Hill-Chandler
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LaTricia Hill-Chandler is on a mission.
In May, Hill-Chandler became IU’s first director of supplier diversity and compliance programs to help increase the purchasing participation of small disadvantaged businesses, as well as adding qualified minority suppliers to the university’s vendor pool. She is headquartered in the Purchasing Department at the Poplars Building in Bloomington.
Hill-Chandler’s first task was to do a data analysis to find out just how much of IU’s total purchases were spent with small, disadvantaged businesses.
“For the 2003 calendar year, it was 4.5 percent, excluding construction, and that’s not good enough. Educating potential vendors on how to get certified, so that they can be considered for university projects, is the first step to increasing that percentage,” she said. To that end, Hill-Chandler recently conducted a half-day certification workshop in Indianapolis, where the attendees were given packets of information, walked through the certification process and had the opportunity to network with state and city officials, and other small disadvantaged business owners from throughout the state.
When she attended the National Association for Educational Buyers (NAEB) Supplier Diversity Institute in Chicago last month, Hill-Chandler discovered that IU is way ahead of its peer universities when it comes to aggressively trying to expand diversity in it vendor pool.
“No other university had someone in a position comparable to mine. They were very interested in my recruitment materials and how we are approaching the challenge. Clearly, we are a model for other universities,” said Hill-Chandler.
Hill-Chandler worked in purchasing at Cummins Inc. for nine years before coming to IU, first in her native Memphis, Tenn., and most recently at corporate headquarters in the Hoosier city of Columbus. She said her transition to working at IU has been very smooth. “The university atmosphere is great. I am constantly amazed at the friendliness of my colleagues and the staff at other campuses. To be honest, you do lose some of that in corporate America.”
Providing supplier diversity support to all eight IU campuses keeps Hill-Chandler on the move, but she loves it. “Purchasing is my background, but diversity is my passion,” she said with a smile.
For more information about IU’s Supplier Diversity Program, go to:
http://www.indiana.edu/~purchase/sdp2.shtml
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