At 34, after 13 years working for other people, Howard County native Kurtis Coleman is trying to get his one-man heating and air-conditioning firm, Total Environment, off the ground.

Toni Adams Reese is 11 months into Ms. Answers, her software and consulting business, while Lorinzo Foxworth is trying to parlay his long career as an Army recruiter -- partly in Columbia -- into a personnel training and management firm called Synectics Trainers.

The three minority entrepreneurs were among roughly 40 business people -- from white male-owned and minority-owned firms -- to be involved yesterdayin the county's latest effort to boost minority participation in public contracts.

They attended a half-day seminar at a Columbia hotel called "How To Do Business with Howard County."

"During my campaign, we talked about doing more" with minority businesses, County Executive James N. Robey told the group over breakfast. "This is part of us doing more."

And Howard County government needs to do more, according to county statistics and some critics.

Despite a minority participation goal of 10 percent set 20 years ago by then-County Executive J. Hugh Nichols, the county's average in direct contracts and subcontracted work was 7.9 percent from 1996 through 1998.

It was a 1.4 percent improvement over the previous three years, according to figures supplied by Cecil Bray, the county's Equal Business Opportunity officer. And the county's goal increased to 15 percent participation in July.

But the average is rising, if slowly, and last year 16.1 percent of public work farmed out to subcontractors by larger firms went to minority contract- ors. However, direct contracts to minority firms lagged far behind that, at 5.1 percent.

School officials said the county school system had an 11 percent minority participation in the fiscal year that ended July 1.

Walter Morgan, an African-American and owner of Morgan Management Systems, a Columbia management consulting and research business, helped organize minority contractors to support Robey's Republican rival Dennis R. Schrader in last year's election.

Morgan said he and other local minority business owners knew nothing about yesterday's event until they spoke with a reporter last week.

Bray said the county made every effort, sending out letters to certified minority firms, running ads in local newspapers and distributing fliers through other local governments and at The Mall in Columbia last month.

"It's a good thing they're doing something like this," Morgan said.

However, he added that he thinks the county is lacking an effective overall action plan.

And despite Robey's comments, the accelerated effort to award more county business to minority firms began before the new executive took office in December.

Sylvia Jacobs, the coordinator of what is to become a quarterly event, was hired in June, specifically to help boost Howard's business ties with minority firms.

Instead of annual job fair-style gatherings at which people wander from booth to booth, the workshop is the first in an effort to boost the county's record with quarterly events, Bray said. "Even if we make our goal, I'm not necessarily satisfied with that."

Those who attended yesterday's session had an opportunity to meet Harrison Showell, the county's chief of purchasing, Douglas Pindell, purchasing officer for county schools, and Jo Ann Jackson, Anne Arundel County's equal business opportunity officer.

The business people heard about how to get their firms certified with Howard County and how to get on the county's list of approved vendors.

Several urged Bray not to switch from self-certification, which is basically filling out a form, to the state's more exhaustive system for qualifying minority firms.

Several business people called the state process "invasive" and a "nightmare" that takes six months to complete.

Toni Reese of Ms. Answers was hopeful that the workshop might help boost her new business.

"I think it will be great," she said, explaining that she is on her own after 18 years as an administrative manager for an engineering firm. "I've never seen a better time. The computer field opens so many doors."

Coleman, who began learning his trade as a Hammond High School and vocational-technical student before his 1982 high school graduation, said "credentials aren't a problem."

"It's just finding the work," he said. "I'm getting to know people here."

Pub Date: 3/17/99