Outreach:

The Civil Rights Program is a concerted effort on behalf of the Sponsoring Agencies for the Project to match skills with the prime firms. For the last 8 years, staff members have been active, holding outreaches or representing the Project's opportunities in Disadvantaged/ Minority Business Enterprise Business Events throughout the area, totaling close to 300 individual events. The Civil Rights personnel have been very active in making DBE firms aware of the contract opportunities available to them on the WWB Project. This has occurred through meetings with individual businesses, in the local community and through both national and local minority contractor associations. As the project has moved forward to completion, contract opportunities in Maryland have decreased, except in cases where existing contractors/subcontractors are not able to complete their work or if unforeseen work items are required.

On both Maryland and Virginia Contracts, opportunity bulletins and notices are sent and follow-up telephone calls made to DBEs prior to a contract's pre-bid meetings, contract mandatory and non-mandatory showings and other outreach and networking opportunities associated with these contracts. The focus of outreach has been to encourage the DBEs to attend the contract specific meetings and market their firms to prospective prime contractors. Placement of advertisements in local targeted market print media (newspapers) and radio spots have been part of the outreach. We have used mailing lists of community associations, churches and informed elected officials in the area when a function is going to take place. Information is also posted on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge website.

Contract Opportunities:

Each Contract has been assessed for DBE opportunities and a goal established through the Maryland or Virginia contracting process. Each contract has a goal set which requires the prime contractor to subcontract a portion of the work to DBEs.

Status of Contracts in Maryland

Overall Program Goals

The Maryland portion of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project is comprised of 19 separate construction contracts and 5 design/construction management contracts. The construction contracts include bridge/highway construction and environmental mitigation. In total, these contracts have committed $156 million in project funding to DBE firms. Individual DBE goals were established for each contract based on the type of work, as follows:

Current Status

To date, DBE contractors working on Maryland 's Woodrow Wilson Bridge contracts have been paid over $92 million. The Maryland portion of this construction project is approximately 80 % complete.

• Contracts and subcontracts have been awarded to 72 different DBE firms.
• These DBE firms include enterprises owned by women, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans and economically disadvantaged individuals.
• Approximately 80% of participating DBE firms are Maryland firms.

Status of Contracts in Virginia

Virginia has thirteen separate construction contracts for a total of more than $311,000,000. DBE participation is approximately $40 million, or 13% of the total value of the contracts. Additionally, there are two design contracts on Virginia projects for a total of more than $63 million, with more than $5 million of that amount, or 12.7%, being paid to DBEs on the design portion of the Virginia contracts. As of January 2007, approximately $28 million had been paid to 38 DBEs that are currently working or have previously worked on the Project.

A DBE firm, based in Baltimore , Maryland won the first contract in Virginia , resulting in 100% DBE involvement when the goal established by VDOT was 1-2%. Additionally, the first completed environmental mitigation project at Four Mile Run included a DBE goal of 15%, represented by a landscaping contract of $148, 510.

A contract for the reconstruction of the Telegraph Road Interchange will be advertised in late summer of 2007. This last major contract phase is valued at approximately $200 million dollars and will include a DBE participation goal which has not been finalized. The advertisement for this project will be posted in another section of the Project website and will include a finalized DBE participation goal.

Business Development:

Business development sessions for individual businesses and groups of businesses are held regularly in both the Maryland and Virginia Civil Rights Program Offices. Businesses are briefed on the project and provided assistance in developing their marketing plans to pursue opportunities on the Project. Workshops and training sessions are scheduled periodically to provide support in specific areas of work or with specific business issues. These sessions included a project review, the development of a marketing plan for the business to use for the project, and a range of business support discussions.

From 2000 through 2006, the Maryland and Virginia Civil Rights staff met individually with more than 500 businesses of all types including construction, materials and supplies and a wide range of support services.

Reciprocity:

Virginia and Maryland and the District of Columbia have a reciprocity agreement for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, permitting DBEs of one jurisdiction to participate as DBEs of the other jurisdiction for this project for those firms certified by July 10, 2002.