In recognition of National Procurement Month, PlanetBids created the Breaking Barriers Award to acknowledge those professionals who have guided their organizations to greater levels of efficiency through eProcurement. Change can be difficult, and these individuals are champions who “broke barriers” to make it happen for their agencies.
Huggen Angeles, Santa Clara County (CA) Valley Water
Valley Water, located in Santa Clara County California, was founded in 1929 to provide safe, clean water; flood protection; and stewardship of streams for its residents. In 2021, the Valley Water procurement team decided to automate its procurement processes.
“Automating the bidding process was a great leap forward for us," said Huggen Angeles, the Senior Construction Contracts Administrator at Valley Water. "The new system acted as another set of eyes in making sure that proposals are submitted in a timely and organized manner. It resolved many of the things that we could easily overlook, especially when multiple procurements with multiple bidders are occurring at the same time.”
Having used other systems in the past, Valley Water decided to go all in with PlanetBids and purchased multiple integrated modules – from initial vendor registration through bid and RFP solicitations and finalizing with project evaluation, business certifications, and contract management.
“At first glance, the program can be a little intimidating, but it's surprisingly user-friendly once we learned the basics of it,” Angeles said.
Last year, Valley Water continued its foray into full automation by making the move to electronic bid bonds (eBonds). Angeles said that agencies that want to accept eBonds as security should “apprise their legal department way ahead of time. You want the attorneys as your allies throughout the implementation process.”
His drive to fully automate all aspects of the bidding and procurement process, with the goal of greater agency efficiency, earned Angeles the PlanetBids Breaking Barriers Award for National Procurement Month in 2023.
Yanely Pulido, San Mateo County Community College
The San Mateo County Community College (CCC) District is a three-campus community college system in California that serves more than 25,000 students. As the Director of General Services, Yanely Pulido entered the Purchasing Department in 2015 and oversees its centralized purchasing operations.
PlanetBids was brought in when construction contracts funded through the district’s bond measures required a robust pre-qualification validation.
“Automating our procurement processes brought greater transparency,” said Pulido. “Multiple solicitations were being simultaneously issued, and with other departments involved, it was crucial to have sharable documents and the ability to track all steps of the procurement process.”
As a change agent for the district, Pulido said it was important to take the initiative to institute the new eProcurement system and its policies and to educate all impacted parties – both inside and outside the organization. She suggests that any other entity who wants to pursue automation ensure there is cross-training for adequate backup and shared responsibilities.
With a dedicated sustainability team for the district, San Mateo CCC District was one of the first community colleges to implement sustainability tracking. Pulido and her team worked with PlanetBids to implement real-time verification of third-party certifications, which include Certified B Corporation, Cradle to Grave, Energy Star Partner, Fair Trade Certified, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).
Pushing to higher standards in sustainability and using the system to drive efficiencies has led PlanetBids to recognize Yanely Pulido as a Breaking Barriers Award winner.
Teri Carr, California State University
With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students and 55,909 faculty and staff, California State University is the largest public university system in the United States. The Chancellor’s Office approached PlanetBids for a pilot digital procurement program in 2003 for all campuses maintained by CSUCO Procurement and Contracts.
Teri Carr has worked for CSU for almost 20 years, and she is currently the Construction Programs Administrator responsible for prequalifying all construction vendors for the 23 campuses in the CSU System. She can quickly review applications, check references, ask for clarifications, and approve vendors. Each campus can search the applications submitted, track status, and view limited, controlled data to confirm vendors have been certified.
Carr admits that when she first learned to use an online procurement system she was a bit resistant to change. But that's all changed now.
"It’s great when multiple campuses can use the same system, allowing us to share information,” she said.
And she is still discovering new tools to handle challenging issues. With some recent PlanetBids add-ons, CSU can not only prequalify primes and subcontractors, but they will also be able to approve vendors for their JOC program, providing greater efficiencies and streamlining communications across the entire public university system.
When reaching out to the vendor network, the PB System™ allows the ability to cross-reference by location or specific class to provide targeted outreach. Recently, the system was used to share information about an upcoming training program. Within hours of the notification, more than 100 registrations were received.
“For those who have used the system, they find it much easier and transparent," Carr said about how the CSU vendor community feels working with the online system. "Occasionally, there is the request to speak to a live person, and we offer that option as well. Quickly reaching our supplier community through the system has been helpful."
PlanetBids recognizes Teri Carr as a Breaking Barriers champion of change for continuously seeking out new online solutions for the very large procurement process that she manages.
About PlanetBids
PlanetBids is a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) company offering a cloud-based modular suite of innovative and proven digital solutions to help procurement teams streamline traditionally time-consuming bid management processes. Designed, developed, and serviced in California, PlanetBids’ proprietary system serves the public, private, educational and nonprofit sectors across the United States.
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