Gov. Bill Richardson at the January 2008 unveiling of New Mexico’s Supercomputer. (Source: Intel)
President-elect Barack Obama announced the nomination of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as his commerce secretary at a Chicago news conference this morning.
Richardson, who had sought the Democratic presidential nomination this year, served as United Nations ambassador and energy secretary under former President Bill Clinton. After ending his bid for the White House, he broke from the Clintons to support Obama. Richardson is the first Latino to be named to the president-elect’s cabinet.
“After nearly two years traveling across this country, meeting with workers, visiting businesses large and small, I am more confident than ever before that we have everything we need to renew our economy — we have the ingenuity and technology, the skill, and commitment — we just need to put it to work,” said Obama. “It’s time to not just address our immediate economic threats, but to start laying the groundwork for long-term economic prosperity — to help American businesses grow and thrive at home, and expand our efforts to promote American enterprise around the world.
“This work is the core mission of the secretary of commerce. And with his breadth and depth of experience in public life, Governor Richardson is uniquely suited for this role as a leading economic diplomat for America.”
As commerce chief, Richardson will oversee the Minority Business Development Agency, the only federal agency specifically created to foster the growth and development of minority business. MBDA is also responsible for monitoring and working with all federal agencies to ensure a fair and open competition process for awarding government contracts that includes minority- and women-owned business goals.
“To this crucial work of restoring America’s international standing, Bill will bring a leadership style all his own,” Obama said at his press conference. “Bill has never been content to learn just from briefing books — never satisfied with only the official version of the story. During his time in Congress, he held more than 2,500 town-hall meetings, so he could hear directly from constituents. He was a regular in the U.N. cafeteria, mixing it up with U.N. employees over lunch. And during his 2002 campaign for governor, he actually broke a world record by shaking nearly 14,000 hands in just eight hours.”
Ralph Moore, president of Ralph G. Moore and Associates, a firm that helps minority and women-owned businesses become certified as federal contractors, applauds the choice and believes that Richardson will be an enthusiastic and effective advocate for minority business. He says, “When Richardson headed Energy, there were a number of minority contractors who did very well. He was a champion for 8(a) and other programs that benefited them and I think he’ll carry that same approach to Commerce. We can make this choice work for us.â€
C. Howie Hodges, who was an assistant director for the department’s Minority Business Development Agency during Clinton’s first administration, agrees. “Richardson had a very good strategic team and I have no doubt that he will put in place a very capable combination of savvy business people who will also have the political skills to help execute Obama’s mandate to create economic and job growth,†says Hodges, who is currently a senior vice president of One Economy Corp., a global nonprofit that delivers access to technology and content to low- and moderate-income households.
In addition, says Hodges, during the Clinton administration, the agency actively aimed to expand opportunities for minority and women-owned businesses in the private and international trade sectors. Under the leadership of the late Secretary Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash over Croatia, the agency led trade missions to several foreign nations for those businesses and helped them form strategic alliances with such major corporations as Disney, Kodak, and Lockheed Martin.
If Obama and Richardson were to seek counsel from Moore or Hodges, both say they’d advise the administration to transfer the Small Business Administration’s minority business activities to MBDA, because they have floundered under the SBA, whose primary focus has been providing loans and access to capital, but not necessarily to the benefit of minority businesses.
They also believe that with the proper funding and leadership, MBDA could be a major force in helping minority businesses gain increased access to capital, assistance with capacity expansion and joint venture opportunities with major corporations.
“A critical issue is capacity building. If in fact small businesses create two-thirds of jobs, you need minority businesses to be able to perform in the economic recovery. To do that, they need to build more capacity; that should be MBDA’s number one job,†says Moore.
Because MBDA works with federal agencies across the board, adds Hodges, despite not having a direct appropriation, during the Clinton administration it was able to establish memorandums of understanding with various agencies to form joint ventures with cities and private-sector corporations and explore a variety of international trade opportunities. “Everybody kind of honed in on what their agency could do to promote these very broad goals. Access to capital wasn’t just at SBA; it was at all of the federal agencies. Access to emerging markets wasn’t just through Commerce, it was also through Energy, which saw tremendous growth in working with minority and women owned businesses,†explains Hodges.
“Given the proper funding, I think MBDA can do a lot more. When Richardson was at Energy, the department was among the leading participants in minority business programs,†says Moore.
Under Richardson, Hodges believes that minority businesses should seek both increased access to capital, which is always a critical component to success, and access to markets and opportunity. Small business loans, expanded credit, encouraging venture capital companies and minority venture capital companies to invest in minority business will be paramount to the abilities of mid-tier companies’ to build capacity and start-up firms to create new business.
“When you look at job growth and taking our economy from a recession to one that’s growing, a lot of that growth is going to come from new businesses hiring people,†says Hodges.
The important role that green jobs and businesses, environmental sustainability, and energy efficiency will play in rebuilding the nation’s economy is another reason why he thinks Richardson’s past experience at Energy will be an asset in his new role. At the same time, he cautions, it would be unwise to underestimate the importance of technology, another area over which Commerce has oversight.
“Richardson and Obama’s administration need to look at creating a national broadband strategy to help America continue its global competitiveness that will enable it to provide a catalyst for economic growth and job creation,†says Hodges. “MBDA has been underutilized and a lot will depend on the administration. If it has a priority and focus, the agency will.â€