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The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority Business Diversity Development Team members hosted the 2019 “Business Taking Off” supplier outreach and networking event in March 2019. (From left) Mark Epps, Donzaleigh Powell, Davita Taylor, Kebbyn Connell and Bryan Gleason.
Nashville International Airport
Moving from ‘Good to Great’ By Jordan Taylor
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ashville International Airport (BNA) has a vision, and its internal Business Diversity Development team is a key part of the success of that overall vision as it relates to Diversity & Inclusion. Beyond the BNA Vision, a 5-year, $1.3 billion master plan for expansion, is also a desire for participating small businesses, women- and minorityowned companies to gain work, exposure, technical assistance, sustainability and growth – matriculating from the business development process bigger, stronger and better than when they arrived. “We want to make sure these businesses walk away better than before they got here,” said Davita Taylor, BNA chief procurement officer. Donzaleigh Powell, director of the Business Diversity Development team, said, “In this region, we just seem to have more teeth than most of the other agencies that are doing the type of work that we do. If we say ‘good faith effort,’ they need to be ‘great good faith efforts.’ One of the things that sets us apart is that there’s a real commitment to diversity and inclusion. We don’t just say it because it’s a buzz word and everybody’s talking about D&I right now.”
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// spring 2019
Taylor said that the airport has greatly increased its diversity and inclusion efforts since 2007, a year before a disparity study was completed. At that time, the airport only spent $712,487 with MWBE firms. In 2008, a disparity study yielded numerous areas for improvement, along with updated goals for participation – and served as the impetus to grow and develop a new program. In the 10-year span since the study was completed, there has been more than $18 million in diversity spending growth. The total MWBE spend in 2018 was $19,176,450. The scope and scale of the BNA Vision expansion began in 2013, and is ongoing; encompassing three parking garages, a new international arrivals building, additional security screening lanes, expanded ticketing and baggage areas, a hotel and office plaza, and redoing an entire terminal – the new Concourse D. The BNA Vision creates thousands of jobs and pumps millions of dollars into the Middle Tennessee economy. Although a lot of the airport’s outreach is local to Nashville, it’s also statewide, inviting participation from other areas including: Chattanooga, Knoxville and Memphis, Tennessee.
