Airport Experience® News - 20 Years of the AX Conference

ACDBE, DBE Programs Have Expanded Opportunities, But Challenges Remain

BY ANDREW TELLIJOHN

Greg Plummer was working in finance – unhappily – in the early 2000s when his friend, Anwar Daniels, introduced his father, Clarence Daniels. Clarence Daniels, a long-time executive with Host International, had gone out on his own and started CMS Hospitality Inc. , an Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE)-certified operator of restaurants at Los Angeles International (LAX) that was trying to grow within the industry. Plummer fell in love with restaurants and the airport setting and found his purpose: becoming an entrepreneur. “Clarence gave us the autonomy to make decisions,” he says. “He gave us the autonomy to make suggestions and recommendations that would help the business. We didn’t always get everything right but we got some things really right. We were able to learn.” The Program’s Role Plummer worked with Clarence Daniels to find brands to partner with on a direct bid at LAX. CMS Hospitality ultimately became the first ACDBE company to win a prime contract there. “That was fun but super daunting,” Plummer says. “We had done some conversions of locations, but we had never done from start to finish.”CMS Hospitality would go on to win some more deals. The company grew until Clarence Daniels sold its holdings to HMSHost. Plummer built on the experience of working with CMS to go out on his own. He is now CEO and managing partner of Concord Collective Partners , which operates a dozen branded restaurants at LAX. He’s ACDBE

certified and has the same goals now that Daniels had two decades ago: to build a business that expands within and beyond the walls of LAX. While Plummer and Clarence Daniels are success stories stemming from the ACDBE program,, Plummer spends more time focusing on being a good operator. “I realize that’s a box we have to check, but I really put a lot of stock in being good at what we do and being value-added partners in deals we participate in because, God forbid, the program goes away, I don’t think I would go away.” Plummer would like to see a deeper pool of participants in the program. He says while the ACDBE program affords some businesses a seat at the table that otherwise might not be able to participate, it does not provide any economic advantages. “We don’t get any economic relief or benefit, so we really just want to compete and be recognized as good operators,” he says. Program Has Worked, Evolved The DBE program was formed in 1980, authorized as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and established under the eye of Leon Watkins, then the director of FAA Civil Rights, and Clark Sharpe, civil rights administrator in the southeast region, who worked closely with him. Warner Session, a principal at the Session Law Firm and member of the board of directors at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority , was staff counsel working under Congresswoman Cardiss Collins, who wrote the law creating the ACDBE program, enacted in 1987. Session has been watching the program being administered ever since.

Above: Warner Session, principal at Session Law Firm, says the Supreme Court makeup means the ACDBE program probably has rocky times ahead.

22

AX NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024