Jackie Jackson, Assistant Vice President of Supplier Diversity, leads Walbridge’s efforts in building diverse supplier bases and helping vendors and subcontractors grow in their diverse efforts. Learn more about her work and history at Walbridge in this Q & A.
What’s your background at Walbridge? What sparked your interest in Supplier Diversity?
Every once in a while, I get asked this question. The amazing answer is this: I have been with Walbridge for 31 years; the last 20 in a full time dedicated role of leading our supplier diversity efforts. Walbridge had always been compassionate about incorporating diverse businesses for compliance as it related to our customer’s goals and requirements. While attending a diversity conference in 1999 (before we established our own formal internal supplier diversity program), it became apparent to me that no one individual within our enterprise had ownership of the role as an advocate. Upon returning from the conference, I asked our senior management/leadership tons of questions which ultimately lead us to where we are today.
I feel very passionate about my role in our company and I am a people-oriented person. The combination of our core values, our mission statement, our unwavering commitment to the inclusion of diverse businesses along with more than just doing the right thing is very obvious of where we are 20 years later where that commitment is stronger than before.
What are some of your highlights working in supplier diversity?
Our team is so focused on helping diverse suppliers and that’s one major point of pride for me. Walbridge takes supplier diversity very seriously throughout our entire organization.
Our overall diverse spend with certified Minority Business Enterprises, Women Business Enterprises, Veterans and other diverse spend since 2010 is $4.7 billion.
During my advocacy time for diverse business inclusion, we have been honored to receive 48 supplier diversity awards since our formal program began overall.
“Our overall diverse spend with certified Minority Business Enterprises, Women Business Enterprises, Veterans and other diverse spend since 2010 is $4.7 billion.”
Jackie Jackson, Walbridge Assistant Vice President of Supplier Diversity
What is Walbridge’s Supplier Diversity Program and how does the company incorporate diverse companies?
Our Supplier Diversity Program is known as B.R.I.D.G.E. We utilize this in conjunction with our Vendor Management System (VMS) to locate and pre-qualify companies so that they are prepared and ready to do business with Walbridge and our subcontractors/suppliers.
I travel around the country to attend trade fairs searching for diverse businesses and assist them in being or becoming qualified to receive opportunities with us wherever there are opportunities. There are times when it’s not just for a project that we are building but in other areas; for example, our travel agency is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and is responsible for booking all of our employees’ travel. Our printing and digital media services are another example of MBE spend as we utilize them for work that we outsource in this area; they provide our jobsite signage, printing services, etc. We consider spend with diverse business a crucial component of our annual total spend. We have internal corporate supplier diversity goals regardless of a customer goal. We have been very successful in exceeding our customer goals, which we are very proud of. Supplier diversity is our foundation and we build upon it each and every day!
Are there other ways your team helps diverse companies?
In 2014, we implemented Walbridge Built For Opportunity (BFO) Trade Fairs which in the beginning were held twice a year in our office auditorium. We started with 25 diverse exhibitors, all of our procurement team members, our senior management and executives and few customers and our diverse partner organizations. As we grew each year with more and more participants, we decided to host the event at an offsite venue and hold them once a year.
Having a bigger venue, afforded us the opportunity to invite our subcontractors so they could also interact with the diverse exhibitors for inclusion in their contracts as well. Our BFO’s are designed to assist with matching not only our Walbridge Procurement Teams with diverse and non-diverse subcontractors but also to assist our subcontractors and suppliers with achieving their supplier diversity goals. To date we have held eight very successful BFO’s. Our 2019 BFO had 64 exhibitors with more than 400 participants and is free to all attendees.