This May, UVAFinance's Mark Cartwright was a featured speaker on a panel at the 13th Annual Virginia Society of Healthcare Engineers. The topic of the panel was Community Impact: Envisioning and Achieving Historic SWaM Spend at the UVA Health University Hospital Expansion.
Cartwright was joined on the panel by John Calvin, a project executive from Skanska, and the CEOs of two minority-owned construction firms that participated in the project, Junior Burr of Canterbury Enterprises, LLC., and Devon Henry of Team Henry Enterprises, LLC.
The discussion centered around the best practices which led to the project achieving $132 million in spending with small, women-owned, and minority-owned businesses. The keys are well-known, but not easily executed. Cartwright pointed out that success starts with support from the highest levels of the project’s owners, in this case, both the medical center and university. Secondly, the group concurred that it takes the buy-in of the awarded construction management firm to mitigate the typical barriers that stymie small business engagement.
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