Lyn R. Williams

Lyn R Williams President, Bridge Enterprises, Incorporated Executive Director, Emerging Technology Consortium

Lyn R. Williams, president and founder of Bridge Enterprises, Inc., a Business and Community Development Company was formed in 1984 to “bridge the economic gap” between the Minority Business, Federal, State & Local Governments. Before forming his own company, Lyn Williams demonstrated a strong interest in politics. He worked as a deputy clerk in the Senate of Virginia General Assembly for several years then became minority liaison to U.S Senators Paul Trible and John Warner from Virginia. Lyn’s most accomplished legislative achievement on Capitol Hill was the passage of Public Law (99661—Section 1207) that set-aside five percent (5%) of the Department of Defense procurement for minority contractors. The law generated over ($70 billion) from 1987 to 1997 for Minority Business and Historical Black Colleges & Universities.

Because of a continued strong desire to give back to the community, Mr. Williams made great strides in the area of real estate development. An example being the successful renovation & completion of Brookland Park Plaza; a commercial and elderly housing complex in the City of Richmond, Virginia. In 1991 Brookland Park Plaza became a national award winning rehabilitation of a historical structure. It was selected by the United States Department of Interior as a national case study in Historical Tax Credit Usages and an outstanding contribution to the preservation and adaptive reuse of an historic property. In 1999, Bridge Enterprises launched its’ telecommunications division by being selected as a protégé to EDS Corporation under the Department of Defense Mentor-Protégé Program. This program allowed the development of “Proxtel Suites”, and video conference technology at the desktop that is currently used worldwide today.

In 2013 Mr. Williams joined the Emerging Technology Consortium to ensure that more minority owned services companies could utilize innovation as part of their growth and development strategies.  He is instrumental in the development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the “Path to Sustainability Initiative.”  The projects’ goal is to increase the number minorities owning next generation industries. This will be accomplished by teaming Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs up with successful contracting firm to expand into these new innovative business areas.   The pilot does this by creating public private partnerships (MSI with successful Federal Contractors) to pursue and win contracts, grants and cooperative agreements as part of structured process to own Intellectual Property (IP) and then commercialize the IP as part of taking a new product or service to the global market.  The Initiative’s goal is two–fold: increase the business areas that woman and minority firms pursue and diversify the revenue streams for MSIs.