With a mission to be a valuable change agent toward increasing contracting opportunities for historically underutilized businesses (HUBs), the University of Houston HUB program provided the chance for attendees to learn more information about key construction projects at the Construction Projects Informational Meeting held last month, which included panelists and contractors supporting the UH College of Medicine, UH Hilton Renovation and UH Law Center.
“We use a data-driven and solution-focused approach to develop targeted strategies for potential vendors to learn of subcontracting opportunities and help them meet their overall business objectives,” said Dr. Linelle Clark-Brown, director of HUB Operations at the University of Houston.
As part of the recent event, more than 100 attendees heard from panel participants, including HUB Prime Contractor representatives from Nash Industries, CMC Development and Gadberry Construction; non-HUB prime contractor representatives from Austin Commercial, Vaughn Construction and DPR Construction; UH Facilities and Construction and the Greater Houston Business Procurement Forum.
Moderated by Dr. Clark-Brown, the panelists were asked questions pertaining to business best practices, shared learnings at various project stages and guidance about processes for both prime and subcontractor opportunities with UH Capital Projects. Following the formal panel presentation, attendees also had time for an informal Q&A and networking.
In addition to the event of the Capital Projects highlighted, HUB Operations will also meet with the University College/Division Business Offices to discuss HUB Purchase opportunities within the respective Colleges and/or Divisions. The HUB Operations Department will present strategies to increase HUB spending in each specific College/Division based on their needs. Feedback regarding contracting opportunities and HUB vendor experiences will be shared by College/Division Business Offices, and information gathered from these meetings will also be shared with the HUB advocate community partners for their members. This feedback helps inform the HUB Department’s need to focus more attention on strategies to increasing HUB vendors direct award opportunities. As an example, in an effort to increase the number of HUBs on Cooperatives and/or eligible for Job Order Contracts, the HUB Operations Department will be launching a user-friendly HUB vendor database at the beginning of the new year. The database will allow HUB vendors to self-register into the system so the University business office staff who initiate purchases can find the HUB vendors easily. The database will also allow the HUB operations department to extract applicable HUB vendor information as needed.
“My vision for the
University’s HUB Operations program can be summed up by the following inspirational
quote by an historical innovator and leader Benjamin Franklin— “Without continual growth and
progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
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For more information, please visit the UH HUB website: https://www.uh.edu/office-of-finance/hub/.
