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When Jesse Rodriguez started his own heavy civil construction company last year, he thought being a minority contractor would help open doors for the company. Instead, his company will help hold the door open to minority subcontractors.

R&R General Contractors is the apparent low bidder, at $2.6 million, on a project to repave Powell Boulevard between Southeast 51st Avenue and Interstate 205. If the Oregon Department of Transportation verifies the bid, R&R will need to award at least 5 percent of its subcontracting money to minority-owned firms.

Under federal Department of Transportation rules, R&R is classified as a disadvantaged business enterprise, a classification that includes companies owned by minorities or women. On federal jobs with minority contracting targets, work that the company performs itself counts toward those goals.

But ODOT goes further. In 2007, a department-commissioned study found that African American and Asian American contractors were underrepresented in contract money compared to their availability in the Portland-metro area.

The study allowed ODOT to write in hard contract goals for those minority groups. Other groups, including Hispanic-owned companies, were getting jobs consistent with their availability in the contracting community, so ODOT could not require the same goals, spokesman Patrick Cooney said.

“They have been getting work all along,” Cooney said.

If R&R gets the Powell Boulevard job, the company will have to award at least 5 percent of its subcontracting money to African American- and Asian American-owned companies.

“I thought being DBE certified would help us more,” said Rodriguez, the company’s president. “Eventually, it could end up helping us, but right now we’re like everyone else.”

So far, R&R hasn’t needed help. The company is on track to record revenue of nearly $8 million this year, Rodriguez said, and has won several high-profile jobs, including work on Highway 30, North Denver Avenue and the Morrison Bridge.

Rodriguez, formerly an engineer and a senior project manager with Stacy and Witbeck, tired of the travel the job required and dreamed of forming his own company. He started R&R in July 2008.

That meant leaving the TriMet green-line project before it was finished. “There’s never a right time,” Rodriguez said of his decision. “I just had to try and see if I could make a go of it.

“And lo and behold, the economy takes a nosedive.”

Despite the recession, R&R officials’ experience with Stacy and Witbeck helped the new company avoid pitfalls new civil contractors can face. “We have a good pedigree and a wealth of experience,” Rodriguez said.

“A lot of (contractors) struggle to get out of the gate,” he said. “They don’t understand how to work in the public works sector. It’s document heavy (and) there’s a lot of paperwork, especially in the ODOT world.”

Company officials’ experience also led to R&R being able to borrow more money, Rodriguez said, for projects worth up to $10 million. “The biggest thing that sets us aside from a new company is our bonding capacity to go after these jobs.

“If you can’t bond anything, you can’t get any work,” Rodriguez said.

Finally, R&R officials’ experience on big Stacy and Witbeck projects has helped them make connections with minority contractors they can work with in the future. That could come into play on the Powell Boulevard project, which is scheduled to begin construction next February.

“What’s helped us most is, with Stacy and Witbeck being in the federal transit world, they’re more adamant about making those contacts,” Rodriguez said.

“That gives us a big advantage.”