BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Baltimore natives Myra DeShields and Mia Simmons have experienced the effects of the city’s evolving business climate.

The longtime friends entered the Baltimore-area work force about 15 years ago, gaining experience in the sales industry with the help of an employee placement firm.

Today, DeShields and Simmons operate their own employee consulting business, M3 Minority Recruiting, spurring diversity in the Baltimore business community by placing minorities in engineering, sales and information technology positions throughout the region.

The friends and business partners acknowledge minority-owned businesses have a much better shot at success than they might have had 10 or 15 years ago.

“It’s absolutely easier now,” Simmons said. “The opportunities that exist now did not exist 10 years ago. We’re definitely living in a different time.”

In a recent Greater Baltimore Committee study of 20 metropolitan regions, Baltimore ranked third with 13 percent of firms owned by minorities, behind Washington, D.C., (25.3 percent) and Atlanta (21.6 percent). Those numbers are from 2002, the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Survey.

The GBC began its Bridging the Gap program in 2003 in hopes of building partnerships between minority-owned businesses and other businesses. Since that time, awareness and inclusion of minority-owned firms have improved, GBC President and CEO Donald Fry said.

“I think there has been significant public outreach and public awareness with regard to the role minority- and women-owned business plays in our economy, and the tremendous potential for us to grow in that area,” Fry said. “There’s much more public awareness. [But] there’s still a long way to go ... to maximize and grow the minority business community.”

However, Wayne Frazier Sr., president of the Maryland Washington Minority Contractors Association, a member group that advocates for minority businesses, described the prospects for a new minority firm with one word: frightening.

“There can’t be any baggage about you, and you have to have a product or service that’s in demand, and then be lucky,” he said. “Any firm going out there for the first time will have difficulty.”

DeShields credited Mayor Sheila Dixon’s Office of Minority and Women Owned Business Development, the Small Business Administration and the Baltimore Urban League for opening doors for her, Simmons and others.

“In the end, it comes down to the individual,” Simmons said. “The resources are out there, but you have to be willing to take advantage of what’s presented to you.”

acahall@baltimoreexaminer.com

acannarsa@baltimoreexaminer.com