New Hampshire may be 96 percent white, but the 4 percent minority population isn’t spread evenly across the state, said Dennis Delay, director of special projects at the New Hampshire Workforce Opportunity Council Inc.

“The chance of bumping into someone of another race or culture is greater as you move from north to south,” he said.

Delay delivered the keynote address Tuesday afternoon at the second-annual Business Diversity Conference at the Radisson Hotel. The conference was attended by about 40 business leaders and sponsored by the N.H. Cultural Diversity Awareness Council.

If you’re standing on a street corner in Concord, the odds of bumping into someone of a different color or culture is only 10 percent, Delay noted. But in Manchester, the odds increase to 20 percent, and to 25 percent in Nashua.

“I’ve been trained as an economist. That’s my lot in life, so I’m a numbers person,” Delay said.nority populations are outpacing whites in terms of growth, he said.

For example, between 1990 and 2000, the Caucasian population in the state increased only 10 percent, compared to 25 percent for African-Americans, 75 percent for Asian-Americans and a whopping 81 percent for Hispanics, Delay said.

He and four members of a panel at the conference talked about the impact of changing demographics on the state’s work force, and specifically how businesses can attract and retain minority workers and reach out to a growing number of minority consumers.

By 2005, just a few months away, an estimated 85 percent of people entering the work force nationwide will be women or minorities, said John Bersentes, national sales director for an online job search Web site called bizjournalsHIRE.com.

Along with the demographic shifts in the work force, minority populations are showing increasing spending power, he said.

Urban population centers throughout the nation, abandoned by many businesses over the past decade, are emerging as consumer hotspots, said Emerson Foster, director of talent acquisition at Stop and Shop.

“If you’re not there, you’re not going to get a piece of that pie,” he said.

“Diversity and inclusion is really a process,” said Nury Marquez, corporate community relations manager at Public Service Co. of New Hampshire.

“The thing about diversity is that one person can’t do it. Two people can’t do it. Everyone needs to be engaged,” she said.

“Diversity is a gateway to something bigger and something better,” Marquez said.

The most entertaining panelist was Maj. T. Shane Tomko, commanding officer of the U.S. Marine Corp. recruiting station in Portsmouth. Tomko, who looked and projected like Robert Duval’s character in “The Great Santini,” abandoned the podium and wondered among the tables at the Radisson conference room, barking his comments like a drill sergeant’s orders.

“Martin Luther King Day - that’s a day off for white people,” Tomko said.

In the Marine Corp, however, soldiers are required to honor the day by attending MLK events and learning about the slain Civil Rights leader.

Because the military is a controlled environment, people of different backgrounds can be required to work and live together, breaking down barriers, he said.

Unfortunately, that’s not true in society in general, Tomko said.

“I can’t put an African-American recruiter in certain parts of Boston,” he said, noting such a recruiter would stand no chance of being effective there.

“That enrages me, because that is my Marine,” he said.

Tomko challenged the businessmen and women attending the conference to change things by seizing a leadership role within their organizations.

“Being a leader means, I recognize you are different than I am. I respect that, because you are bringing something different to the fight that will make us stronger.

“There are no conditions for treating people with dignity,” Tomko added. “There are none.”