Clark/Post Honored by Washington Board of Trade for small Business Partnership

(Our Team Working, IN THE COMMUNITY)

The Greater Washington Board of Trade recently hosted the Small Business Partnership (SBP) dinner, which marked the start of the second year of building strong business links between emerging small businesses and existing, well-established Board of Trade member firms.

Clark/Hunt/Smoot team member Clark Construction's Alice Patterson, along with AlvinSmith from Punch Out Team (POST), received the Best Alliance Partnership at the dinner. Clark and POST forged a mutually beneficial partnership through the SBD Alliance that helped Clark complete jobs within budget and ahead of schedule, and helped POST expand to a 100% increase in business revenues and hire nine new employees.

The SBD helps Washington-area small businesses grow by offering two programs: the Academy, a Board of Trade member-led classroom training program, and the Alliance, a mentoring program between small businesses and larger Board of Trade members. The SBD serves as the Greater Washington Coalition of BusinessLINC, a national program of Business roundtable aimed at stimulating economic growth in distressed cities and rural areas by fostering business-to-business partnerships.

“The SBD implements a fundamental BusinessLINC strategy: bringing together the skills and knowledge of large companies with the energy of small businesses to help both partners thrive,” said Don D. Graves jr., Small Business Partnership steering Committee Member, Director for Strategic Partnerships at the Business Roundtable, and Executive Director of the BusinessLINC National Coalition. “this year's SBD participants have paved the road for futher successes in the SBD program, which will continue to play a key role in business growth in the Washington growth.”

More than 60 local small business owners, regional nonprofit and business executives attended the dinner, which featured a keynote speech by former Washington Redskin athlete Darrell Green.