Although Oregon is on its way to finally establishing a set of toxic air rules, the final result won’t look quite like what many people had originally expected.

Prior to the Oregon Legislature‘s session earlier this year, the Department of Environmental Quality had been working on standards related to thresholds for the amount of cancerous and non-cancerous pollutants a facility could emit without having to take extra steps to control its emissions. Facility operators and manufacturers had pushed back against those limits.

In February, however, the industry stepped forward with Senate Bill 1541 as an alternate to the rules draft that DEQ was floating in front of legislators. The bill not only passed, but it was signed by Gov. Kate Brown, despite the fact that it was a far cry from her original recommendations.

“It’s being touted as an industry-backed bill,” Chad Darby, principal air quality consultant at Maul Foster & Alongi, said. “But really, in the end, there were people on both sides of the issue that supported Senate Bill 1541.”

Maul Foster & Alongi and other consulting firms have been following the path the toxic air plan has taken, stepping forward to help facility operators looking to take proactive steps to determine exactly where their emissions fell on the threshold scale.

That scale, however, has changed as a result of the passage of SB 1541. The new legislation basically doubles the thresholds that the DEQ will be allowed to set to determine whether facilities are in compliance. The cancer-risk threshold that was 25 excess cancers per million people, for example, is now set at 50 per million.

The legislation also addresses how the DEQ will deal with multisource areas such as industrial parks, where there are large concentrations of facilities that fall under the parameters of the toxic air rules. Originally, the rule called for the DEQ to look at any area that qualified as a multisource area – an approach that concerned many people that facility operators would shy away from areas such as industrial parks in order to avoid heavy concentrated areas.

Under the new legislation, the DEQ will select one area to study and then use the results to set up a process to be used as a starting point for managing similar areas.

One thing that hasn’t changed in light of the new legislation is the requirement that industry players will need to perform human health risk assessments.

“Any facility DEQ calls in for human health risk assessments with air permits will still need to do that,” Darby said.

With a November timeline for finalizing the state’s new toxic air rules, the DEQ is pulling together a committee to look at recommendations of final rules based on the new legislation. Public comment is expected to open in July, with a staff report and recommendations to follow in October. A vote on the final rules by the Environmental Quality Commission is expected during that group’s meeting in mid-November.

While the threshold increases have drawn criticism from some people, others say that while the new legislation may not be perfect, it allows Oregon to finally establish an air toxics program that might not otherwise have been fully funded.

Industrial facility operators will still be called upon by the DEQ to perform human risk assessments, and those results will be made available to the public.

Even with the new thresholds, industry experts are still recommending that facility operators take steps now to conduct their own testing.

“A number of facilities we’re working with are starting to look at where their risks come from,” Darby said. “We’ve been recommending they conduct a risk assessment similar to what DEQ will likely (keep) in its (final rules). We have done a couple dozen already for facilities, and most had (one or two) pollutant issues that were easily resolved or that they realized were being incorrectly calculated.”

The post Oregon toxic air rules taking final shape appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

History books are filled with tales of the men who built the country’s roads and bridges and buildings, but it’s only in recent years that the stories of their female counterparts have started to come to light.

While the stories of those women serve as sources of modern-day inspiration, it was a different case when they were alive. Their efforts, when reported in newspapers and magazines, were presented as rare – even odd – occurrences.

Reporters marveled, for example, over the fact that Emily Roebling took over her husband’s role as lead engineer on construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in the late 1800s when he became too ill to continue in that capacity.

They were astounded that Fay Kellogg was able to rise beyond merely designing “pretty rural homes” to become “a real practical architect who has a predilection for large buildings.”

And they crowed over how Alice Durkin, while “retaining the femininity of one given to gentle birth,” managed to emerge as one of the leading contractors in New York City in the early 1900s.

While Fay and Emily in recent years have started to receive the recognition they deserve for their professional achievements, there are far more women like Alice whose accomplishments have been largely forgotten. As far as I can tell, no one has ever written a book about Alice, even though she was recognized both as a “Master Builder” and the first woman ever invited to join the Building Trades Association of New York.  As a result, while there’s much I’ve been able to uncover about Alice – she was a tough competitor when it came to submitting a bid and a straight-shooter when it came to convincing striking workers to return to a job site – there’s just as much I haven’t been able to learn.

I know, for example, that she went by the designation of “Miss” in her business dealings, even after she married another builder named John F. Walsh and then became a mother. But I don’t know why she chose to keep her marital status a secret from reporters.

Maybe she felt it was easier to just continue in the role she held when she first entered the industry. Maybe she worried that people would incorrectly assume she was merely a figurehead for a company run by her husband. Maybe she took pride in single-handedly building a woman-owned construction company long before states and cities started handing out certifications.

Or maybe there was a reason I haven’t thought of. The sad – and frustrating – truth is that outside of some newspaper and magazine stories, there’s no way to know who Alice Durkin really was or how she really felt about truly being the only woman in an industry of men.

Even as I continue research to flesh out Alice’s life, I’m faced with a realization about the women currently working in the building industry – from tradeswomen on job sites to those in lead management roles on projects. Without taking some kind of proactive steps now, their stories are in danger of being lost in the shuffle of time, just as Alice’s has been.

That’s why, in early April, the Daily Journal of Commerce will publish the inaugural issue of a new magazine. Named after the awards program the 91��Ƶ holds each fall, the new Women of Vision magazine will tell the stories of women who built – and are building – our city, our state and our region.

We’ll explore the lives and accomplishments of women like Edith Yang, the first minority woman to be licensed as an architect in Oregon, and Eleanor Chown, whose natural bent for business helped turned a family company into a local industry icon. We’ll talk about the issues that women in the building industry face – not just digging into those topics, but providing information women can take back to their firms to help them create greater diversity and equity throughout the industry. And we’ll share the stories – professional and personal – of the women who are shaping and influencing the built environment on a daily basis.

In order to do that, though, we need your help. We’re looking for experiences of women – you, your employees, your friends and colleagues – working in and with the local building industry. Help us tell all of those stories now so that in the future, people will be able to point to roads and bridges and buildings in Portland, in Oregon, and beyond, and talk about the women who built them.

Help us fill the history books for future generations.

Stephanie Basalyga is the editor of the Daily Journal of Commerce and the soon-to-be-published Women of Vision magazine. Contact her at 503-802-7222 or sbasalyga@djcOregon.com.

The post OP-ED: Searching for Alice, other women building legacies appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Some people call it dinosaur dust. Others say it’s a miracle mineral.

Diatomaceous earth has been used for decades for a range of purposes. Its highly absorbent nature makes it a natural component for cat litter. Depending on the size of its particles, it also can be a gentle abrasive, making it perfect for use in polishes and even toothpastes.

Now a Beaverton company called Diatomix Inc. has found yet another use for diatomaceous earth, as the foundation for a new smart material that actively improves indoor air quality.

Diatomix formed in 2015 as a spinoff from research at Portland State University conducted by a faculty member and a graduate student. The end result of that research is a product that Adrian Polliack, the company’s chief executive officer, says goes far beyond products already on the market that simply clean air by absorbing volatile organic compound molecules.

The main component in Diatomix’s smart cleaner is diatomaceous earth – a fine powder of soft sedimentary rock that contains the fossilized remains of extremely tiny aquatic organisms called diatoms. The highly absorptive nature of diatomaceous earth allows it to pull VOCs from the air, but the Diatomix product doesn’t stop the process there.

While diatoms can be found in a variety of shapes, the ones used in the Diatomix product are shaped like barrels – a configuration that has proven to be able to best hold an applied coating of titanium dioxide. The diatoms naturally collect light, which the titanium dioxide then uses to break down the absorbed VOC molecules into two end products: water and carbon dioxide.

While most products on the market that absorb chemicals in the air tend to be for one-time use, Diatomix is a continuous product, according to Polliack. As long as there’s a source of light in a room, the process of cleaning the air can occur.

The unique nature of the Diatomix smart cleaner is what convinced Polliack to join the company three years ago. At the time, he was working as a business consultant helping companies launch products and develop business strategies. He initially joined Diatomix as a consultant, but soon shifted into the full-time CEO role, intrigued by the opportunities the product presented. The relative simple nature of the process meant few regulatory hoops to jump through, ensuring a quick turnaround from lab to market.

But that doesn’t mean getting the Diatomix product into the actual marketplace hasn’t been without challenges.

The original plan called for the product to be manufactured in-house in Beaverton. But the cost associated with purchasing equipment along with the complex nature of manufacturing a new product made it more logical to rely on a manufacturer already established in Alabama. Outsourcing that portion of the process also has allowed the Diatomix team – a small group that includes four full-time employees and two part-time consultants – to focus on identifying initial markets to introduce the company’s product.

The company already has targeted three main markets for its first push: as an additive to household cleaners, hardwood and laminated flooring coverings, and wall paints.

Even as the team at Diatomix works to make inroads in those three areas, the company is bringing on students, consultants and others to conduct market research to help identify other niches where the material might be beneficial. Among the possibilities: cement, air purifiers and HVAC systems as well as textiles such as athletic and sportswear.

“We kept under the radar to get productivity going,” he said. “Now we’re actively seeking partners that we can cement relationships with.”

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As the building boom continues in Oregon, landscape architects are among those reaping the benefits.

The windfall isn’t without challenges though, especially for landscape architecture firms looking to bring top talent on board to help with the load of work coming through their doors.

For many landscape architecture firms, one of the richest project veins right now is the educational sector. Higher education projects held steady during the recession, as community colleges and universities expanded and upgraded facilities to meet a flow of newly enrolled students seeking career training after losing jobs.

In Eugene, for example, Lane Community College gained voters’ support to tackle academic and athletic projects as well as some general campus improvements. For Eugene-based Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning (CMLA), that work helped it keep busy during the recession while other firms were forced to lay off staff, CMLA principal landscape architect Matt Scheibe said.

But K-12 projects dried up during the economic slowdown. Some school districts found it difficult to drum up voters’ support for school construction bonds during that time. Other districts simply chose not to pursue money for projects, preferring to wait until after the economy had improved.

“There was a chunk of time where there was not much (K-12) funding activity,” Scheibe said.

The situation has turned around in recent years, with schools and community colleges in Oregon now updating existing facilities and building new ones with a total of more than $5 billion approved by voters.

Many of those projects reflect some new trends that are requiring landscape architects to approach projects in new ways and use out-of-the-box thinking. While flexible spaces in buildings have become popular, school officials also are looking for ways to use outdoor spaces to support curriculums, Scheibe said. Another popular feature: community gardens on school grounds that serve as classrooms while also providing food for student meals.

Being able to tap into the range of projects available, though, means making sure a firm has enough talented designers and landscape architects. For Scheibe’s firm, having offices in Eugene and Portland offers the benefit of being able to draw students from programs at the University of Oregon and Portland State University. But the firm still has to keep up what has become a competitive hiring environment, according to Scheibe.

“We’re finding good help, but it’s taking more effort,” he said. “We’ve had to work harder, advertise a little more. And we’ve had to be a little faster in the process of interviewing and making a hiring decision. We’ve had to be a little more streamlined (in our process).”

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In 2017, voters in Portland-metro areas approved construction bonds totaling $2 billion for school districts. That same year, voters approved $500 million more for school construction projects in other parts of the state, including $268 million for Bend-LaPine Schools in Central Oregon.

When added to construction bond measures supported by voters in previous years – including $680 million for the Beaverton School District in 2014 – the total amount being invested in school projects now and in the near future is approximately $5 billion.

But the increasing complexity of educational facility projects coupled with concerns about a shortage of skilled workers has school district officials examining new ways to design, construct and even manage those projects. The days of winning a contract through straight low bid are fast disappearing and increasingly, school district bond administrators say, they’re looking for approaches – from construction manager-general contractor to pre-qualifications with requests for proposals – that best fit the specifics of individual projects.

Portland Community College, for example, was still finishing projects from an earlier bond when voters last year approved a new $185 million construction bond. Now PCC officials are looking at using some of that money to tackle its first design-build project: a 25,000-square-foot pre-apprenticeship center.

“This is a new thing for us, so we’ve been doing a lot of research,” Linda Degman, PCC’s bond program director, told an audience of 250 who gathered last week for the first event in a Builder Breakfast series being offered by the Daily Journal of Commerce in 2018.

The Beaverton School District already has tackled about half of the projects it plans to complete with the bond money that voters approved in 2014. But that still leaves about $300 million worth of work that needs to be done by 2022, Paul Odenthal, the school district’s executive administrator for facilities, said during the breakfast panel discussion.

“There are still some large nuggets out there,” he said.

Projects planned by the Beaverton School District for 2018 and 2019 include roof replacements and HVAC upgrades at several existing elementary and middle schools.

Aloha High School will be the site of a long list of projects this year and next. The school, along with Beaverton High School, is on tap to receive auditorium safety improvements. The Aloha building also is in line for a seismic upgrade, a first-phase roof replacement and a career technical education project. A career technical education project also is scheduled to take place at Westview High School in 2018-19.

One of the district’s biggest projects won’t begin until next year, when work is scheduled to begin to replace the Arts & Communication Magnet Academy. The project is slated for completion in 2021.

The district also is looking at more than 20 roof replacements on existing buildings. That work is expected to last through 2022.

Portland Public Schools also is finishing up projects from previously approved bond measures while gearing up to begin planning for yet another round of work that will be tackled with money from a $790 million bond that voters approved last year. That brought the total amount of money Portland Public Schools has for its capital improvement program to $1.4 billion, and includes $185 million for health and safety improvements ranging from roof replacements and lead paint abatement to water pipe replacements and sprinkler upgrades at existing schools.

Meanwhile, Hillsboro School District is gearing up to use the $405 million that voters approved last year to build two new schools, renovate several existing schools and address health and safety issues throughout district buildings.

“This bond will touch every one of our projects,” said Adam Stewart, capital projects officer for the Hillsboro School District.

While school districts may have specific project needs, there are some common threads when it comes to what they need prospective partners – from architectural firms to construction companies – to bring to the table.

While having a range of projects at various stages has always posed challenges when it comes to scheduling and coordinating, the current shortage of skilled labor as baby boomers retire poses an additional hurdle.

“The challenge right now is to make sure we have coverage for all of our projects,” Stewart said.

The time when school grounds and campuses aren’t occupied also is growing increasingly shorter. That means that safety and flexibility, already important skills for project team members to bring to the table, will become even more important in district hiring decisions when it comes to awarding contracts.

District representatives across the board said they’re examining the best ways to bundle smaller bond-funded projects in a way that will allow a large number of companies to participate while still making the packages financially worthwhile for contractors.

“That work is hard to know how to package, so we’re looking for input and suggestions,” Jung said.

The amount of money available for local school construction projects may grow even more later this month. Three Washington state school districts have placed bond measures on the ballot for a Feb. 13 special election. Evergreen School District, in Vancouver, Washington, is asking its voters to support a $695 million school construction bond, while Battle Ground School District is looking for voter approval of a $224.9 million bond measure and La Center School District is pursuing a $48 million bond measure.

The post Eager to put bond money to use appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When Oregon legislators return to work next month, they’ll face a tough task.

More than 240 bills – touching on topics ranging from allowing autonomous vehicles on state highways under certain circumstances to continuing education requirements for real estate brokers looking to renew licenses – have been submitted for consideration. Legislators will have to pick and choose which issues they’ll address during the 35 days set aside for the short session, which begins Feb. 5.

One of the topics local building industry trade groups and lobbyists expect will receive attention relates to the transportation package that was approved as House Bill 2017 during last year’s legislative session. Signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown in August, the 10-year package calls for $5.3 billion worth of projects to decrease congestion, fix roads and bridges, and improve public transportation.

“Legislators passed (HB 2017) with the understanding these projects will be done as soon as possible,” said Marshall Coba, president of government relation firms CobaCo and a lobbyist for the American Council of Engineering Companies of Oregon.

Right now, though, the Oregon Department of Transportation doesn’t have enough staff to make sure that happens. From 2010 to 2015, the agency reduced its workforce by approximately 5 percent as funding for future projects became uncertain, ODOT spokesman Dave Thompson said.

Although money from the transportation package is starting to trickle in, ODOT needs to get project managers and support staff in place to make sure design work can begin quickly, Thompson said.

The transportation package included money for 35.6 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions for ODOT. Legislators told ODOT to study the requirements in the transportation bill and then return during the short session with any additional staffing needs.

ODOT plans to ask legislators for an additional 77.6 FTE positions – about 78 employees – for the rest of the current biennium, Thompson said. The agency also expects to look for financing for 261 additional positions when it creates its budget for the 2019-21 biennium. The majority of the positions added will be supervisory and supportive in nature.

“Right now, the money is starting to come in; there’s no money to spend yet,” Thompson said. “The big projects that are required in the bill all come later.”

Design work, however, is expected to begin quickly, Thompson said, and that’s where the agency plans to turn to private firms for help.

“Starting in 2003, (ODOT) evolved from an agency that was pretty much 70 percent in-house design and 30 percent out of house,” he said. “We’ve switched those two numbers around now.”

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When it comes to providing entry-level training for people looking to step into careers in the construction trades, Montie Boyer knows there’s no substitute for real-world experience.

That’s why Boyer, the manager of craft instruction at the Northwest College of Construction, has made it a habit to try to find projects for the school’s students that provide hands-on experience while giving back to the community.

The most recent of those efforts is under way at Pleasant Valley Elementary School in Gresham, where the construction college’s students are building a boardwalk and trail system so that students from the grade school and people from the community can easily access a 10-acre site called Wildside.

Since 2007, Pleasant Valley science teacher David Scharfenberg has been working with his sixth-grade students to turn the field from a tangle of blackberry brambles and weeds into a place that is equal parts outdoor laboratory and forest restoration project.

At least twice a week, students leave the classroom and head out into Wildside to conduct experiments. Scharfenberg and his students have planted 4,200 trees and conducted studies to monitor their health. They’ve studied, identified and removed invasive species and worked to re-establish native plants in the area.

The work to transform the site has offered other lessons outside the world of science. With a limited budget to improve Wildside, Scharfenberg’s students have learned to write grants. Those efforts have resulted in drumming up about $225,000 from agencies that include Metro, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and the Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District.

They’ve also learned about the intricacies of developing and building in sensitive natural areas as they’ve started to use some of the grant money to install a boardwalk and trail system that will allow others to visit – and learn – about Wildside.

“We had to go through a huge permitting process,” Scharfenberg said. “We discovered it doesn’t matter if you’re a for-profit developer or a nonprofit – you still have to pay for fees.”

In order to stretch the grant money they received for the boardwalk project, Scharfenberg and his students had to get creative. Working with a Tualatin-based company called Western Wood Structures, they found a basic design and a pin-pile foundation product called Diamond Pier that minimized the amount of concrete that would have to be poured to create a foundation for the boardwalk.

The teacher and his students also needed to minimize the cost to actually build the boardwalk and trail system. Scharfenberg had been in talks with ACE Academy to have students in the school build the boardwalk. But the school ended up closing before the projects reached the construction phase. A plan to work with pre-apprentices from Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. also fell through because the school was too far outside of OTI‘s coverage area.

Then Scharfenberg remembered the building he’d passed by near Northeast 82nd Avenue more than once – the Northwest College of Construction. He figured someone there might be able to point him to a new resource. He contacted the college, and soon he and Boyer were discussing how the school and the college could work together on the boardwalk project.

The students at the construction college first began gaining field experience through community projects about 10 years ago when an instructor at the school told Boyer that volunteer help was needed to build the Heroes Memorial in Gresham. For Boyer, the project provided a solution to the challenge of evaluating how students would perform on a real project while providing them with hands-on experience to support their classroom learning.

“For our concrete students, it’s really hard to give them experience with concrete; you can’t pour concrete in a shop,” Boyer said. “So I started trying to get them opportunities outside of the school.”

Soon after the construction college’s students wrapped up a year of working on the Heroes Memorial, more community project opportunities came their way. Although the flood of community projects dried up during the recession, it resumed about four or five years ago, Boyer said.

The Pleasant Valley boardwalk project is more than just a basic hands-on experience, though. It also is providing students exposure to new techniques as a result of working with the Diamond Pier system, which Boyer said he had never worked with until now.

The project also has offered an opportunity for the college to begin to forge a new partnership with Portland Youth Builders and Constructing Hope, which also are providing pre-apprenticeship students for the work crew.

“It’s just opened up a whole new avenue of opportunity,” Boyer said.

The boardwalk project, which includes construction of between 1,000 and 1,200 square feet of gravel trail, is approximately one-third of the way toward completion. Work is expected to wrap up by the time the school cuts a ribbon to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Wildside.

In the meantime, Scharfenberg’s students are already busy on their next project.

“(They’re) writing grants for monitoring equipment,” he said. “They want to install game cameras to capture images of both human and animal users.”

The post A walk on the Wildside appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Structural Engineers Association of Oregon has released the names of the winning projects in the 2017 SEAO Excellence in Structural Engineering awards competition.

The annual awards recognize outstanding structural engineering efforts that feature at least one team member associated with SEAO. This year’s nominated projects were selected by a panel of judges based on criteria that included creativity and complexity of structural design, efficient use of materials, successful fulfillment of owner/client needs, and suitability of the structure for its environment.

The Titus Will adaptive reuse project, submitted by WDY Inc., was selected as the winner in the renovation and retrofit category. The 50,000-square-foot, two-story structure underwent a full seismic upgrade because of occupancy changes. The addition of moment frames to the seismic system allowed an existing large storefront to remain open. The project owner/developer was Tourmaline Capital and Irwin Development Group. The project architect was Lundin Cole Architects, and the general contractor was Korsmo Construction.

The award for buildings over $10 million went to the Q21 mixed-use project, which was submitted by Nishkian Dean. The seven-story, 202,000-square-foot mixed-use structure featured unique columns made from two 12-sided tapered steel sections. Welded together at the center, the sections created double tapered columns that formed the number XXI. The project owner/developer was Rosan Inc. The project architect was YBA Architects, and the general contractor was Andersen Construction.

The Athey Creek Christian Fellowship project, submitted by VLMK Engineering + Design, won the award for new buildings under $10 million. The judges gave the project and its engineering team top scores for overcoming a major hurdle to successfully locate concrete panels, ranging in height from 34 feet to 37 feet, on top of 12-inch-wide, cast-in-place concrete walls. The project owner was Athey Creek Christian Fellowship. The project team included David Bissett Architect and general contractor Perlo Construction.

In the special-use structures category, the winning project was the C-Tran Fourth Plain Bus Rapid Transit Corridor and Maintenance Facility expansion and renovation. The project holds the distinction as the first bus rapid transit system in Oregon or Southwest Washington. The project owner was C-Tran. The project team included Equilibrium Engineers, which submitted the project, PIVOT Architecture and Waterleaf Architecture, and general contractors Emerick Construction, Colf Construction and Tapani.

The Portland Japanese Garden’s Cultural Crossing was selected as the jurors’ favorite. The expansion project added four buildings, a site bridge and several site retaining walls. The owner/developer was the Portland Japanese Garden. Architects for the project were Kengo Kuma & Associates and Hacker. Hoffman Construction was general contractor.

The judging panel for the awards included Eric Thomas of the Portland Bureau of Development Services; Thomas Miller of the Oregon State University School of Civil and Construction Engineering; Judith Sheine of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Environment; and Stephanie Basalyga, editor of the Daily Journal of Commerce.

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Even before the ink was dry on President Donald Trump’s signature on a tax bill in December, certified public accountants were poring over the new rules to see how their business clients might be impacted.

At local accounting firms with construction divisions, CPAs and other industry professionals are already fielding calls from developers, contractors, and architecture and engineering firms seeking information about details. With most aspects of the bill going into effect this year, the outlook for most companies in the building industry in Oregon is a mixed bag, local CPAs say.

Among one of the brightest bits of news related to the bill comes in the area of expensing deductions for property and equipment, according to Joe Schneid, a CPA and tax partner in the construction division at Aldrich CPAs + Advisors. In the past, companies have been able to deduct 50 percent of the cost of new equipment and property purchased. Under the new bill, the deduction has been increased to 100 percent of the cost, and applies to the purchase of both new and used equipment and property for the year it’s put into service.

That 100 percent amount will hold through 2022.

“After that, it starts to phase out,” Schneid said.

There’s more good news for companies organized as C corporations. Those companies, which are usually large and traded publicly, will see their federal tax rate decrease from 35 percent to 21 percent.

While Oregon has some C corporations, most companies are organized under designations such as S corporations or limited liability companies. Those businesses weren’t forgotten when it comes to new rules for the federal tax rate, however.

“Most pass-through businesses – including real estate developers and construction contractors, architects and engineers — should enjoy a 20-percent-of-business-income deduction in their tax returns,” Schneid said.

Other details of the new tax bill aren’t necessarily as well defined or easy to predict – for a number of reasons.

“There’s a lot of fine print or details that really aren’t worked out yet,” Schneid said.

In Oregon, one of the largest areas of gray has to do with how taxable income is calculated. Traditionally, the state has followed federal laws. But Oregon has yet to align its existing calculation scheme with the sweeping federal changes. While there’s a chance state legislators could tackle that issue during the upcoming session that starts in February, Schneid thinks it’s unlikely. The session is a short one, slated to last just 35 days.

Without a change in legislation, Schneid said, taxpayers may find themselves forced to calculate federal taxes under the new federal rules and state taxes under the old rules. The best way to prepare: keep detailed records.

“Don’t assume that you won’t need official records just because the law has changed,” Schneid said. “You still need to do the same (documentation).”

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Construction companies looking for ways to increase the diversity of their workforces may find some solutions at the Diversity in the Construction Trades Summit on Nov. 9.

The full-day event will offer opportunities for companies and firms just beginning to dip a toe in the world of building a diverse workforce as well as those that have well-established diversity and inclusion programs and are interested in sharing what they’ve learned.

Organized by a joint effort between Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. and Constructing Hope, the summit will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus.

There will be two sessions. The morning session will include a collaborative panel discussion, and educational and informational programs. During the afternoon session, participants will be gathered into groups, where they will discuss challenges, share solutions, brainstorm and devise plans of action to take back and implement in their workplaces.

This is the third consecutive year for the summit. It has been refined each year to keep up with an increasing awareness in the local construction market, according to Megan Taliaferro, OTI‘s consulting and training coordinator who is leading planning for the summit.

In its earliest incarnation, the summit was focused mainly on work by public agencies. Last year, though, there was a larger effort to create more balance by bringing in more private companies. This year, organizers also looking to attract more private companies while also adding representatives from pre-apprenticeship and training programs to the mix of attendees, Taliaferro said.

The event has been filling quickly, but Taliaferro said about 30 spots available remain for companies or industry professionals interested in attending. While the summit is drawing many repeat attendees, organizers are “hoping to bring some new people into the conversation,” she said.

The cost to attend the summit is $55 per person. Online registration is available at . The website also has additional information about the summit.

If you go:

What: Diversity in the Construction Trades Summit

When: Nov. 9, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus, 705 N. Killingsworth St., Portland

Cost: $55 per person

More information: www.tradeswomen.net/diversity-in-the-construction-trades-summit/

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