Gregory Modica
Gregory Modica doesn’t know where he’d be if not for Arkansas’ program promoting minority-owned businesses, but he’s certain he wouldn’t be leading a multimillion-dollar company.
Modica owns Government Supply Services of El Dorado, a business supply firm that also provides technology. Less than a decade after starting his business, he has five employees, a second office in Little Rock and a large new government contract he can’t yet talk about. It wouldn’t have happened without Pat Brown, who heads the minority-business goals program for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, Modica said. “If she and the AEDC hadn’t stepped in, I know we wouldn’t have had the success we’ve had.”
Starting in 2008, a year before founding GSS, Modica sat down with Brown, whose team coached him through starting his business, getting it certified in the Minority-Owned Business Enterprise Program and directed him to conventions of vendors and purchasing officers that laid the groundwork for his first major contracts.
“I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn’t have the resources,” the Army and Army Reserve veteran said. “Without help, it’s a daunting task. I tell people starting out that they have to go through the AEDC. The workshops, the contacts and the encouragement are essential. Not to mention that they have a loan guarantee program for loans up to $100,000.”
Modica, an El Dorado native and the youngest of a sharecropping couple’s 11 children, fully backs the addition of women-owned businesses to the program.
“This is not a set-aside,” he said. “It’s just an opportunity for people who had no chance, basically, before. The 10 percent minority state contracting goal helps create jobs and increases the tax base. It’s an example of the American Way. Women do a great job in this country, and they should have every chance to participate.”
Sign up for Daily E-news
