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Trend Watch: The Biggest Energy Customers Aren’t Waiting for the Grid Anymore

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Why the private energy buildout is creating a supplier opportunity that everyone else is missing.

This is the first in a three-part Trend Watch series on what’s actually changing in energy, beyond the daily headlines about policy fights and AI demand. The argument across these three pieces: the energy economy is being rebuilt from the ground up. I believe the supplier opportunity is bigger than anyone is talking about.

What Changed?

In September 2024, Microsoft signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to restart Unit 1 of Three Mile Island. Yes, that Three Mile Island. The plant had been shut down since 2019, mothballed after it couldn’t compete with cheaper natural gas. Now, Constellation will spend $1.6 billion to bring it back online, targeting 2028. The facility has been renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. Every megawatt it generates, all 835 of them, will go to one company – Microsoft.

This is not how the energy business is supposed to work.

For roughly a century, the model was simple. Utilities built power plants. Customers, including very large ones, bought electricity from those utilities at regulated rates. Even the biggest industrial users were, fundamentally, retail buyers. They negotiated terms. They didn’t commission their own reactors.

But that model is breaking. In any other timeline, the Microsoft deal would be considered an outlier. It’s quietly becoming the new template.

In 2025, Amazon Web Services signed a 17-year agreement with Talen Energy to take 1.92 gigawatts directly from the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Google signed a fleet agreement with Kairos Power to deploy small modular reactors by 2030, alongside separate geothermal deals with Fervo Energy. Amazon has invested $500 million in small modular reactor development of its own. Meta signed a 20-year deal with Constellation for the entire output of the Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois — 1.1 gigawatts beginning in June 2027. And Meta has also disclosed an even larger 6.6 gigawatt nuclear procurement strategy to support its “Prometheus” AI data center project. For context, that’s more electricity than the peak demand of the city of Chicago. Going to one company. For one project.

Stack those announcements together and you can see the pattern. The largest power consumers in the country are no longer waiting for utilities to build what they need. They’re commissioning their own infrastructure, signing private agreements with generators, and in some cases buying entire plants. They’re exiting the consumer side of the utility model and building their own energy fiefdoms instead.

That shift is the single most important thing happening in American energy right now. And almost no one is framing it that way.

Why Does It Matter?

Most of the mainstream energy conversation is, understandably, still focused on supply and demand. How much power will the grid need? Where will it come from? Can renewables scale fast enough? Will gas plants get permitted? Those questions matter. They’re also a generation behind the actual story.

The actual story is more profound, with much bigger implications for all of us. So, what happens when the biggest customers stop relying on the utility companies? Three things.

First, the financing model changes. A traditional utility raises capital based on regulated returns and recovers costs through rate base over decades. A hyperscaler buying a nuclear plant is doing a different kind of math. They have the balance sheet to underwrite the entire project against their own consumption. That makes some projects pencil out that wouldn’t have otherwise. It also concentrates risk in a way the system hasn’t ever had to plan for.

Second, the procurement model changes. When Microsoft signs a 20-year power purchase agreement, they’re not just buying electrons. They’re buying all the infrastructure and any new capacity. They also have a direct stake in site selection, permitting timelines, construction quality, fuel logistics, cybersecurity, and the ongoing operations. Decisions that used to live inside a regulated utility, that were invisible to most, now live inside a procurement function at a tech company. This is the upside, the potential payout, for companies nimble enough and in-the-know. Those procurement teams are sourcing differently, and they’re sourcing fast.

Third, the supplier model changes. This is the part that matters most for OMSDC’s community. And it’s the part the trade press has barely started to cover. A century-old utility has an established supplier bench. They’ve worked with the same engineering firms, the same EPC contractors, the same equipment vendors, for decades. It’s difficult for someone new to get a toe in the door. But when a tech company decides to build its own energy infrastructure, that bench doesn’t transfer automatically. The supplier ecosystem has to be rebuilt for a new kind of customer, with new requirements, on a new (faster) timeline.

That’s the opening. That’s your foot in the door.

The Supplier Ecosystem Most People Haven’t Mapped

When a hyperscaler commits to a multi-billion-dollar energy project, they need more than a generator. They’re doing an entire buildout. Each layer of that buildout is a supplier opportunity, and most of them are categories where our minority-owned businesses already have real capability.

Site selection and acquisition. Permitting and regulatory work. Civil and structural construction. Heavy electrical contracting at industrial scale. Mechanical, HVAC, and cooling systems. Controls and automation. Fuel and logistics for backup and bridging power. Cybersecurity for operational technology (which is a different discipline from IT security). Workforce. Ongoing operations and maintenance. Site security. Environmental compliance. Communications infrastructure.

Each of these is a category. Each category is hiring. And because the projects are moving faster than typical utility timelines, the supplier benches are forming right now. Not in 2030.

There’s a simple test for whether a market is still open. Ask whether the major buyers have settled on their preferred suppliers yet. For hyperscaler energy projects, the answer is likely, mostly no. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google are all building these supplier relationships in real time, right now. The companies that get in the door now are establishing track records that will matter for the next 20 years of buildout. OMSDC and NMSDC need to be at the forefront of helping to knock on those doors.

Because the companies that wait until the RFPs are published are likely to be competing for second-tier work after the primary benches are locked in.

Why This Is Happening Now

It’s worth understanding why this shift is occurring, because the explanation tells you whether this is a moment or a movement.

The short answer is that the utility model simply cannot deliver what the largest customers need on the timelines they require. Not anymore. Especially with our ageing infrastructure and lack of investment in that infrastructure.

A new transmission line in the United States takes 10 to 15 years to permit and build. Connecting a new data center to the grid in many markets takes three to seven years. The largest hyperscalers are planning capacity expansions on 18 to 36 month cycles, driven by AI training and inference demand that didn’t even exist five years ago. Waiting for the grid to catch up is not an option. The perceived economics of being late to AI are orders of magnitude larger than the cost of building your own power.

Add to that the carbon commitments these companies have made. Microsoft has pledged to be carbon negative by 2030. Google and Amazon have similar targets. Buying generic grid power, which still includes substantial fossil generation in most regions, doesn’t get them to those goals. Signing direct deals for nuclear, geothermal, or behind-the-meter renewable generation does. While the current Administration has been anti-Green, the carbon commitment is still a policy lever. The infrastructure deal is how these companies can execute on their commitment.

Finally, regulatory uncertainty is pushing in the same direction. With the current federal posture pulling back on parts of the clean energy agenda, hyperscalers cannot count on policy to deliver the energy mix they’ve committed to. So they’re building it themselves.

None of these forces are temporary. The economics of AI compute, the carbon commitments, and the regulatory volatility are all multi-decade phenomena. This is a movement, not a moment.

What Should You Do?

For smaller MBEs:

If your business touches any part of the energy buildout, even tangentially, this is the year to position. That includes electrical contracting, HVAC and mechanical work, civil construction, trucking and fuel logistics, security services, environmental consulting, IT and OT cybersecurity, facilities maintenance, and specialty trades. Get your certifications current. Get your capability statement specific to the energy and data center sector, even if most of your work has been in other industries.

The biggest mistake here would be assuming you need to be an “energy company” to participate. You don’t. The hyperscalers are buying the same services any large industrial project would need, from suppliers who can deliver on infrastructure timelines.

For larger MBEs:

Map your capabilities against the supplier categories above and identify where you can compete for primary work, where you can compete as a tier-two partner under a larger prime, and where teaming with another MBE would expand your range. The pursuit pod model from our recent Growth Under Pressure white paper applies directly here. A single MBE may not have the breadth to bid a full energy project. Three MBEs together often can.

Also begin the conversations with hyperscaler procurement teams now, before the formal RFP process opens. These companies are sourcing relationally as well as transactionally. The firms that are known, that have shown up, that have documented their capabilities and references in the right way, will be the firms that get called.

For corporate members:

If you operate in or around the energy, manufacturing, or technology sectors, your supplier base is about to be tested by buildout demand you may not have forecast. The same shortage of qualified labor and qualified suppliers that’s driving hyperscaler decisions is going to affect every adjacent industry. Now is the time to expand your supplier bench, not after the constraint becomes a crisis.

For procurement teams specifically: the suppliers who serve hyperscaler projects effectively will become the most sought-after firms in the country over the next decade. Being in those relationships early is a competitive advantage. Being in those relationships through OMSDC’s network is a way to find capable firms before they’re booked.

The Takeaway

For most of the last century, the question of who supplied energy was answered by who held the utility franchise. That question is being reopened. The largest customers in the country have decided they can no longer wait for the grid to deliver what they need, when they need it, in the form they need it.

That decision creates a new energy economy with new buyers, new contracts, and new supplier relationships forming in real time. The companies that recognize what’s happening will help build it. The companies that don’t will read about it in five years and wonder how they missed the opening.

Next month, we’ll cover the constraint that’s becoming a bigger problem than the power itself, and the supplier opportunity hiding inside it.

Until then, the question to sit with is simple. If the biggest energy customers in the country are no longer waiting for the grid, what are you waiting for?

OMSDC Launches AI Learning Hub to Help Members Build Practical AI Skills

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AI is moving quickly. For many business leaders, that’s both the opportunity and the anxiety. A webinar can introduce the topic. A workshop can help people try the tools. But real learning usually happens later, when someone sits down to apply the ideas to an actual proposal, a real sales meeting, a competitor they’re losing to, or a decision that can’t wait. That’s why OMSDC has launched the OMSDC AI Learning Hub, a free, self-paced online learning platform for OMSDC-certified MBEs and corporate partners.

The Hub is designed to give members and partners a place to keep learning between sessions. It turns OMSDC’s AI webinar and workshop content into interactive guidebooks that users can read, search, revisit, and apply on their own time, at their own pace. The goal is practical skill-building. Not AI theory for its own sake. And not a one-time presentation that disappears when the meeting ends. The Learning Hub is built to help business leaders use AI in the work they’re already doing: proposals, sales preparation, market research, meeting workflows, marketing, operations, and business strategy.

The Hub currently includes two guidebooks: AI Fundamentals and Competitor Analysis.

The AI Fundamentals guide helps users understand what today’s AI tools are, where they can create real leverage, and where caution is still needed. It gives members a stronger foundation for using AI without treating it as magic, surrendering their judgment, or dismissing the real risks.

The Competitor Analysis guide gives users a practical workflow for researching competitors, identifying positioning gaps, preparing for sales conversations, and strengthening strategy. It includes frameworks, prompt templates, exercises, and examples that can be adapted to different industries and business models.

Both guides are designed to be useful after the session ends.

Users can move through the material at their own pace. They can revisit sections when they need a specific framework, search for a particular prompt, or save their progress and pick up where they left off. That matters because most business leaders don’t need more abstract AI content. They need tools they can use when the work is in front of them.

For MBEs, that may mean preparing for a buyer meeting, sharpening a capability statement, researching a new market, improving a proposal, or finding a better way to explain value. For corporate partners, it may mean understanding how AI is changing supplier readiness, internal workflows, market research, communication, and decision support. For both audiences, the larger point is the same: AI skills are becoming business skills.

As OMSDC continues building its AI learning series, the Learning Hub will grow with it—new guidebooks, workflows, session materials, and practical resources added over time. The Hub is best used as a companion to OMSDC’s seminars and workshops. Live sessions create the shared learning experience. The Hub gives members and partners a place to keep applying the material afterward.

OMSDC is also developing an AI 101 course, which will be a self-paced video that users can watch on their own schedule. The course will give members and partners another entry point into the material, especially for those who are newer to AI or want a firmer footing before diving into more advanced sessions. The purpose isn’t to chase every new tool or trend. The purpose is to help OMSDC members and partners build practical AI confidence, one workflow at a time.

AI won’t replace business fundamentals. Companies still need strong relationships, clear value propositions, reliable operations, sound judgment, and the ability to deliver. But AI can help teams move faster, prepare better, communicate more clearly, and compete with more confidence. That’s the role of the OMSDC AI Learning Hub. It gives members and partners a place to learn, return, practice, and build skills they can put to work.

Explore the OMSDC AI Learning Hub

How to Access Ohio’s MBE Capital Programs

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Ohio has assembled one of the more sophisticated capital systems in the country for minority- and women-owned businesses — low-cost state loans, a collateral bridge program, technical assistance, and a procurement set-aside. The money and programs are real. But none of it is automatic.

What follows is a practical roadmap: who qualifies, which program fits which need, what you’ll need to have ready, and exactly where to go.

Start at Step 1 and work forward. If you’re already OMSDC MBE certified and have a specific project in mind, jump to Step 2.
Have questions? Visiting minority.ohio.gov is a great place to start.

The following is presented for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or legal advice. Program details, eligibility requirements, and funding availability are subject to change. Neither the Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council (OMSDC), the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), nor their affiliates make any representation regarding the accuracy of third-party program information or accept responsibility for outcomes related to any application for state or other funding.

STEP 1  Get (or Confirm) Your Certification

Every Ohio state MBE capital program requires active certification. Without it, you can’t access the loan programs, the collateral enhancement tool, or the 15% procurement set-aside.

Here’s the good news: National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) MBE certification, which OMSDC supports as an affiliate council, satisfies Ohio’s state certification requirement. That’s a meaningful advantage, because NMSDC runs one of the most rigorous certification processes in the country. If you hold an active NMSDC MBE certificate, you’re already in.

What certification gets you: Access to the Ohio Minority Business Direct Loan Program, the Women’s Business Enterprise Loan Program (for WBEs), the Collateral Enhancement Program, and eligibility to bid on state contracts under Ohio’s 15% MBE set-aside.

Basic eligibility requirements: At least 51% ownership and day-to-day control by a qualifying minority or woman owner. At least one year in business. The primary owner must be an Ohio resident. Principal business operations must be located in Ohio.

Not yet certified? Visit omsdc.org/certification to learn about the process, email certification@ohiomsdc.org with questions, or reach out directly to Shcarra Benn at sbenn@ohiomsdc.org. Certification typically takes a few weeks once your documentation is complete.

STEP 2  Match Your Need to the Right Program

Ohio’s programs aren’t interchangeable. Each one is designed for a specific financing need. Use this as a quick-reference guide. If you’re not sure which fits, the Minority Business Assistance Center (MBAC) in your region can help you decide. Contact information for various MBAC offices is at the end of this article.

Ohio Minority Business Direct Loan Program  —  For certified MBEs

Best for: Purchasing owner-occupied commercial real estate, land, leasehold improvements, building renovations, heavy highway equipment, machinery
Loan size: $45,000 – $100,000
Structure: Covers up to 75% of total project cost (you bring the rest (10% from borrower ,15% from borrower or third-party lender))
Who qualifies: NMSDC-certified MBEs with a specific fixed-asset project
Key detail: You’ll need to have been in business at least 3 years and have 3 years business tax returns

Women’s Business Enterprise Loan Program  —  For certified WBEs

Best for: Purchasing owner-occupied commercial real estate, land, leasehold improvements, building renovations, heavy highway equipment, machinery, refinancing high interest business debt
Loan size: $45,000 – $500,000
Rate: Fixed, 3% (below market)
Terms: Up to 10 years (equipment/machinery) or 15 years (owner-occupied real estate)
Who qualifies: NMSDC-certified WBEs with an eligible capital project

Collateral Enhancement Program 2.0  —  For small businesses with less than 250 employees, a lender and a collateral shortfall

Best for: Businesses whose cash flow supports a loan but whose collateral falls short
How it works: The state deposits cash into a pledged account at your bank or credit union, improving collateral coverage and enabling the lender to approve the deal
Who qualifies: Certified MBEs/WBEs working with a participating bank or credit union
Key detail: You need an existing lender relationship — this program strengthens a deal already in progress, it doesn’t originate one

JobsOhio Small Business Grant  —  For qualifying growth-stage businesses

Best for: Expansion costs — real estate, machinery, equipment, or training
Grant size: Up to $50,000 (reimbursement-based, not an advance)
Revenue requirement: $100,000 – $25 million annually
Operating history: At least one year
Industry requirement: Must operate in one of JobsOhio’s 10 target industries
Ineligible: Retail, residential/multi-family, entertainment, population-driven businesses
Annual pool: $8 million statewide — apply early in the fiscal cycle
Performance: Three-year tracking of jobs, payroll, and investment commitments

STEP 3  Get Your Documents in Order

Every program will ask for documentation. The businesses that move fastest through the process are the ones that have this material ready before they apply.

Business financials

  • Three years of business tax returns
  • Most recent year-to-date profit and loss statement
  • Current balance sheet
  • Business bank statements (typically 3–6 months)

Project documentation

  • A clear description of what you’re financing and why
  • Cost estimates or contractor bids (for construction or renovation)
  • Equipment quotes or purchase agreements (for machinery/equipment loans)
  • Real estate appraisal or purchase agreement (for property loans)
  • A basic business plan or project narrative explaining the investment and expected outcome

Ownership and certification documentation

  • Active NMSDC MBE certificate issued through OMSDC
  • Business formation documents (articles of incorporation, operating agreement, etc.)
  • Personal financial statement for each owner with 20%+ ownership
  • Government-issued ID

Your regional MBAC advisor can review your package before you submit — and that review is worth doing. An incomplete or under-documented application is the most common reason deals stall.

STEP 4  Don’t Overlook the Procurement Side

Ohio’s capital programs and its procurement set-aside are two parts of the same ecosystem. The state reserves 15% of eligible contract spending for certified MBEs. That means your NMSDC certification also opens the door to public contracts, not just financing.

If you’re not yet bidding on Ohio state contracts, it’s worth asking your MBAC advisor to walk you through the process. The combination of capital access and procurement access is where the real compounding value of certification lives.

Where to start with procurement: Ohio’s procurement portal is at procure.ohio.gov. Your MBAC advisor can help you register as a vendor, identify relevant contract opportunities, and prepare a competitive bid.

STEP 5  Apply, Then Follow Through

Once your documents are assembled, you’re ready to apply. A few things to keep in mind:

  • Apply early in the fiscal cycle. The JobsOhio Small Business Grant pool is capped at $8 million annually statewide. State loan programs also operate on approval cycles through the Minority Development Financing Advisory Board, which meets monthly. Timing matters.
  • Be specific about your project. Vague applications don’t get approved. Reviewers want to see what you’re buying, what it costs, how it connects to your business growth, and what you’re contributing beyond the state’s share.
  • Understand the reimbursement structure. The JobsOhio grant is reimbursement-based, meaning you’ll spend first and get paid back. Make sure you have the liquidity to front the cost before you apply.
  • Know your performance commitments. Grant and loan approvals come with benchmarks — jobs, payroll, investment levels — tracked over a multi-year window. Understand what you’re committing to before you sign.

Key Resources & Contacts

NMSDC Certification Proccess:  ohiomsdc.org/certification-process/

Certification questions:  mailto:certification@ohiomsdc.org

Contact Shcarra Benn directly:  mailto:sbenn@ohiomsdc.org

Ohio Dept. of Development — Minority Business Development Division:  development.ohio.gov or minority.ohio.gov

JobsOhio Small Business Grant:  jobsohio.com/incentives-programs/support-for-small-businesses

Ohio Procurement Portal:  procure.ohio.gov

Find Your Regional MBAC:  Contact the Ohio Dept. of Development or visit JobsOhio’s small-business support page for advisors in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Athens, and other markets

OMSDC:  ohiomsdc.org — your OMSDC advisor can also help connect you with the right state contacts

Program terms, loan caps, and eligibility requirements are subject to change. Confirm current details with the Ohio Department of Development or your regional MBAC before applying.

He Didn’t Know Fuel. He Knew Business. How Stephen Hightower Built a National Energy Supplier on One Skill Set.

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Stephen Hightower didn’t set out to build a petroleum company. If you’d met him in 1980, you wouldn’t have guessed where he was headed. Nobody would have. That’s part of the story.

In 1981, the state of Ohio set aside its fuel purchasing for a diverse supplier. BP had held the account for 32 years. They folded their arms and waited, confident that no minority-owned company in the petroleum business could take it from them. They were right that there weren’t any. They were wrong that it mattered. They were wrong, because Stephen Hightower wasn’t even on their radar. And he couldn’t have been. To understand why, you have to know where Hightower has been.

Hightower had bought his father’s janitorial business, grown it, and sold it to a company in Cleveland. He moved into industrial materials. Then Ford Motor Company brought him on as a commodity supply chain manager, working power tools. He was in three different industries before he ever touched fuel. But in every one of them, he was doing the same thing: learning how supply chains move, how transactions close, and how to find the person on the other side of the deal who’s hungry for the work.

So, when Ohio posted that fuel contract and everyone assumed no minority-owned firm could deliver, Hightower didn’t try to become a petroleum company overnight. He found Don Lykins, a regional supplier who’d been sitting behind BP for years and wanted the contract badly. Hightower handled the transaction. Lykins handled the fuel. The state got a new supplier. And BP learned that the barrier they were counting on had a door in it.

That pattern is the entire story of Hightowers Petroleum Company.

From Deal-Maker to Operator

Three years after winning the state contract, the company that had lost it came back. But not to compete. BP interviewed six or seven Black-owned companies in Cleveland and selected Hightower for support. They backed his PUCO authority and donated five tractor trailers. They were Boron Blue trailers, the most current model at the time. They weren’t new, but they were his.

And that’s when Hightower stopped being a contract broker and became a petroleum company. He changed the name to Hightowers Petroleum Company in 1984 and began hauling jet fuel for BP.

The entire operation was two people. Hightower and his CFO, a man named Saeed who he’d met through a state trade mission to Nigeria. Hightower sponsored his immigration, got him citizenship, and put him to work. “It was me and an accountant,” Hightower says. “That was Hightowers Petroleum Company.”

From that starting point, the company now employs more than 65 people, serves over 200 customers, and operates in every state with corporate offices in Middletown, Ohio and satellite offices in New York, Cincinnati, OH, South Africa, Washington, DC and Rome, Italy. They still have the state of Ohio contract. They’ve had it now for 44 years.

Build Around What Customers Cannot Go Without

Hightower gives the same advice to every entrepreneur who asks. “Find a product that people have to have,” he says. “Not a product that people want to have. And your business will allow you to make money when you’re asleep.”

Fuel is that product. It’s not a commodity in the abstract sense that most people mean when they say the word. It’s a continuity requirement. If fuel stops, things stop. Assembly lines stop. Cell towers go dark. Utilities fail. Emergency response doesn’t happen.

Hightowers Petroleum puts the initial five gallons of gasoline into every car that rolls off a General Motors assembly line. Also Nissan. Also Honda. Also Volvo. Also Mack Trucks. If those five gallons aren’t there, the car doesn’t start, and the line doesn’t move. “You never shut down an assembly line for an automotive,” Hightower says. “That’s your last load.”

When Hurricane Sandy flooded Manhattan with ten feet of water, Hightowers dispatched fuel to every utility crew entering the New York metro area. They managed 21 hotel fueling operations each night. They staged fuel tanks across Manhattan to keep the response running. That emergency work opened a relationship with New York City that continued for years, including fueling their “asylum seeker” campsites before they were dismantled. Diesel for heat. Heating oil for cooking. Air conditioning in the summer. All of it ran on fuel that Hightowers delivered.

AT&T’s cell towers, coast to coast, run on Hightowers fuel. Their service centers are supplied by Hightowers. Their over-the-road fleet uses a Hightowers Petroleum MasterCard for retail fueling, already negotiated at volume discounts. That one client puts the company in virtually every major city in the country.

And when the industry started shifting, Hightower didn’t wait for its turn. He watched the $6 billion in federal EV infrastructure funding move through Congress and launched Hightower EV Solutions before the money landed. Today the company installs EV charging stations and handles the electrical upgrades to support them coast to coast, border to border from California to New York. They provide hydrogen fuel for hydrogen vehicles coming off the same assembly lines where they already supply gasoline. “We don’t reinvent ourselves,” Hightower says. “We follow our customers. When they change how they fuel, our job is to be ready.”

Relationships Before Revenue

In 2008, General Motors called. They needed fuel support at every GM plant in North America, and they needed it in 48 hours. Not one region. Not a handful of facilities. Every plant, coast to coast, within two days.

Hightower knew you cannot build that kind of coverage in two days. It wasn’t realistic. He also couldn’t afford to lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So how do you build national coverage in two days?

In 1979, Hightower first got involved with what is now the Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council. Back then, there were four separate local councils in Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. It became one of the pillars of his success because it gave him a way to build relationships before he needed them.

“People had to know you,” he says. “People had to be willing to take you into their senior procurement offices and say, here’s a good supplier. A lot of people think they’re going to show up at a conference one time and then say, ‘Well, I didn’t get any business, so I’m not going back. It was a waste of my time.’ But the ones that have been successful have been very consistent in going back and making those relationships.”

Hightower didn’t just attend conferences. He invested in the rooms, the trips, and the people. Deep-sea diving. Jumping off cliffs in Brazil. Going to Cuba. Going to Soviet Georgia. He spent years getting known before he could pick up a phone and make it happen!

When GM gave him 48 hours, the network had been in place for almost three decades.

Every dinner. Every conference. Every trip he did not have to take. Even the cliff in Brazil. All of it mattered in those 48 hours.

That GM contract that started in 2008? He still has it to this day!

“That’s how you grow your business,” Hightower says. “Take care of your customer. But you have to have those relationships to be able to scale at will. You can’t wait and start to have those relationships when it’s time to go to work.”

Supplier First

Hightower has a way of cutting through a question before you’ve finished asking it.

“We are a business that happens to be of African American descent. Period.”

It’s not a disclaimer. It’s a competitive position. In an environment where supplier inclusion programs are being questioned and “DEI supplier” has become a phrase some companies use to diminish rather than describe, Hightower doesn’t engage with the framing. He steps outside of it.

“I only answer to being a supplier and an outstanding operator,” he says. “I don’t answer to anything that I’m not. We don’t lose business because we take care of our customers. And if you take care of your customers, they will take care of you.”

For Hightower, it’s less a philosophy. It’s really his 44-year track record talking.

The Legacy Is Already Operating

Stephen Hightower II, COO, is Chief Operating Officer of Hightowers Petroleum. Quincy Hightower runs High-Mark Construction Group as its COO. Jason Hightower is Chief Information Officer; Stephanie Hightower Thomas is Chief Communications Officer. Two grandchildren work in the business, one in accounting, one in operations. His wife, Bernita McCann-Hightower owns Next Generation Fuels.

Stephen Hightower’s role now is working on the business, not in it. His time goes to international work: crude oil transport and refinery relationships in Nigeria, South Africa, and Europe. He’s building the next chapter while the current one runs without him.

He grew the company from zero to $235 million before he received his first commercial bank loan. He wrote a book about it called Fueling from Zero to a Billion, because he believes he has a responsibility not to pull up the ladder behind him, but offer a hand of knowledge and support.

His advice for MBEs comes down to three things. Find a product customers have to have. Get known in your industry. And never forget who pays the bills, the customer.

“Your customer is the boss,” Hightower says. “That’s what pays your employees. That’s what pays for your building. It’s your customers. And that’s how Hightowers Petroleum has been able to do what we’ve done. We take care of our customers first. One customer at a time.”

How Can You Support OMSDC in Growing Ohio’s Economy?

If you’re an Ohio-based, minority-owned business ready to compete for larger contracts, or a buyer building a resilient, local supply base, connect with OMSDC. Start with certification, sourcing introductions, and practical guidance: certification@ohiomsdc.org.

Have a success story you want to share? Email us at marketing@ohiomsdc.org or fill out our story submission form.

When “This Isn’t Scalable” Becomes a Product: How OMSDC Built MatchDesk to Stop Leaving Its Best Connections to Chance

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OMSDC’s curated networking platform started as a frustration, survived a health scare, and became a case study in how mission-driven organizations can build tools that serve their members and sustain their work.

Jamie Van Doren was supposed to help organize and run DealMaker at ConnectingOHIO 2025. He had a plan. It was analog, but it was a start.

On April 30, he had a heart attack. More than one, actually. On May 11, he went under for a triple bypass.

He came back in late June, just in time to help support the event. And what he saw was a team working incredibly hard to do something that shouldn’t have been so difficult. Every curated meeting between a corporate member and an MBE supplier ran through emails, spreadsheets, and the institutional knowledge of one person trying to match 400-plus MBEs to specific corporate needs. The follow-up alone was a full-time job. The matching was well-intentioned but limited by what any single person can hold in their head.

“This isn’t scalable,” Van Doren remembers thinking. “And it isn’t just an efficiency problem. It’s a mission problem. If we can’t connect the right people reliably, we’re leaving our most important value on the table.”

From Pitch to Product

By January 2026, Van Doren had an idea he wanted to test. OMSDC’s Annual Meeting was coming up in March. Open networking is a staple of events like it, but open networking leaves outcomes to chance. The people who need to meet each other often don’t. The introverts hang back. The time runs out. The most valuable conversations happen accidentally or not at all.

Van Doren had experienced a better model years earlier. While fundraising for his first tech startup in 2020 and 2021, he’d used a curated virtual meeting platform that scheduled one-on-one sessions with venture capital firms. The structure worked. Every meeting was intentional. Every slot was used.

He pitched the concept to OMSDC’s leadership: a curated one-on-one networking platform for the Annual Meeting. Attendees would browse a directory, request meetings with specific people, and both parties would opt in before anything was scheduled. The system would then generate a conflict-free schedule automatically. No spreadsheets. No email chains. No collisions.

The team decided to trust him. George Simms, OMSDC’s President and CEO, saw something beyond a scheduling tool. “This is what supplier inclusion looks like when it’s hardwired into the way we operate,” Simms says. “We talk about connecting minority businesses to opportunity. This is infrastructure that makes that connection structured and repeatable, not something that depends on who happens to be standing next to whom at a reception.”

Simms also saw a broader signal. Van Doren is a Latino tech founder building enterprise software with AI tools, inside a minority business support organization. “That’s the kind of innovation and excellence we exist to spotlight,” Simms says. “It’s one thing to advocate for minority-owned businesses. It’s another to have one of our own people build the tool that solves the problem.”

Building It: AI as Developer, Not Magic Wand

Van Doren looked into off-the-shelf solutions first. The pricing was a non-starter. Competitors charge $3,000 to $10,000 or more per event. For a nonprofit running multiple events a year, those numbers don’t work. And Van Doren wasn’t convinced the features would match what OMSDC actually needed.

So he decided to build it himself. Not from scratch in the traditional sense, but not with a wave-of-the-hand prompt either. Van Doren has built two tech companies, led developer teams, and co-founded a company in 2020 called NeverEnding. They were building a custom AI model for animation, before the large language model wave hit the mainstream. He knew how to put together a product requirements document and a technical roadmap. The difference this time was the developer: Claude Code.

“Using AI to code isn’t like how they advertise it,” Van Doren says. “Not if you want something stable, scalable, and enterprise-ready. You can’t just say ‘build this app.’ Our platform needed real security, complex scheduling logic, multi-tenant architecture, role-based access. So we built it the way you’d build any serious software product: with a PRD, slice by slice, with multiple rounds of testing and deployment.”

Even with AI as the developer, the build was intense. Two months of ten- to twelve-hour days, seven days a week, reviewing and testing code daily. That’s not the effortless “just prompt it” story that AI marketing likes to tell. But it’s dramatically faster than the six to eight months the same product would take a team of two or three developers plus a project lead. The difference isn’t that AI eliminates the work. It’s that it compresses a team’s worth of output into one person’s timeline, as long as that person knows how to structure and lead a build.

James Price, OMSDC’s Associate Vice President of Operations, sees MatchDesk as evidence of OMSDC walking the walk. “We tell our MBEs they need to be looking at where AI fits in their organizations and how they can leverage it to compete,” said Price. “Creating MatchDesk is a perfect example of us not just telling, but showing.”

Here’s what it looks like in practice. MatchDesk is a 1:1 meeting scheduling platform designed for B2B events. Attendees browse a branded directory, send meeting requests with a personal message, and both sides confirm before anything is booked. The system then generates a conflict-free schedule for every participant. Organizers get real-time analytics on enrollment, meeting rates, and engagement.

Critically, Van Doren didn’t build MatchDesk just for OMSDC. It’s a multi-tenant system, meaning any organization — chambers of commerce, councils, accelerators, trade associations — can create an account, brand it to their identity, and run structured networking events through the platform. Pricing starts with a free tier and scales to $499 per year for enterprise use, a fraction of what incumbents charge per single event.

The First Deployment: Honest Lessons

MatchDesk launched at OMSDC’s 2026 Annual Meeting at Central State University. Signups were strong. But the event ran behind schedule, and as a result, fewer live meetings happened than were scheduled. The gap between scheduled and completed meetings surfaced a real operational lesson: structured matchmaking only works if the event itself protects the time it needs.

“It actually elevated something important for us,” Van Doren says. “We were packing too much in. The tool did what it was supposed to do. But we learned that if we want curated meetings to deliver, we have to give them room to breathe on the agenda.”

Price sees the tool as a way to shift where his team spends its energy. “Before MatchDesk, facilitating introductions between corporate members and MBEs meant a lot of manual coordination. Emails, spreadsheets, follow-ups. It worked, but it consumed time that could have gone toward building deeper relationships and solving real problems for our members,” Price says. “What excites me is getting out of the administration business and into the relationship business. I want our team focused on connecting people and creating value, not managing spreadsheets.”

The Bigger Thesis: Why Nonprofits Need to Build

Behind MatchDesk is a larger argument about how mission-driven organizations sustain themselves.

Most nonprofits operate at the mercy of a few revenue streams: donations, sponsorships, membership dues, and grants. One or two bad years can be devastating. And even in good years, there’s often not enough funding to do the work the organization knows needs to be done. For many non-profits, the mission is clear. The resource opportunities to fulfill it are not.

Van Doren believes nonprofits have an underexplored path: building products and services that create genuine member benefit while also generating revenue. Not merchandise. Not another gala tier. Real tools that solve real problems for the people the organization serves.

“Nonprofits are mission-driven,” Van Doren says. “That’s actually an advantage when it comes to product development. You’re building for the people you serve every day. You understand their problems because you live inside them. And because you’re not answering to shareholders, you’re less likely to make the kind of short-term decisions that erode trust.”

MatchDesk is one version of what that looks like. It started as a solution to OMSDC’s own operational problem. It’s now a product that any similar organization can use. The revenue it generates supports the mission it was built to serve.

“We talk a lot about how MBEs need to diversify revenue and build resilience,” Van Doren says. “The organizations that support them need to do the same thing.”

What’s Next

The MatchDesk team is now building out sponsor management and activation features, extending the platform’s value from attendee matchmaking into event monetization. The goal is to give organizations a single tool that handles the two things they struggle with most at events: making sure the right people meet, and making sure sponsors see measurable return.

For OMSDC, the next test will be DealMaker and future ConnectingOHIO events, where the combination of structured matchmaking and tighter event programming should close the gap between scheduled meetings and completed ones.

“The tool works,” Van Doren says. “Now we need to make sure everything around it works just as well.”

MatchDesk is currently accepting early-access signups at getmatchdesk.com. The first 100 organizations to sign up receive 50% off their first year.