SPELMAN COLLEGE ALUM. ENTREPRENUER. PHILANTHROPIST.
BY ZERLINE HUGHES SPRUILL
W orking a 40-hour job while mentoring an up and coming business leader, volunteering for church activities at Cascade UMC, carving out time for self-care plus recreation, and conducting service for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. might be too much for a person. And when that 9-to-5 is more like a 24-7 because you’re the founder, owner, and CEO of a multi-million dollar business, one’s work-life balance can be in jeopardy. But not for Spelman College alumna Sanquinetta Dover. In 1996, she started DoverStaffing from the ground up. Over the last 28 years, the Atlanta based staffing and workforce development firm has been featured in the Business Journals, “Beginners to Bigshots” edition, recognized as one of the Nation’s Top Business Leaders by DiversityBusiness. com, and bestowed with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Regional Director’s Award. Dover’s enterprise helps people upskill, prepare for new jobs or move up the career ladder. It also supports businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies with the right talent for
team building, leadership training, compliance, secret shoppers, training, and data analysis, in addition to convention, event, and conference planning. Over the years, Dover’s business acumen and expertise allowed her to expand her brand to include DoverSolutions and the Dover Training Institute. As a result, her company is a leader in addressing workforce development challenges. Part of her mission includes creating an all-inclusive approach to job placement, a philosophy that stems from Dover’s upbringing, having been raised in segregated Greenwood, South Carolina. “I know firsthand what it means to be excluded because of my color,” said Dover, President and CEO of DoverStaffing “As a child, I was denied access to the movie theater during the early years of integration, I remember my Dad coming to rescue me, speaking with the owner of the movie theater about not selling me a ticket. After speaking with my dad, my mom and I returned that evening to see that Walt Disney movie.” “Because I know rejection and exclusion, I wanted to create an environment of inclusion in my business
believe that you need resources to be supportive. I created DoverStaffing, DoverSolutions, and Dover Training Institute as organizations that are holistic. We don’t just provide the opportunity to send you on a job. We link people to a possible transformational life change. It’s more than just a job.” She Got it From Her College When Dover enrolled at Spelman in 1973, the campus did not have a business program, so she majored in economics and took classes in business at Morehouse. The courses were demanding, and outright challenging, to hear her college best friend tell it. “I was in San’s room so frequently, it was as if I lived there and I was her roommate,” said Bernadette Poitier who matriculated through Spelman in just three-and-a-half years. “I remember that economics was difficult for her, but she mastered it. She stayed up until 12:00, 1:00 in the morning. San was always a very determined person. She did not let a class or anything else stop her from reaching her dreams. She came to Spelman with certain virtues,
philosophies, and disciplines that were passed down by her parents.” Dover and Poitier, friends for 51 years, have visited each other’s families in their respective cities–Dover’s smalltown of Greenwood, and Poitier’s big city of Miami–and have kept up with each other’s careers, and maintain regular phone calls to stay in touch. “I called her ‘one-bus Dover,’” recalled Poitier, the 21-year tenured, now retired, administrative assistant to Miami-Dade County Public School’s first Black school board member. “I went home with Sanquinetta for Thanksgiving, and would often go home with her on weekends, because her home was closer. I would make fun of her because she had one bus in her city, versus my city where it seemed there were thousands of buses.” “She always had that entrepreneurial spirit,” recalled Poitier. “Spelman, and her dad and mom equipped her with the skills she needed, and she had innate faith.” Leaning on the HBCU Network Introduced to the glass ceiling in her first professional position with the FDIC in New York City, Dover said she
with no judgments,” continued Dover. “I
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