Energy Giant strives to include minorities and women in supplier diversity but neglects to include vetrepreneurs.

Ranked no. 3 on the Fortune 500® Chevron is the second-largest integrated energy company on the planet. It boasted annual revenues of $167 billion in 2009 and employs more than 60,000 people worldwide. Chevron spent roughly $40 billion purchasing goods and services from suppliers and contractors.

According to its supplier diversity website, Chevron strives to include small businesses owned by minorities and women in their supply chain. Its supplier diversity statement reads “Chevron's Supplier Diversity/Small Business program promotes an inclusive business environment for the benefit of the company and its suppliers. The program works with value-added small, minority and women-owned businesses to develop innovative, cost-effective solutions that fuel our mutual growth.”

In 2009, the company spent $2.7 billion with small and medium-size businesses -- $433 million of which with women-owned businesses and an additional $319 million with minority-owned businesses. Tanya Allen Easter manages Chevron’s Supplier Diversity/Small Business Program. In a statement on the supplier diversity page, Easter stated that Chevron's Supplier Diversity and Small Business Program “…ensures all businesses are considered on the basis of merit, not just size and strength. These value-added small, minority- and women-owned businesses provide innovative solutions that fuel mutual growth for both their firms and our corporation.”

What about veteran-owned businesses? Do they add no value and do they have no merit? NaVOBA inquired why the company omitted any language addressing veteran-owned businesses. The company ignored repeated requests to address this concern to the readers of Vetrepreneur.

This unwillingness to address the issue makes it rather apparent that the veteran-owned business community is not nearly as important as other diverse, small business communities to Chevron. It’s high time that America’s 4 million veteran-owned businesses and 26 million veterans match that unwillingness the next time they need to fill up the tank.

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