A new manufacturing facility that will produce medical equipment on the northeast side of Indianapolis is nearly complete with most contracts going to Black-owned businesses.
When Cook Medical and Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana announced their partnership to build the facility in November 2020, they set a goal to have all contractors be minority-owned.
To date, 97 percent have been minority-owned, and the other 3 percent have come from woman-, veteran- or disability-owned contractors, according to Goodwill.
Ask anyone involved with the project how it got nearly all minority-owned contractors, and Akilah Darden’s name will come up.
