NMSDC to Honor Corporate, Minority Business Leaders for Long-Standing Achievement

NEW YORK, April 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Minority Supplier Development Council will honor Louis Chenevert, chairman, president and chief executive officer of United Technologies Corporation; David W. Morgan, founder and chief executive officer of D.W. Morgan Company; and J. Leslie Prystup, chief executive officer of Prystup Packaging Products, for their significant long-term achievements in minority business development. The trio will be recognized at the NMSDC Minority Business Leadership Awards Dinner-Dance on Wednesday, May 18th, at the Hilton New York and Towers in New York City.

More than 1,400 guests are expected to attend, including CEOs and executives of Fortune 500 corporations and minority business owners from across the nation. 

"This year's honorees have demonstrated a solid commitment to minority business development for many, many years," said NMSDC President Joset B. Wright. "The strength, innovation and resilience of minority businesses are relied upon for high quality products and services by growing numbers of corporations."

Louis Chenevert is chairman, president and chief executive officer of United Technologies Corporation (UTC).  The company's products include Carrier heating and air conditioning; Hamilton Sundstrand aerospace systems and industrial products; Otis elevators and escalators; Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines; Sikorsky helicopters; UTC Fire and Security systems and UTC Power fuel cells.  UTC employs more than 206,000 people in 70 locations worldwide, and spent $413 million with Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American suppliers in 2010.  

UTC has been a member of NMSDC for 31 years.  In 1976, UTC was a founding member of the Connecticut affiliate, now the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council. Currently, UTC participates with 17 of NMSDC's local affiliates.  Jeffrey Place, director of global supply management, serves on NMSDC's Board.

Executive leadership and UTC's Supplier Diversity Council drive strategy development and work together with supply management and other functional areas to ensure the execution of key initiatives.  In addition, their minority supplier development activities include mentoring, scholarships for NMSDC's Advanced Management Education Program, and continuous improvement training and events.  For nine years, UTC has sponsored a Diverse Business Exchange, bringing together current and future minority suppliers with supply management executives from UTC and its business units, and UTC first tier suppliers.  UTC has a Second Tier program with $64 million in MBE spend in 2009.

David W. Morgan is the founder and chief executive officer of D.W. Morgan Company, Inc., in Pleasanton, California.  Morgan helps the world's top manufacturers deliver responsive solutions for their fast-moving, global supply chains.  The company had annual sales of $132 million in 2010 and has 185 employees. D.W. Morgan is a recognized innovator in the supply chain and logistics industry.  Mr. Morgan has been named a "Supply Chain Provider Pro to Know" numerous times by Supply and Demand Chain Executive magazine.

Since founding D.W. Morgan Company in 1990, Mr. Morgan has built one of the nation's fastest-growing supply consulting, logistics and transportation management firms by emphasizing superior customer service and cutting-edge technology.  Mr. Morgan built a first-of-its-kind network of asset-based transportation and logistics operations focused on key global manufacturing locations. Today, Morgan's client list includes AT&T, Chevron, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, IBM, Kaiser Permanente and Life Technologies.  The company provides critical, high-visibility and high-coordination services in other locations from Texas to Thailand, San Jose to Shanghai, Guadalajara, Malaysia and more.

D. W. Morgan holds a Corporate Plus^® designation from the NMSDC – a testament to its ability to handle national contracts. The company has participated in business missions with NMSDC to Australia and China as part of its International Program.  D. W. Morgan utilizes other NMSDC-certified companies such as Aeronet Logistics, ICE Safety Solutions, Inproma, Mosaic Global Transportation and Zones.

J. Leslie Prystup is the chief executive officer of Prystup Packaging Products in Livingston, Alabama.  The Native American company provides labels, point-of-purchase advertising materials, and a range of cardboard cartons for packaging dry food, consumer goods and electronic products.  The client list for Prystup Packaging includes General Mills, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Schrieber Foods.  The company has had NMSDC Corporate Plus^® designation since 1998. Prystup Packaging Products has 152 employees and recorded sales of more than $28.1 million in 2010.  In 2010, Prystup worked with a total of 26 minority vendors.

Mr. Prystup began his career with the Container Corporation of America, where he worked for 11 years.  He rose through the ranks from the production line, through supervision and management, to reach the highest level—president and chief executive officer at Mebane Packaging in North Carolina.  Although he briefly considered retirement in 1979, by June 1980, Mr. Prystup was forming his own company in Livingston, Alabama.  At that time, Prystup Packaging Products was incorporated in Sumter County, Alabama, near many of the South's leading paper mills. Despite the challenges of start-up and recessions, this company has completed its third phase of expansion.  After 30 years in the business, Mr. Prystup remains active and cites his ability to start a capital-intensive, highly-automated business in a rural area as his greatest professional accomplishment.

About NMSDC

Providing a direct link between corporate America and minority-owned businesses is the primary objective of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, one of the country's leading business membership organizations.  It was chartered in 1972 to provide increased procurement and business opportunities for minority businesses of all sizes.

The NMSDC Network includes a national office in New York and 37 Regional Councils across the country.  There are 3,500 corporate members throughout the network, including America's top publicly-owned, privately-owned and foreign-owned companies as well as universities, hospitals and other buying institutions. The Regional Councils certify and match more than 16,000 Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American businesses with member corporations that want to purchase their goods and services.

For more information about NMSDC, call (212) 944-2430 or visit the Web site at www.nmsdc.org.

SOURCE National Minority Supplier Development Council