Interview with Rosalie Nowalk, captioner of city council meetings, about her opinion on the Obama administration’s proposed incentives for investing in women-owned businesses. (Interview conducted March 11, 2009)
Summary: Rosalie Nowalk is of the opinion that the U.S. needs some form of regulations in place in order to diversify the economy. Concerning Obama’s pledge to implement the women-owned business contracting program, she maintains that the qualifications of a company should determine whether or not they receive a contract.
Topic: Should the new administration offer incentives for investing in women-owned businesses?
Category: Citizen ( personal interview)
What is it? A personal interview conducted March 11, 2009.
Support:
Rosalie Nowalk- LNS Captioner.
LNS Captioning- LNS Captioning is a woman-owned business founded by Carol Studenmund. The company was formed in 1993 as an extension of LNS Court Reporting, and is an approved vendor for the U.S. Department of Education’s Described and Captioned Media Program.
Rosalie Nowalk transcribes city council meetings taking place across the country. Through her years of experience transcribing public hearings, she has become familiar with how politics function on a city-level.
Usefulness: When questioned about Obama’s pledge to implement the women-owned business contracting program, Rosalie Nowalk believes that the qualifications of the company should determine whether or not they receive a federal contract. She provides an example of an airplane manufacturing company being hired over a well-trusted company, simply because it’s owned by a woman. If the company turns out to have faulty practices and the plane crashes, then the contracting program would, in effect, be to blame.
On March 10th, 2009, Nowalk was transcribing a City Council meeting for the city of Portland, Oregon. The subject of the hearing was the risks involved in bringing a Major-League Soccer team to Portland. One woman announced the condition that minority- or women-owned businesses must be hired to staff the new stadium if it is to be built. The City of Portland requires that a certain percentage of minorities are employed for any new business. Nowalk claims, “It makes it fair for people, by distributing revenue through equal opportunity for employment.”
Nowalk believes that the social change many women seek starts with funding programs that make sure women are provided the same opportunities as men. The new administration should focus on enacting programs that allow women to develop better self-esteem, access to leadership positions, and in general, more opportunities.
Works Cited:
http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=83489900
Filed under: Citizen Sources, Source Notes Tagged: | Procurement opportunities, Rosalie Nowalk, women-owned businesses
[...] contracts simply because the government needs to fulfill a quota raises the issue that the most qualified company may not receive the [...]
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