Airport DBEs Getting Results: ‘PIT Sees Us in These Jobs’

Donminika Brown is a single mother working a full-time job as the CFO of a healthcare-services company.

But to build a better life, she started a small business, Wilner Consulting, LLC, several months ago. Now she’s hoping to bid on contracts to help build Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal.

Brown was one of 16 minority or women business owners who graduated in November from the seven-week 2021 DBE Bonding Series hosted by PIT in partnership with Riverside Center for Innovation.

The course provided owners of disadvantaged business enterprises with information and tools to help them secure bonds, allowing them to compete for contracts to work on jobs such as the airport’s $1.4 billion Terminal Modernization Program.

DBEs, as they’re known, are for-profit small businesses at least 51 percent owned by a woman or minority. In addition, the owner must control management and daily business operations.

Jenee Oliver, Manager of Business Development & Equity for the Allegheny County Airport Authority, which operates PIT and Allegheny County Airport, said the authority’s DBE program is integrated throughout its processes.

“We are focused on making sure that all firms have equal access to opportunity at our airports,” Oliver said. “The TMP is the latest example of that strategy working, but our focus is really on all facets of our business.”

Brown said she appreciates the ACAA’s help.

“The important part about this program is the opportunity they provide for these smaller companies like mine to get on these huge jobs and make connections with the big contractors,” Brown said.<