COLUMBUS (WCMH) – A sellout crowd was on hand as state transportation officials explained to minority and women-owned small businesses how simplifying the process to bid on state projects could open the door to them.

Minority small business owners say bidding and working on Ohio Department of Transportation’s projects can be a daunting process. But ODOT Director Jerry Wray said they have a whole division of employees working to ease the way and help for small businesses that are disadvantaged.

The keynote speaker for day one of the two-day ODOT Civil Right Symposium was Martin Luther King III.

“From my perspective, the goal is always [to] have every community as part of the state because we all pay taxes, to a least be in an inclusive scenario from a business perspective, so I think this is phenomenal,” King said. He spoke to a crowd of nearly 1,000 people, referring often to his father, about how the role transportation has played in the civil and human rights movement and nonviolent social change.

Wray said ODOT is a big organization and threatening too many small businesses; this initiative plans to help coach companies how to work through the process.

“We are trying to mine for and find people who can do the work who maybe don’t realize they can or think they are too small,” Wray said.

Jeanna Hondel works for Dynotec, Inc., one of the small minority-owned businesses in attendance. She said Dynotec worked hard over the last year to win state work.

Some of the projects have minority participation now, which helps.

“What really helps in this instance is having a director who sees the potential in minority companies and not just in the terms, ok we need to have minorities or disadvantaged businesses participating, but no they actually want to help us grow,” Hondel said.

“We are showing them through networking and workshops they can be a part of working with the State of Ohio,” Wray said.