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Even fighting a cold on an early September morning, Jean-Wildy Malary can鈥檛 hide his surprise and delight that his DMWESB company is among the best in Portland. After all, the Rose City is a long way from his native Haiti, and Malary has come a long way from when he started his own company in 2004.

Trained as an electrician, Malary founded Affordable Electric Inc. because he needed the work and wanted to provide for his family. He now has nine employees, though that number fluctuates based on how business is going. And while it has gotten easier, Malary said he still faces plenty of challenges when it comes to doing business as a minority-owned contractor.

The Southwest Moody project has definitely helped, though. Affordable Electric procured and installed the entire electrical scope of the project, which involved raising Moody Avenue by about 14 feet using low-density cellular concrete.

Affordable Electric managed the installation of 300,000 lineal conduit feet of franchise utility concrete throughout a 50,000-cubic-yard zone. Its scope of work included franchise utility ductbanks and vaults, streetlights, traffic signals, and an overhead catenary system. The work occurred over three months and presented several challenges, including getting conduits staged at proper elevations as the cellular concrete was poured in daily eight-inch lifts.

Along with meeting an ambitious schedule, Affordable Electric managed the franchise utility and overhead catenary installation. Every phase of the company鈥檚 work 鈥� totaling more than $5 million 鈥� was achieved with no time lost due to injuries. Malary is credited with serving as a mentor not only for his own employees, but for those of the project contractor Stacy and Witbeck as well.

Malary said the project, the largest he has undertaken so far, gave him the confidence to take on even larger projects in the future.

鈥淧rojects like this are a great opportunity and we would do it again if we could,鈥� he said. 鈥淧rojects like this allow us to expose our talents so people can see what we can do.鈥�