Airport Experience® News - ACDBE Issue 2025

disparity studies to prove the need for diversity goals or to operate race- and gender-neutral programs, says Silvas. Three years before the new rules were put in place, Silvas was hired by Thella Bowens, SAN’s then-director, to create a program that focused on educating all small businesses on opportunities at the airport. SAN did a disparity study but never used it as justification to set project goals. Instead, the airport looked at its procurement practices, trying to figure out why participation from certain communities wasn’t as high as the make-up of the community would indicate it should be.

Right: Airport Retail Group operates as an ACDBE (MSP retail stores pictured), but founder Pady Regnier says she anticipates evolution to a program inclusive of all small businesses. Below: A longtime ACDBE operator, Bill Swift still benefits from the program with several contracts at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

“We started realizing we weren’t educating them like we should,” he says. “We weren’t telling them how to get these contracts.” SAN implemented a robust training program for all small businesses that led to high participation in a terminal expansion project and, in general, led to higher participation by minority-owned companies on projects at SAN. “I think it was the wisdom of Thella, because she saw the writing on the wall,” Silvas says. “It was made clear; we need to be prepared for this.” While possible, airports might face a challenge in working to increase diverse

participation, at least in the short run, says Swift. He suspects airports might face the same choices as other organizations, such as colleges and universities who face having their federal funds cut for taking part in any program specifically focused on diversity. “I believe this administration is going to attempt to pull on its financial underpinnings, the grants that are given to airports, and hold up the fair allocation of the grants for those who would impose the continuation of the participation goals,” he says. “That’s how you manipulate the law to impose a perspective, just as he did with Harvard.”

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AX NEWS JUNE 2025