The South Carolina Airports Coalition, which includes Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP), Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) and Charleston International Airport (CHS), received the Outstanding Business Award Tuesday as a part of the 2016 Upstate Diversity Leadership Awards hosted by the Greenville Chamber of Commerce and the Riley Institute at Furman, in partnership with Upstate Chambers.
The award is given to a business that exhibits leadership in promoting diversity and inclusion internally and serves as an example for others to follow.
“This is the kind of program that can be duplicated by commercial airports around the country and result in having a major impact on how small, minority and women-owned businesses succeed by doing business with airports,” said GSP Airport District President/CEO Dave Edwards.
These four airports joined together to create the Coalition, a first in the nation program to help small, minority, women-owned businesses understand how to work with the airports.
The program, called Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Fly-Ins conducted by each of the airports, invites businesses from across the state to learn about required state and federal certifications, vendor list selections and provides an opportunity to network with airport representatives responsible for buying various goods and services.
Each airport hosts a DBE-Fly-In and is responsible for putting together a specific agenda which includes a presentation by each airport.More than 300 businesses have attended three Fly-ins. Myrtle Beach host the final one in June.