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Commission on Economic Inclusion

Created in December 2000, the Commission on Economic Inclusion, a program of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, is a broad-based coalition of more than 100 Northeast Ohio employers who are committed to making the region’s diversity a source of economic strength.

Our members, listed below, have a combined workforce of close to 200,000 individuals in Northeast Ohio and more than 575,000 employees throughout the U.S. The Commission serves as a catalyst for advancing economic inclusion in the Northeast Ohio business community. Our key objective is to achieve demonstrated successes that lead to positive, measurable outcomes including:

• Increases in board, senior management, workforce and supplier diversity among our members that include Northeast Ohio public-sector entities, private-sector companies and nonprofit organizations
• Increases in the total revenue, value, size, and number of employees for minority-owned businesses

Learn more about the Commission

E-mail Deborah Bridwell, senior director of inclusion initiatives, or call (216) 592-2345.

News from the Commission

From the January 2012 issue of the Commission's e-newsletter, The Commission Connection:

Horseshoe Casino Cleveland
exceeds diversity construction goals

Jeff Cohen, vice chairman of the Cleveland Cavaliers and a principal in Rock Gaming LLC, is overseeing the construction of the first phase of Horseshoe Casino Cleveland in the Higbee Building. This includes responsibility for construction crews of nearly 700 workers. Thanks to focused efforts by him and his team, the project has met and exceeded its diversity and inclusion goals for both minority business enterprises (MBEs) and female business enterprises (FBEs), which Rock Gaming voluntarily set at 20 percent.

Through November 2011, more than to $80 million in contracts were awarded with 27 percent going to MBEs and 22 percent to FBEs. That translates to about $22 million in MBE contracts and $17.4 million for FBEs. In man hours, MBEs have clocked about 48,000 hours (21 percent) with FBEs accounting for about 9,000 hours (6 percent).

Cohen, a 20-year veteran of overseeing high-end construction projects including offices, homes, and the state-of-the-art Cavaliers player development center, the Cleveland Clinic Courts, talked with The Commission Connection about the success of Horseshoe Casino Cleveland’s construction development diversity inclusion program.

• Commission Connection: What were the key components of the casino’s construction diversity inclusion program that enabled you to exceed your goals?

Jeff Cohen: Owner involvement and sticking with it. All projects start with good intentions. You have to be consistent and maintain constant involvement through the entire project. There’s also accountability and by that I mean holding team members accountable for achieving the project’s goals. We couldn’t accept the notion of “they’re just not out there” when it came to identifying MBEs and WBEs for the project.

We also considered that some contracts may be too large for MBEs, so we went the extra mile to break apart larger contracts into smaller packages. In addition, we encouraged and required partnerships and joint ventures and the creation of mentorships, which provided a learning environment that would help smaller contractors learn what needs to happen for them to become a prime some day.

We’ve had tremendous results and we will continue to set new standards for achievement. Our Diversity Inclusion Task Team continues to meet on a weekly basis to discuss all diversity issues or challenges that come up.

• CC: What messages did you want to convey to Greater Cleveland minority-owned businesses in particular and the community in general?

Cohen: We wanted to give back to the community. Efforts to get casinos approved had failed six times since 1990, so we knew that this time was going to have to be a grassroots effort. We needed to get the message out that this project would serve as a catalyst for future growth and create local jobs for local people. So we wanted to stand by our word and make sure that the workforce represented the communities and state that we’re building in.

• CC: Did you encounter any challenges in finding qualified MBEs to award contracts? If so, what were they and how did you address them?

Cohen: Breaking large contracts into smaller packages was key to matching opportunities with MBEs. For example, instead of one large drywall package, we had six or seven so that they could meet the bid requirements. Smaller contracts did mean that there were more people to manage on the project but there was no risk in terms of timing and staying on schedule.

• CC: You also exceeded your goals for the number of contractors in the subcontractor mentoring classes. What results were achieved?

Cohen: The subcontractor mentoring classes were led by Whiting Turner, the construction manager of the casino project. The focus of this program was for primes to mentor Tier2s so that they could bid as primes in the future. Our project commitment was to mentor 10 companies in each of five classes. The total number of contractors in attendance at all five classes was actually 118. They received help in areas such as how to correctly fill out the paper work, how to obtain bonding and in some instances, help them establish credit with vendors, which could help them when bidding on the next job.

• CC: What progress are you able to report on the youth mentoring program?

Cohen: This program is reaching about 100 students in the 10th through 12th grades at Max Hayes High School and is being conducted by Whiting Turner. It started in October and will end in February. It includes both classroom sessions and visits to the casino job site. We see this as a way to open their eyes to the possibilities of jobs and the variety of jobs in construction.