Caribbean-American company receives $1.25 million funding from US Government
Gill and Associates, one of the longest serving Caribbean-American companies in South Florida has successfully secured a $1.25 million award from the US government. The US Department of Commerce has awarded the company, formed in 1990 by Jamaican-American Marie Gill, to operate a new Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Global Business Center in Florida.
In meeting one of the core objectives of M. Gill and Associates to develop local small businesses to be viable and qualify for public funding and minority contracts, Gill formerly operated the MBDA Business Center in Miami from 2002 to March this year. However according to Gill in an interview with National Weekly, through “a major operational” problem her company was unable to meet the deadline for securing funding for that entity. However, she applied for funding to open and operate the new MBDA center, competing with four other local companies.
Formal announcement of the award will be made by Joan Hill, the US Department Chief of the Office of Business Development on Friday at the MED Week Conference in Miami. Hill said M. Gill & Associates received the award because it was “the most experienced bidder with a track record of capability and accomplishment, …. that will provide services to grow minority firms, domestically as well as help to aggressively increase their global competitiveness.”
Gill said, the focus of the new center will be to assist small multi-cultural businesses that are linked overseas to develop their exporting capabilities and benefit from the “vast export market.” “That is why the new center is named the Global Business Center. There is a vast opportunity for small or minority businesses that is not being grasped. The focus will be to harness the potential of local minority-owned businesses, particularly Caribbean-American owned, to improve their technical capabilities to take advantage of the export market.”
She said, one of the challenges hindering Caribbean-American small businesses from securing available funding and contracts available to minority businesses is the “negative connotation” attached to the word minority. “These business owners are from countries where the word minority is associated with inferiority. We’ll have to work diligently to change this mindset to let these minority owners understand minority has a different meeting here and encourage and prepare them to get the financial and technical assistance to expand and be ready to export.”
The funds provided to M. Gill and Associates will be disbursed over a five-year period in annual installments of $250,000. In addition, Gill said the City of Miami will also contribute annual support amounting to $100,000 in cash and kind to operate the center.
Gill said the center will have its head office in Miami but will operate a satellite office in Lauderdale Lakes, Broward County. “Broward County has a large core of Caribbean-American owned business. We want to offer them easier access so they can receive the necessary assistance in growing their businesses for the global market.”
