applies for women starting technology businesses. we see that as well. it is not the case that we see one category of business that women owned business are in. i think it's fortunate us to recognize that. >> >> recognize that the challenges for women that have talent and passionate to be entrepreneurs get support for doing that and less likely to be supported in other ways and i don't think that's the only category that we see. we see a very broad spectrum and more than half of the help that we give in all of these groups more than half of the assistance in growing business are from women owned businesses from all different types and it's really not the case that women, business are -- i think what you're alluding to stigmatized

to a smairl less capitalized business. i don't think that's the case. i think it's a better picture than that. >> commissioner rodriquez. >> [inaudible] >> we do, and the challenge -- actually you alluded to it earlier in your comments. the

challenge of federal contracting but it's really all public contracting of the size of contracts one of the phenomenon that we see in public contracting is the size of the contracts get bigger and the availability to small business is more challenge. from the contracting officer's side and they see larger contracts as easier to manage and means larger contracts and means larger businesses, so the challenge that we try to do is really to get to those federal agencies but the same applies to the state and local side as well and do smaller contracting. the idea that we set a goal at 23% of total and 5% for women owned business doesn't do much good if the only businesses that can get the contracts are very big businesses or large women owned businesses. the challenge is figuring out in this case how the cost doing contracts for a

public agencies can be managed? and that's what we are trying to do is help businesses get access to that and help them to navigate how to get through to get the small contracts. the one last thing we also try to encourage the major prime contractors to do sub contributing work to small and women owned business. >> just a piggyback on that i was actually going to ask before whether you had any -- whether you had -- sba identified any jurisdiction beyond san francisco that has done a particularly good job or city or county i guess i would say, with purchasing and contracts with women owned business? >> nobody does as good as san francisco but it's a challenge for every city to do that. i think it's something that we work i worked in both throughout the bay area and i worked as a

district director acting in los angeles as well, and all cities have a challenge in trying to get contracts to small business, to women owned business as part of that is a big challenge. parts of is the limiting conditions where contract preferences can go in california. that's one of the conditions that makes it more difficult to get a goal in the way on the federal level you can't do on the state level so there is challenge with that respect, but i think you heard it earlier too. more emphasis for local business enterprise contracting is something that we encourage, a theme of what we would like to see that is one of them. more emphasis on local business contributing which is something that can be done in california and shg something that we would like to see. >> any other questions? i just would like to make a comment director quinn. when you were making your statement you said

about how we live in a bubble here because we have different organizations like renaissance and la cocina, womens' initiative, and i just want to say sba and san francisco is a big part of that and since you have been a director you give us the support for that whether it be in small business week. sba's partnership with the city and county of san francisco, with the state of california i think make your district like the eny of the country and i want to thank you for everything that you do and you guys do an awesome job whether it's in your classes, government contracts, loans. i mean you guys are always out there on every level and i want to thank you for that. >> thank you want i appreciate that. i have to say i have the best job in the federal government that doesn't have access to air force one and

that is to work for small business in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. okay. should we have public comment on the financing section? seeing none public comment is closed. next item. >> commissioners that places you on item c growing your business, and on that we have under one is administrative services local business enterprises. swriewla jones monitoring division. >> hello commissioners. i am zula jones. i am manager for cmd. i manage the surety bond and finance program as well as the technical outreach program. my colleagues here emily is going to start the

presentation. i can introduce herself or i can do it. >> hi. i manage the certification unit for the local businesses for the city and county of san francisco. i always have handouts for the public as well as the commissioners and the secretaries and everyone. >> while beverly is doing that i want to give a little brief background. in listening to the previous speakers and the questions that was raised i think we got some answers. we are the best city to do procurement with women. we can do better and that's what we're here to talk about. as you maybe aware we have a city ordinance called the local business enterprise ordinance. we developed this program as a result to our challenged program, the 209 challenge to the minority womens' business program known as chapter 12a. we were not able to continue with the race base and gender

base program. however, we are still able to provide for local business and the local business card techs would be minority owned business, women owned business and other business enterprises so those are the three categories by which we are working with and able to assist. now 209 while it became law as part of the constitution here in california, it didn't restrict us from doing technical assistance and outreach as well as tracking businesses. that's -- those two things are very important to women owned business, tracking them and making sure that they have the support and assistance that our city is providing, and getting them to the resources. training and coaching them to and encouraging them to participate

in city contract opportunity. beverly is going to talk about the certification process and give you information how many businesses we have certified. >> [inaudible] -- our local business it's so proposition 20 thien doesn't restrict us from tracking our local businesses in terms if they're women or minority so what what we have here is a local business enterprise program and i had up the certification unit, and we can certify local businesses that are primarily headquartered and based in san francisco. that is one of the major requirements. there are other requirements. it doesn't say "small" in the title but we're a small program because we have thresholds depending on the goods and services that a business may offer to the city. when we certify a company in san francisco they get benefits. they get benefits in terms of a

bid discount and in most contracts for city and county of san francisco if there's local dollars involved there is a mandatory -- they use the word "goal" but it's a mandatory aspect of city contracting that a certain amount of money needs to be gone or set aside to local businesses, so this is where we have different sizes, we have micro-set asides for those companies to do business with the city and county of san francisco. we also have small sizes and the larger size which is the sb's'. we really do this so that we can track and we can assist and help our local businesses in san francisco to compete more effectively on city contracts to be certified at the local business in san francisco you nee not be a resident of san francisco but you do need to have a physical office and staff here if you have staff, so a little bit more about our

businesses in san francisco that we have certified. 21% of our certified firms are wbe's. i put 79 non wbe's. this includes obe's, mbe's and obe's as other business entities and minor businesses as well. out of that pool let's take a look at certified women businesses here by percentages. you are probably wanting to know where are they, so 52% of the women businesses are in professional services. the next largest category is general services and we do have a fair amount in the construction and construction related categories. we also have of course smaller segments in goods, materials and equipment as well as trucking and hauling, so breaking this down in terms of numbers

certified for one of the largest categories for women businesses in san francisco we have the professional services category. there's a lot here. i have actually listed everything out there but the three top ones actually at the bottom. we find a lot of women businesses certified as architects in the architectural world. the second highest would be community relations and third environmental advisory services. there are many other aspects as you can see in professional services, but this is just taking it from the certification data base that we have here. following from that category let's look at general services. the top two would be event planning and meeting for women businesses. they're involved in those type of business enterprises as well as signs, directional and informational production. this really makes sense because most city

contracts and dollars are construction and construction related so if you think back with our architects as well as signs and things like that this really makes sense. the third would be for employment agencies programs and temporary help. if we look at the smaller category of goods, materials and equipment we only have women in these three major areas would be ass suppliers, as promotional gifts as well as telecommunications services. most of the intriers that we have in this category which are about the number of 18 women businesses provide supplies to the city with construction related items that we need on the site to do our public works projects. and now zula will talk a little more about what we do in terms of developing our women as well as other local businesses with our new pilot program that we just launched.

it's called our business development program for local businesses. this is in addition to the local workshops that we provide monthly and with certification, how to do business in city of san francisco, to gaffigate through the maze that we see and provide assure itd bond program once a month. >> we have been noticing a decline in women owned business and public commercial contracting and that's what we do. we identify these businesses. now these businesses are a little different than the business you heard about earlier. these businesses are the one who bringing work force availability to our city providing us with tax base monies to have in the

local communities and serving and volunteering in the schools and communities and turning the profit back to the community they're they're an asset as well as the other business and women business are considered when compare toght the other business you heard the larger business you but we notice there is a steady decline in these business and there are variable factors that affect why this is going on. lack of access to working capital. lack of access to public decision makers, knowing how to maneuver through the complexity of public works contracting procurement systems. there are 61 departments and sometimes they're all awarding authorities of the city meaning

that they let out -- they solicit service or goods from vendors and we notice that back in i guess 19-- i mean 2009 we had 500 women businesses certified in various categories. today we have 310. so while we are a population, the growing population, the largest in the city, women. women business are doing really good with sba receiving loans, working capital, et cetera, but when it comes to commercial government business they're on a severe fast pace i would say down slope. we are concerned about that so while we're restricted by 209 to limit to local business we felt it was important for us to launch this business focusing and gearing

the program to women, and this would be a pilot program. it would run for 12 months. it would be two hours long. we will provide them with information how to respond to solicitation. how to take city resources such as the small business resources, utilize them for their businesses. how to understand chapter 14b, the tools that are there for their use, and how to network. how to take their social network to a another level and develop a niche with that development and understand who the decision makers are and department managers and other line staff and get ton the

problem of that department. learn that department so when you're in these public arenas, these mixers and events that we have you can have a conversation that may attract the attention of that department because women often shy away when in these groups if they don't really know a person. they tend to focus on dealing with other women and we want them to move their network from that keeping that relationship with women but move it further to the experts, to the bankers, to the venture capitalists. we want them to include all of that as part of their business and also so they can grow their capacity and hire more people and employ citizens of our city, so some of the recommendations that we like to make for these commission status of women. we want you to

continue to watch what we do at cmb, watch what we track, request reports from us on women and the status of their businesses. this is what we do. we want small business to help us in making sure that when we have all this opportunity this city is abundant with opportunity yet we're not always able to receive that for these businesses because one, no funding. two, private development. we can have an agreement but there is no real participation after that, so help us with this, and make recommendation and direct us to do a better job. you can help us with the departments. they

shy away from this and use the tools that are there and the micro set aside program was talked about and it can help businesses that are women, small and local business to have an opportunity with the city. it's not often used. i have been watching the city opportunity list and within five days i saw five projects under $50,000. should have been set aside. was not but it was public advertised and then they used key words like "mandatory [inaudible] meeting." now that's a barrier for some of our business and when you go you don't make money. you spend money showing up cost you money, so we need to watch those unnecessary barriers and we need your help in helping us to monitor this program and so we can do better with women

business and don't leave the city and continue to support your economy. women are just not trying to be a male only business. they're there. they're in business because of personal challenges. they want to work and take care of their families and all they're asking us is help to level the playing field. if we can do that in this government i think we achieve the quite a bit and we can grow new entrepreneurs and become the city that we know we are. are there any questions? >> any commissioner questions? >> yes. first of all thank you for the presentation. very, very informative. one question i had was when you saw the decline in the number of women owned businesses from 500 something down to 200 something did you look to see if there was a corresponding keduction in

the overall numbers of small businesses or local businesses, a corresponding reduction of the numbers regardless of the distribution of that make up? was there a corresponding decrease? >> there was a decrease in the overall numbers but it was greatly steeper for our women business enterprises who were certified. we can really attribute this to some of the things that zula just mentioned. we have a micro set aside program where we try to have -- it's i project set aside for a small size company so that they can handle it on their own. there is a lot as you can imagine as commissioners, there are rule exercise regulations in the government and it's complicated. >> >> this program is not for start up companies. it's for companies that have been in business but they want to do business with the city and county and we assist them in

that way but we find a lot of businesses have difficulty really learning and navigating through the culture, through the ropes and happening what people say is the bureaucracy of the government. working with the puc is different from dpw or the port and port of the city thinks it's one entitiy and one computer system so that is part of the program that we're going to v it's a 12 month program and will meet throughout the city so they make decision makers and staff in different departments and how specifically do i do business with the city and county of san francisco as well as park and rec. how do i do business with the port? and understand the

intricacies as city and county of san francisco and government programs can offer our local businesses to show them how do we do this with the aspect of knowing that women businesses need to be nurtured, identified and they communicate differently and this is what we want to. do we want to provide the forum, the environment where the women can work together over the course of a year to grow and understand and thrive and perhaps get a different insight to opportunities. we don't guarantee any contracts. we guarantee a lot of great information. >> any other? >> i want to add to that question. we did see an increase in the category called other business enterprises. we saw a major increase in certification of those businesses, and it's a good thing. i think -- about 1110

of the businesses and 310 of women owned business so it's kind of lopsided. >> the reason i brought it up is because i've gone through the position of trying to do business with the government as a small business. in fact i worked with beverly to get registered as a lb but 80% through my first contract and just in terms of feedback it's definitely without giving specific arguments to support the statement i am sure there are specific issues that will support getting women into the program that is unique to womens' opportunities and the ability to participate in the opportunities but i would also say there is probably a fair dfg overlap if you say "hey how do we make the business environment better for all small

businesses?" you will find an up tick because i could give a fair amount of feedback on how really tough it is, and it is extremely tough, but you know what? it's a tough pill to have to say but it happens to be the truth. there just isn't anything in life whether in the private or the public sector. it's the guy or woman that has the burning ambition and desire and will work sometimes 24 hours a day to do it just like you mentioned going to the meet and greet sessions. they're take place in the evening. you're exhausted. i have done t i am floord and i want to sit down but i have to take the opportunity to learn something so we need to keep it in realistic perspective we can't make everyone a successful entrepreneur because 90% of them just don't have it, and the jury is still out on me personally

and we will see how it goes and it's just a fact of life and i think if you spend some of the time concentrating -- well, how do we get the overall success rate and up tick in small businesses you will find that will help and the women section as well and that's the comment i make. >> commissioner, i agree with you. it's not our intent to ignore our other business. it's tough to do business with this complex city, yet there are great opportunities out there and we have not going to participate in them then we're going to be left out. we're the ones here -- local business are here on in city in good times and in bad times. we're stakeholders. we're not leaving san francisco. we pay the tax base. we support our community. we buy in our stores, and i think it's our obligation to take a portion of the contracts, and that's what we want. yes,

we understand working a business is a full time responsibility. it's very tough. you're isolated. it's difficult to express your needs whether it's insurance problems, bonding, capital, employees problem, but that's what we're here for. cmd is here to hear your program and develop programs to help you and we're not going to give up and i know you're not either. i am looking on the positive side. there is so much opportunity. we have the right ingredients. what we have what mr. quinn said, a small business and a commission on status of women and a contract monitoring division and a contract administrator who believes in your business, so i think with that if we all start working together this is our time. i think it has come and we should

cease it and cease it with happiness and enthusiasm. >> commissioner rodriquez. >> my very quick question is just we have this great data for the percents by service categories of the wbe's. does the obe and the other one mirror that? >> no. i would say that the obe's take up almost half of the 1110 businesses. >> right. but what i am wondering is what do they provide -- do they provide services in and mirror the 52% professional -- >> yes. >> 25 general. >> exactly. >> so that mirrors the city -- 14% is contracts -- construction sorry. i am just trying to understand what they're getting contracts for too.