The following guidelines established by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) are used to determine the certification status of minority and women-owned businesses:

Diverse supplier - a U.S. citizen that owns a business certified as small, minority, or woman-owned.

Small Business - Business that meets definition criteria according to standards set by the Small Business Administration at http://www.sba.gov.

Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) - a business that is at least 51 percent owned/operated/controlled by:

• African American (ethnic origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa)
• Hispanic American (ethnic origins in any of the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America or the following regions: Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean basin only)
• Asian-Pacific American (ethnic origins in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Trust Territories of the Pacific, or the Northern Mariana Islands)
• Asian-Indian American (ethnic origins in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh)
• Native American (a person who is American Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or native Hawaiian, and regarded as such by the community of which she or he claims to be a part)

Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) - a business that is at least 51 percent owned/operated/controlled by a non-minority woman.

HubZone - The HUBZone Empowerment Contracting Program, which is included in the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997, stimulates economic development and create jobs in urban and rural communities by providing contracting preferences to small businesses-that are located in a HUBZone and that hire employees who live in a HUBZone.