Minority Business Report: Women and minorities gain greater gov't opportunities
Friday, June 27 2008
MWBE certification provides point of entry to labyrinthine bidding system.
Kalpana Patel, president of UCI Software Solutions, built a successful company that employed more than 70 people.
Then came 9/11.
Based in Long Island City with additional offices in Long Island and Manhattan, her firm provided information technology services to major clients such as Marsh & McLennan Cos., Inc. and Dai Chi Kangyo Bank, both with offices in the World Trade Center.
After 9/11, those companies scrambled to set up shop in disaster recovery sites and the IT projects her firm was slated to start were cancelled.
"The opportunities were lost," said Patel, whose company shrank to 27 employees in 2002.
But Patel let adversity be the mother of invention. She obtained federal and state certifications as a minority- or woman-owned business that could give her an edge in winning government contracts.
"The corporate business was going to be very difficult," Patel said. "So we turned to the government business. We saw a niche in the government market."