program itself is a program aimed at enhancing the business competencies of our respective protege firms. What it allows us to do is provide support services and training development for various areas such as estimating and scheduling, bonding, you know, things that, you know, a lot of our small local businesses here in the county need. And with that, it allows us to also you know, pair them with firms of experience. I was like to build up leadership development. And so, it all drives our primary objective up, which is certify small local businesses here in the county and, you know, to help them gain their capacity to respectively win contracts, you know, do other opportunities with the county itself and offering support, training and mentorship to, you know, their respective programs within their firms as well.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Absolutely. And we do want to take this time out to thank our mentors, as well as our mentees who are actually involved in the program. How many firms do we currently have that are involved in the program as mentors and or mentees? Well, currently, we are in our cohort two, which is our architecture and engineering firms. And we have five mentors and five proteges currently in the program. Are there any openings for any other mentors or mentees at this time?
Eddie Eads:
Currently, the way that the program is set up is its cohort based. So, when we are actually in that specific cohort, we focus on those respective mentors and protege firms to allow them to really focus on their respective relationships and us as the county to be able to really develop their respective competencies. So, what we will be doing and what we’re excited to announce is we are actually moving into our construction cohort. That cohort will be launching fairly soon. you know, the applications are now open, you know, for that specific cohort, and the deadline for that is October 30th. So again, I was like, you know, this current cohort, you know, we’re, we’ll be approaching the end of that probably in March. I was like, but we’re very, very excited to, you know, open up applications for our cohort moving forward. Now that we’ve learned a little bit about the Small Local Business Ordinance, as well as what the Mentor-Protege Program is.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Let’s share with our citizens and prospective members who may become a part of the future cohorts, right? Let’s share with them who is actually eligible
Eddie Eads:
Absolutely. So currently we are focusing our efforts on our businesses here in the county that are SLBE certified. And we’re looking for them to be SLBE certified for at least a year before they actually think about coming into the program and applying and the application process for our respective program is electronically. I was like, and that information can be found on the actual website. Interested applicants can reach out to myself or to Misha, and we specifically look for them to, again, going through a selection process, have that SLBE certification. We’re constantly advocating for here in the county. The factors based on how we select our respective protege firms are based on the stakeholder panel. I was like, you know, our readiness there and the alignment of their specific capabilities within the county.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Absolutely. So, what’s that application process actually like?
Eddie Eads:
The application process includes, again, the protege application. And we’re actually be opening up for this current cohort our mentor application and once we get the applications there, I was like myself and Tammy, we go through the actual review and selection process. And specifically, what we look for in the application process is the ability for them to actually dedicate their time and specifically our mentor firms to dedicate their time. And our protegees, we just look for them to actually be able to grow their respective business and be in the development process of wanting to grow their respective firms as well. So, the application process also includes the distribution of their materials. I was like, we look for their capability statements, documents of that nature to overall get a comprehensive understanding of what the firm does. So there definitely is a readiness process. Very much so. This is not for everybody. Because at the end of the day, we want everyone involved in the program to be successful. That’s the goal.
Valerie L. Fuller:
What is the program’s duration? How long does this actually last?
Eddie Eads:
Once actually the selection process is completed and the pairing is done, we bring in our mentor protege firms. And once the partnership agreement has been signed, the duration of the program is one year. For the first six months, Clayton County is kind of like a facilitator in that relationship. So, we allow them to talk with us about what’s working in the program, what’s not working. We talk with them about how the actual contracting process and what they’re learning from their respective mentor as a protege firm. And also, we do check-ins with both our mentors and our protege. And we ask our mentors specifically what they are specifically giving their respective protege firms as well. So again, I was like, you know, the overall duration of the program is one year. The first six months, the county is very hands on. The latter half of that year, the additional six months is bimonthly. It’s a bimonthly check-in. So, you know, myself and Tammy were just kind of checking in, seeing how things are going up until close out at the end of that year. The application process involved, it is electronic. So, there’s a list of questions that they will have to answer and there is an interview process. So, what we’re looking for is the experience of years of experience, at least three to five years of business experience in the industry, knowledge if they’re certified, if they’re licensed to do business in their trade, all of those things, if they have any type of bonding capacity, what their financials are like, what their revenue is like. So, we’re looking at those things. And again, there is an interview process. We will talk with them to kind of hear about their experience, how passionate they are in their business, because we’ll hear all those stories about how it started. So, all of that is part of that process as well. And then we do go back and we score each one. We do have a stakeholder panel that’s involved in that. They will look at the applications. They will see whether or not the prodigies are actually qualified as prodigies for the program based on the criteria that we have and we did say that this program typically lasts about a year.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Is there an option to even renew?
Eddie Eads:
There is. There’s an option to renew at the end of that year for our respective firms who want to continue. Again, and we’ll assess that on a county basis as well. So, lots of great things going on in Central Services, specifically with the Mentor-Protege Program.
Valerie L. Fuller:
What future or upcoming events do you have? Because this is not all that Central Services is doing for the citizens and the businesses in the county.
Eddie Eads:
Well, we’re actually very excited. Again, we’re moving into our cohort three, which will be our construction cohort. Applications are now open for that, and deadline for applications in the actual close is October 30th. We actually have, if for any of our county participants or firms who are interested, two upcoming informational sessions for our mentors and respectively for our protegees. Mentor informational session will be September 26 at 10 a.m. And our Protege informational session will be September 26, oh, excuse me, the Mentor informational session will be September 20th at 10 a.m. And the Protege informational session will be September 26 at 2 p.m. So again, two very distinct informational sessions where they will be able to come on board and actually learn more about the program for myself and Tammy.
Valerie L. Fuller:
This is so exciting, so very exciting. So, for anyone who’s wanting more information, we always want to guide people towards our Claytoncountyga.gov website. There on the website, you can actually find the Central Services link, which will actually take you to the Mentor-Protege Program. So, in closing, what are your final thoughts, Ms. Tammy, Mr. Eads, if you will, in reference to the great success with the program and anything that’s anticipated?
Tamisha McKenzie:
So far, we’ve seen how well this program has done with just the first cohort. What we always want to see is that those firms who have never engaged the procurement process with government is what they really want to do. They really want to learn about the bidding and RFP process. So, through this mentorship, they’re able to do that. They’re able to get with more experienced firms that walk them through those processes where they’re able to now engage the procurement process government and county. Whether it’s with Clayton County or with other entities, and they’re successful at actually winning contracts. So, we’ve had quite a few of our pro-jays in our first cohort who are now, you know, they’re primes, not just subcontractors, but working as primes on some major contracts outside of Clayton County, and I think a couple within Clayton County. So, we’re really excited about that, and that’s one of the successes that we measure.
Valerie L. Fuller:
Absolutely wonderful.
Eddie Eads:
And final thoughts, you know, again, we’re incredibly excited about where the program is going. Specifically, excited about, you know, the success stories that we have seen in the program. And, you know, I would be remiss if we didn’t take the time to highlight one of our most significant success stories in cohort one, which was Keela Fitzgerald with Allen Properties, very prominent protege, was very detailed and really engaged with the program in a way that she saw her respective firm, you know, and the capacity grow. I was like, and she’s been able to work on projects with the county. We’re incredibly excited about, you know, our specific newsletter that we have launched. I was like, our quarterly newsletter, which can be found on our mentor protege program website on the Clayton County website. And again, you know, we have a cohort that’s upcoming. We continue to really see, you know, our firms grow in a way where they’re actually bidding and actually working on projects, not just with our mentors, but with our respective constituents here in the county.
Valerie L. Fuller:
So incredibly excited about that. And just very excited to see where the program is going to go from here. So, Ms. Tammy McKenzie, Mr. Eddie Eads, thank you on behalf of Central Services and our Chief Recruitment Officer, Ms. Carol Rogers, as well as the Clayton County Board of Commissioners and our Chief Operations Officer, Detrick Stanford. What a wonderful two guests that I have in the audience today. Thank you for being willing to come and share this information with us. A number that you can also contact in reference to the Mentor-Protege Program is 770-477-3587. So, thank you again for being our special guests. We’ll see you back here. Thank you for having us. We’ll see you back again to our listeners on the Clayton Connected podcast next month
Outro:
I’m your hostess Valerie Fuller. Thank you for listening to the Clayton Connected podcast in Clayton County, Georgia, where the world lands and opportunities take off.