Walker Macy celebrated a significant milestone this year when principal Chelsea McCann became a majority owner and the firm registered as a Women Business Enterprise.

McCann, who joined the firm in 2000, said she was introduced to landscape architecture through family friends and was attracted to the profession’s range of scale and flexibility, from small residential projects to large-scale city planning.

“For me, landscape architecture is the perfect intersection between creativity, science and technical problem solving,” she said. “Every project has a unique collection of challenges, and I get to work with an incredible team and interesting clients to develop designs that solve urban and environmental challenges, while becoming focal points within their communities.”

Among her favorite projects are the Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Bricks Courtyard, South Waterfront Greenway and Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area.

Prior to becoming an owner of Walker Macy, she participated in strategic planning and helped to chart a new course for the firm. McCann said she saw her ownership as a chance to continue to make changes, “building on a solid foundation, but looking forward to imagine a future version of the firm that is more diverse, more equitable and more sustainable.”

McCann noted that she has seen the industry change significantly for women since she began her career 20 years ago. While men have historically dominated firm leadership, that is changing as the older generations reach retirement and younger people have begun to take leadership positions.
“Younger generations expect and want more diversity at the leadership table,” she said. “When I started I was often the only woman in the room, and I sometimes felt that my gender made it hard for me to be heard. I rarely ever find myself in those situations now.

“Now I find myself working with people of all genders and backgrounds where our voices are equally valued,” she added.��“I see the outcome as richer, more interesting design discussions, and am continually, pleasantly challenged to see projects from new perspectives. In all, I find it to be a more welcoming and supportive environment than the one I started in.”

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Cecil DelaCruz, president and CEO of Viking Engineering + Construction, is a mechanical engineer by training, and started his career as a diffusion engineer in the semiconductor industry. When his employer wanted to build a new fabrication plant, they asked if anyone internally was interested in serving as the owner’s representative to interface with the general contractor.

“Most of my work at the time was in a think-tank environment, trying to figure out how to squeeze more information into smaller chips, so I jumped at the opportunity to work on something that involved a lot of interaction with others,” he said. “As soon as the project started, I just fell in love with the construction process. I loved the interaction between so many different experts and trades, the complexity of it and, most of all, the ability to actually work within the construction process.”

DelaCruz decided then that he would start his own construction company and, as a recent graduate of Portland State University, call��it Viking Engineering + Construction.��

Today, VEC is a full-service construction manager/general contractor specializing in state and federal, health care, high tech and commercial projects. Its work includes tenant improvements; security and energy upgrades; roofing replacements; mechanical, electrical and plumbing upgrades; and civil construction.��

Lindsay Verdugo, community affairs specialist for Mortenson Construction, said that as Mortenson’s protégé graduate from the Port of Portland Mentor-Protégé Program, VEC seeks to engage other certified firms and constantly seeks resources to improve itself.

“On one of Viking’s projects with the Port of Portland, they teamed with another certified firm, Sterling Pacific. The majority of Sterling Pacific’s field staff did not hold CPR/AED certificates, so Viking hosted a training and invited Sterling Pacific to participate,” Verdugo said. “This participation also demonstrated that Viking honored their safety plan by having every onsite individual certified in first aid/AED/CPR. Viking continues to create a positive reputation for MWESB firms.”

Each year, VEC participates in Kaiser Permanente’s MLK Volunteer Day. It also funds two scholarships for PSU — one for the College of Business and the other for the College of Engineering — that are available to immigrant and first-generation college students.

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When Salazar Architect was hired to design the building shell and interior common areas for Vibrant!, an affordable housing high rise in the Pearl District, Alex Salazar knew the collaboration with LRS Architects and Innovative Housing, Inc. meant big things lie ahead for his firm.

“That was well received and that was a big achievement for us,” Salazar said, adding it was his company’s first high-rise and first partnership with IHI. “It was also a very cost-driven project. The cost pressures were pretty large, but we still managed to achieve a very refined design.”

Sarah Stevenson, IHI’s executive director, said her organization appreciated Salazar’s vision for Vibrant! and his commitment to a bold design statement that made the building stand out while still fitting within the neighborhood’s context.��

“The design faced many challenges along the way, but IHI and Alex pushed through together and we are very proud of the end result,” she said. “We like the bright pop of color and the unique rotated bays that call attention to the building and help it stand up to the massive freeway structure nearby.��Most of all, we love that our residents are proud of their new home and feel excited by the space and the opportunities it provides.”��
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Salazar began working in architecture, community and urban design, and interiors in the Bay Area and relocated his solo practice to Portland in 2004.

He said his best decision as a business owner has been to hire talented people with a similar passion for community-based design.

He added that he’s excited that his company is now working with Living Cully to redevelop the Sugar Shack, a former strip club, into a transit-oriented development with a public plaza, mural art, solar installation and electric vehicle service, among other community-driven amenities.

“The community benefits in this project are very immense and pretty unusual, so we’re really happy and excited for this to go forward and to see its completion,” Salazar said. “From the design side, we’ve been very conscious of an approach that pushes Latin-American architecture. That has been in our minds as we think about design and color.”

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Randy Ramos began honing his construction skills as he and his sister helped clean and maintain his family’s rental properties. Ramos, whose family emigrated from Mexico and was the first in his family to be born in the United States, graduated to working on repairs and renovations and became a seasoned jack of all trades.

When he started his own company, he specialized in residential remodeling. He grew his company and his services, and is now working with Howard S. Wright as a subcontractor providing electrical services on the Portland Building reconstruction project.

Rachel Farley of Howard S. Wright called RJ Ramos a “shining example of what a successful leap from private-sector into public-sector contracting looks like,” and praised Ramos for successfully adapting his workforce, project administration and bidding processes to win bids and deliver the work successfully.

“RJ Ramos is the kind of business hero we need more of. With such an unprecedented demand on COBID-certified firms, the industry needs more firms to get certified, to win contracts and to deliver public work profitably,” she said. “Crossing into public-sector work, even after decades in business, presents companies with a different set of rules and impacts their business model significantly. RJ Ramos deserves to be recognized for diving head first to meet this demand and to do it strategically, intentionally and successfully.”

Farley noted that Ramos has two sons who have joined the trades, one of whom is working on the Portland Building, and is continuing to grow the family business.

Bill Kruse, preconstruction manager at RJ Ramos, said that Ramos’ commitment to the community includes donating time and materials to nonprofits and encouraging employees to participate in service projects and personal endeavors they feel strongly about.

“Randy has an open-ended policy that the company will assist employees reach their academic goals by helping pay the costs of a relevant course of study. A number of our employees have taken advantage of this opportunity, including myself,” Kruse said.

In addition, Ramos has worked with several nonprofit organizations and other entities that support disabled persons, low-income families and affordable housing developments by performing lead abatement on homes with young children.

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While the homes are no longer vacant and neglected, gentrification and displacement continue to force some people into situations of housing instability and affordable rentals are needed now more than ever. PCRI’s Homeownership Initiative and Resident Programs allow people to move into a continuum of self-sufficiency.

Its Pathway 1000 program, which received Bank of America’s 2018 Innovator Award, has completed construction on 84 homes, 80 of which are rental housing.

“We currently have 76 units under construction, 70 of which will also be rental housing. Next year our construction will shift focus and we’ll be working primarily on the development of affordable homeownership opportunities,” said Rachel Loftin, senior housing developer.

Among its recent projects, PCRI last November celebrated the grand opening of the Beatrice Morrow Cannady Building, a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail and 80 affordable rental units. Construction is currently underway on the King + Parks Apartments, which will bring 69 more units of affordable housing to the area.

“This project is being built with funding from the Portland Housing Bureau, which will allow us to bring families back to the neighborhood that have been historically displaced or are currently at risk of displacement due to rising housing costs in the area,” Loftin said.

PCRI, which earned the Governor’s Livability Award and recognition in the city’s Build It Green! homes tour, also recently had a change in its executive leadership. After 28 years of building PCRI into what it is today, Maxine Fitzpatrick handed over the executive director reins to Kymberly Horner. Horner comes from Oxnard, California, and has an extensive background in community and economic development.

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PLACE is the landscape architect for Block 216, collaborating with GBD Architects in the development of the streetscape design and a series of on-structure terraces for the 35-story, mixed-use tower.��

Principal Mauricio Villarreal said several elements make the project unique. It envisions the character and design elements of the citywide Green Loop plan with the redevelopment of Southwest Ninth��Avenue as its first realized block.

“PLACE has approached the design of Southwest Ninth��Avenue as Portland’s��shared street��contributing to the public space network, adding vibrancy and activity with outdoor dining, public seating, artwork and landscaping,” Villarreal said. “Amplified by the ground-floor food hall, the��shared street��illuminated with overhead hanging lights allows a variety of activities and safe movement, indicating that vehicles are guests and parking spaces are reconceptualized as ‘flex zones’ celebrating pedestrians and bicyclists.”

The food hall, shared street concept affords opportunities for pedestrians and activities to move seamlessly from inside to outside and vice versa, functionally extending the sidewalk into the building, Villarreal added.

“Aligning with the architecture’s inspiration from the region’s geology, the podium terraces coalesce into a mosaic of urban landform terraces above the public realm channeling water through a cascade of raised stormwater planters,” he said. “The geologic abstraction transcends into the dynamic forms extending the green canopy of O’Bryant Square into a floating forest.”

As the first project under the new Comprehensive Plan, Block 216 stimulated a dialogue about how to retain some of the food carts’ energy and how the design of Ninth could become a precedent for the Green Loop’s future development.

“Since this segment of the avenue will be redesigned as mitigation for the 12-foot setback standard and is the first in the city to be designed and likely to be built, the proposed street design elements could be replicated elsewhere on the Green Loop, creating continuity for the system and an authentic sense of place for the Portland’s public space network,” Villarreal said.

Block 216 proposes how the design elements of the street could be extended to the north and south along the SW Ninth and Park Avenue segments of the Green Loop, Villarreal said.

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In 2017, MAWE worked with the city of Portland to establish Community Benefit Agreements and pilot them on two projects.

“Successful pilot projects with the city of Portland and the Portland Water Bureau achieved record participation and provided technical support to over 20 minority and women contractors to upgrade their estimating systems,” said Faye Burch, owner of F M Burch and Associates.

Burch noted that Professional Business Development Group nominated MAWE for recognition because the organization speaks up for equity opportunities for minority and women participation on construction projects both as subcontractors and in workforce apprenticeship.

Kelly Haines, senior project manager for Worksystems, coordinates MAWE and said the CBAs continue to improve equity through projects such as the Multnomah County Courthouse and the Gladys McCoy Health Department headquarters.

“Those projects we found to be very successful, not just around COBID firms but also in terms of workforce diversity,” she said. “We really want to make sure there is retention of women and minorities throughout the projects and at the journey level.”

MAWE is partnering with the Portland Harbor Community Coalition and the Healthy Communities Coalition to support other CBA efforts in the harbor cleanup and the Broadway Corridor. It also is working with Metro by providing input and direction on the Construction Career Pathways Project (C2P2) initiative.

“We see that as a really great possibility at the regional level because C2P2 is standardizing diversity goals across the region,” Haines said. “It’s a big win, and even though it’s a first step, the agencies that sign on are the biggest builders and will be leaders in helping to set the standard.”

Haines co-chaired the recently published Minority Contractor Participation Equity Committee report to further identify ways to improve opportunities for minority- and women-owned subcontractors. MAWE also supports the work of BOLI-certified, pre-apprenticeship programs for minorities, women and low-income residents through grant funding that will train nearly 300 workers for a career in the trades.

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At least 80 planned public projects worth nearly $7 billion will require 14,000 construction workers over the next several years, Metro learned from a 2018 study assessing the region’s construction workforce.

Metro, Worksystems Inc. and the city of Portland commissioned the Regional Workforce Market Study, which focused exclusively on public projects worth more than $15 million, to explore how to leverage public dollars to create job opportunities for people of color and women to better understand the challenges they face in the construction trades.

“It was a deeper dive into the experiences of diverse workers who are attempting to step into the sector,” said Raahi Reddy, Metro’s diversity, equity and inclusion program manager. “We know the Portland area is facing a huge shortage of construction workers. On top of that, we know that for women and people of color the retention rates are 38 percent and 36 percent.”

The study also highlighted some of the bullying and harassment that happens on jobsites in a male-dominated industry that traditionally has not been welcoming to people of color and women, she said.

“It’s been that way for a long time and it’s just sort of accepted that that’s construction,” Reddy said. “We know that if we want to impact retention rates then we have to impact culture. We lose about $10,000 worth of workforce investment per apprentice who does not make it through the first year of their apprenticeship, so from the business case it benefits us to make sure they finish their first year and make those investments go really far.”

The market study is guiding 16 public agencies as they work together to develop tools and policies that create inclusive and promising career paths in construction. Community-based organizations, pre-apprenticeship training programs, industry groups, minority contractors and trade unions gave input to the work group based on their perspectives and experiences. By this fall, the public agencies expect to finalize a shared policy framework that will guide future projects.

Another part of Metro’s DEI initiatives is the Construction Career Pathways Project, through which it is partnering with other public agencies, the region’s workforce investment board, community-based organizations and labor groups. Reddy said Metro looked at similar programs in Seattle and Los Angeles, and Portland’s effort has one significant difference.

“The difference in Portland that we’re really proud of is that we started out with an alliance of multiple agencies first,” she said. “This is really a very ambitious effort and that’s what C2P2 set out to do, to bring an alliance of agencies together to meet common goals.”

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Dave Lauzon, owner of Lauzon Contracting, cites Duffin’s integrity and honesty, noting they have worked on projects together over the last 12 years and Lauzon plans to continue their collaborations for years to come.

Mauricio Rojas, owner of KO Contracting, has worked with Duffin for a decade and called LMC Construction the best company he has worked with.

“They are very high-quality, very professional and very trustworthy people to work with,” Rojas said. “It’s a fast-growing company and I can see why. They do great work.”

LMC Construction specializes in commercial and mixed-use construction, and it does renovations, adaptive re-use and ground-up new construction. Its portfolio includes West Parc at Bethany Village, The Arbory, Miracles Central and 72Foster, among others.

Duffin, who grew up in a family of business owners and has been interested in how things are built since childhood, said a defining moment for his company was when a new client gave him an opportunity to build something much larger and more complicated than he had ever done before.��

“We successfully completed that project and have been this client’s builder of choice ever since,” he said.��“Additionally, having this project on our resume opened doors that would otherwise never have been opened. We are eternally grateful for that opportunity.��It fundamentally changed the trajectory of our company.”

LMC Construction actively seeks out certified firms for all of its projects. It also works with some of its smaller MWESB partners, helping them to navigate prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements and providing accelerated payments to them when needed.��

“We are genuinely satisfied when we see these partners grow with us and become bigger and stronger businesses,” Duffin said.

LMC Construction’s volunteer work ranges from contributing money to local charities and donating school supplies to holiday toy drives and helping Habitat for Humanity build homes.

“We are always doing something to give back to the community.��We honestly have the most giving group of employees that I could imagine,” he said.

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Neil Lee remembers wanting to be an architect as far back as eighth grade and gained several years of experience before buying his firm in 2005. It was initially established in 1974 as Ehman-Klas Architects and then called STOA-EKA Architects until Lee renamed it LEEKA.

Like many of his fellow designers, Lee, principal of LEEKA, has weathered several economic ups and downs, including the Great Recession. He said his best decision as a business owner has been to survive those downturns as many other firms closed their doors.

“In my heart and my brain and my soul, I could not quit. In my personal life I had a lot going on, so I had to keep my business going,” he said.

Lee’s firm provides a full range of architectural services with a focus on commercial public-sector projects as well as restaurants and retail space. His favorites include helping to repair large ceiling tiles in the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, working as a consultant on the Portland-Milwaukie MAX line and designing ticket booths for Blue Lake Regional Park. His firm received a 2007 Hammurabi Award from the Masonry and Ceramic Tile Institute of Oregon.

A member of the Port of Portland’s Mentor-Protegee Program, Lee works with other minority- and women-owned businesses as often as possible. Marjorie Wolf, principal engineer at Wolf Water Resources, praised Lee’s commitment to the community, which ranges from contributing time and expertise as a director for the Broadway Corridor Steering Committee to serving as president of the Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the Portland Lee’s Association.

“LEEKA Architecture provided pro bono architectural work for the Lan Su Chinese Garden offices and for the OCCBA building. They donated time and money and architectural services to various Chinese organizations for their New Year events,” Wolf wrote in her nomination of Lee, adding that he provided architectural consulting services to refurbish the Chinatown Gate.

LEEKA Architecture and Planning was named the 2012 Minority Business of the Year by the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, and Lee was named 2018 Citizen of the Year by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance.

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