April 17, 2017 – The willingness to work with historically underutilized businesses for University IT purchases caught the eye of Greg Obar, associate director, UNT System HUB Program. When he tracked down the person in UIT who was making the purchases and using HUB vendors, he found Robin Melendez-Martin, administrative coordinator. Greg surprised Robin on the morning of March 21 when he presented her with a small token of appreciation for her extra steps to use HUB vendors for many of the purchases she makes for UIT and Classroom Support Services.

Robin's work also was featured in April/May issue of Solution Source, the UNT System Business Support Services' newsletter.

Pictured with Robin in the center are HUB specialists Robbie Heldman, left, Terri Miller, Flat Scrappy, Kimmalla Mitchell and Greg Obar. #flatscrappy

More about the Historically Underutilized Business Program at UNT

Benchmarks: What brought the HUB Program’s attention to Robin’s work? 
HUB: Robin was making a purchase over $5,000, which requires two HUB quotes. 

Benchmarks: How did you learn of her willingness to work with HUB businesses? 
HUB: Robin contacted the HUB area to assist with the above-mentioned purchase. We informed her that we would send out the request and obtain the quotes for her and send her the responses that she received for the request for informal quotes (less than $25,000). We received five quotes from HUB vendors who were lower in price than her original no-HUB quote. The savings to the department on this purchase was $1,751.00!

Benchmarks: How is the HUB purchasing process different from other “regular” purchases? 
HUB: The HUB area will send out the quotes to HUB vendors for the departments so the department does not have to try to find the HUB vendors on their own.

Benchmarks: Is the number of purchases through HUB important for UIT to have made or was it the amount of money spent through HUB that caught your eye? 
HUB: Both are important. On the first purchase, there were significant savings to the department and the University received credit for using a HUB vendor.

Benchmarks: How many HUB vendors are in the UNT System’s purchasing system? 
HUB: There are 13,217 HUB vendors on the centralized master bidder's list. 

Benchmarks: How is a HUB certification beneficial to a vendor? 
HUB: Certification allows the vendor to be listed on the State of Texas Central Master Bidder's List. This list is searched by state agencies to assist with locating HUB vendors who provide needed services or commodities.