Diversity lacking in government contracting, corporate America

I’ve been thinking about the recent proposed SBA rule change that would limit the women-owned small business set-aside program to four areas where SBA thinks that women are underrepresented and the resulting political backlash. The government services contractor I work for, Altron Inc., is a woman-owned, small business.

I’ve attended industry events, such as the Professional Services Council and the Association for Corporate Growth where the lack of diversity is painfully evident in our government contractor leadership ranks. I get great value out of attending events sponsored by ACG, PSC and other groups and don’t intend this as a criticism.

The problem is not limited to the government contractor community, apparently. A “Deal Journal” blog story last week in the Wall Street Journal illustrated that we’re at a time of inertia with women making it in the boardroom, with the number of Fortune 500 companies with no females on their boards nearly equaling the number who have female representation, according to a recent survey by the women’s financial organization, InterOrganization Network (ION).

The zinger in that WSJ story is the following: “ION cites data that shows that companies with more women on their boards performed better than average; in data provided by research firm Catalyst, Fortune 500 companies who had the biggest percentage of female directors also outperformed the companies with the lowest percentages by 53% in terms of return on equity, and 66% in terms of return on invested capital.” Interesting.

President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94-106 in 1975, which opened up the military service academies to women, who began to enroll in 1976. With the first co-ed classes graduating from the U.S. military academies in 1980, we may soon start seeing a significant increase in the number of women leaders with 20 or 25 years of military experience joining the government contractor ranks. I think that’s good news for the contractor community, the government and the taxpayer.

Please tell me what you think of the SBA’s proposed rule change for women-owned small business contractors -Do you think there’s a level playing field for women in our industry? If you think there is inequity, How should government policy, when it contracts for goods and services from the private sector, adjust for this?

Culture of Opportunity

Eleven months after finishing my graduate degree at the University of Maryland and one month after getting married, I was introduced to Larry Gallagher. Larry was part-owner and President of a small federal contractor in Alexandria, VA. The company had about 120 employees and had less than $10M in annual revenues. The company was struggling to make payroll and needed accounting help. The job paid $35,000 per year and oh, and by the way, since I was indirect I would have to start at $17,500 because the position was not billable. I took the job anyway.

Fast-forward 15 years. By the time I left Stanley Inc. last year as a senior VP and CFO, I had helped take the company public in 2006 on the NYSE (SXE), and put them on growth path toward over $400 million in revenues. Prior to the public offering the company was entirely employee owned with all full-time employees covered by an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Because I took a chance on what I’ll call Stanley’s “culture of opportunity,” and they on me, I was able to grow professionally with the company in a way that most employers in our segment simply aren’t able to match. In short, at Stanley, the associated financial rewards only tell part of the larger story.

I was attracted to Altron for many of the same reasons. In fact, one of my primary, longer-term goals in my new post there is to tap into some of the dynamics from Stanley to try to replicate that environment. As at Stanley, our own culture of opportunity will not only reward top performers, although that is certainly a key element. More importantly, I hope to foster a willingness among our employees to take certain calculated risks on behalf of both Altron and themselves. Without this ongoing individual commitment to identifying and taking full advantage of innovative ways to improve their performance, a job just becomes a way-station en route to something else, usually with someone else.

With a far-flung workforce in places across the country like Charleston, Laguna Niguel, and Portsmouth, I’ve seen already that not everyone is a ready believer in this concept, but we’re working to change that mindset. I think it’s human nature to have a healthy skepticism and I think most are more willing to believe bad new rumors than good news rumors. We’re going to continue to provide more opportunities and more employee focused programs – we’ll re-visit this concept next year – I confident we’ll have all A’s on our report card!

If we accomplish our goal at Altron, we’ll create a culture of opportunity that rewards those who are truly committed to continuous performance improvement, helping them to grow as we grow. We want both our business partners and our government customers to see the true difference in our employees.

Mike Zaramba
Strategic Communications Group, on behalf of Altron