At the 2014 Annual Breakthrough Breakfast of the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization (WPEO) at D.C’s .J.W. Marriott Hotel on December 4, 2014, O’Riordan Bethel received the Access Public Sector Award in recognition of its work with the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Minority Business Enterprise.
The WPEO is a national women’s business organization that promotes and fosters the success of women in business enterprises.
The O’Riordan Bethel contract that was recognized with the award involved providing mission support to the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Minority Business Enterprise (DMBE). That office (now part of the Virginia Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity) has the responsibility of helping the Commonwealth’s Small, Women-owned and Minority-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses compete effectively in the Commonwealth and the national marketplace.
The O’Riordan Bethel firm was able to successfully provide outreach, monitoring and evaluation to highlight the government resources available to current and potential constituencies and stakeholders, such as companies owned by women, minorities and veterans, and to identify and communicate best practices for leveraging resources to build a long-term growth strategy. The firm acted as a subcontractor to Washington Consulting Corporation. Both WCC and O’Riordan Bethel are longstanding members and supporters of WPEO-DC.
Partner Carol O’Riordan led the efforts of the firm. Ms. O’Riordan developed subject selection protocol and anecdotal history interview forms for the project, supervised and managed data collection, managed the writing effort following all interviews, and wrote the final texts. She also interfaced with the project owner to ensure that the final deliverable incorporated all final owner concepts and stakeholder input. She developed a simple and direct plan for outreach to minority- and women-owned businesses for the Access to Opportunity Conference that met the state agency’s goal for broadly-disseminated, narrowly-targeted communications and stayed within the agency’s budget.
“I am delighted to have received this award,” Ms. O’Riordan said. “This award serves to highlight the successes available through creative approaches to economic development. I am proud of our firm’s involvement in this area.”
The O’Riordan Bethel law firm is itself certified as a woman-owned business enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), an affiliate of the WPEO-DC. WPEO-DC’s President and Executive Director selected Ms. O’Riordan for the WPEO-DC President’s Award, which recognized her outstanding contribution to WPEO-DC throughout the year. More information about the WPEO-DC is available here.
