The unsinkable Ron Brown: but will personal problems derail the Commerce Secretary?

Black Enterprise, Dec, 1995 by Michael K. Frisby

But will personal problems derail the Commerce Secretary?

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown hasn't buckled under pressure. While a special counsel investigates his private business deals and Republicans plot to eliminate his department, Brown continues to win kudos by hammering away at his mission to improve global markets for American corporations.

More importantly, Brown continues to take strides to ensure that black businesses get a piece of the pie. Richard Blackmore of Environmental Remediation Technology is thankful for Brown's resolve. He flew to the former Soviet Union with Brown on a trade trip, rubbing shoulders with executives from AT&T and Texico. On the plane, he showed a product that soaks up oil spills. Blackmore came home with new American clients and several prospects in the former Soviet Union. His tiny company in the Mississippi Delta saw its sales increase dramatically on that one trip. "The opportunity made all the difference," Blackmore says.

Brown has brought a black awareness to an agency that didn't focus much on black business. It began with hiring, even though Brown was initially criticized for the agency's poor record of minority hiring (see "Brown Addresses Discrimination Complaints," Newspoints, November 1994).

At the end of the Bush administration, there were four black political appointees in the department; now there are 49. Brown is also staring a fellowship program to draw black college students into foreign commercial service.

"African Americans who achieve have a special responsibility," Brown says. He was, in the fact, offered more visible posts in the Clinton administration, but choose to turn a moribund agency into a powerhouse because it was new turf for a black man.

But it hasn't been easy. He is under a cloud as Special Counsel Daniel Pearson investigates why Brown was paid nearly $500,000 for his interest in a business, even though the venture wasn't profitable. There are also questions about the accuracy of his financial disclosure forms. He insists he hasn't done anything wrong and that he won't let the probe distract him. "You have to stay focused and pay attention to your mission," he says. "you can't ever allow yourself to lose that."

The probe has had an undeniable impact, But Brown apparently hasn't lost clout inside the White House. He was instrumental in convincing the president not to make affirmative action "need-based" and just for the poor. He argued that even blacks with money are discriminated against and need help breaking into some industries.

Just weeks after Pearson was appointed, Brown led a conference on emerging markets that drew top executives and foreign dignitaries to Washington.

One friend, Lehman Bros. executive Ernest Green, says Brown's private sector training taught him what kind of help businesses need and helped prepared him to serve as a commerce secretary. And Raymond McGuire of Merrill Lynch says Brown knows how to achieve public-private partnership "and is sensitive to the challengers that African American face."