A top official from the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) said today that the agency has achieved early accomplishments in diversifying the Federal market space through several initiatives, including awarding more contracts to minority serving institutions (MSIs).
“I am thrilled to report that GSA has achieved early accomplishments in a number of areas for promoting economic opportunity – through supplier diversity and small business success initiatives; broadening outreach and partnerships; meeting with community stakeholders; enhancing community impact strategies in the Federal buildings footprint; advancing equity and technology; and assessing employment practices in GSA’s workforce,” Cheryl Thornton-Cameron, executive director of acquisition operations at FAS, said during an ACT-IAC webinar.
“But that’s not all,” Thornton-Cameron added. “I am personally leading a number of impactful initiatives on [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] HBCUs, HSIs – which is the Hispanic Serving Institutions – and other minority service institutions. And what we’re doing with that is we’re trying to bring more of our minority institutions into the Federal market space.”
The FAS official noted that, so far, GSA has awarded four HBCU contracts and currently has HSI contracts “on the table.” Thornton-Cameron noted that the agency was also recently given a Native American contract to award.
“We’re trying to diversify across and make sure that we’re touching all groups,” she said.
GSA’s diversity work is in direct response to President Biden’s 2021 executive order on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans. That initiative established a working group of senior level liaisons from Federal agencies, in which Thornton-Cameron has served as the GSA representative since June 2022.
One specific example Thornton-Cameron highlighted on GSA’s diversity work is a new partnership with Johns Hopkins University. She explained that the school has brought in vendors from Wards 8 and 9 in Washington, D.C., “to meet with us here at GSA because they have taken an interest to help get vendors who were not otherwise given opportunities to get into the Federal market space.”
“Institutions have made it known to us, ‘It’s not just about receiving grants, we really want to be a part of the Federal market space,’” Thornton-Cameron said. “So, we are brainstorming through that. We’ve had two White House meetings on that, and I’ve been added to the policy piece of this particular effort to work and see how we can marry our small businesses with our minority service institutions and thereby making both successful.”
“But we do a lot of visiting of the HBCUs and other minority serving institutions to try to pull our students in upon graduation, not just in the IT world but across the full Federal workforce spectrum,” she added.
