A worker found a noose at a Benson High School construction site on Saturday. It is the second one discovered on an Andersen Construction jobsite in the past 26 months.

The noose was discovered at around 9:45 a.m. by a trade partner of Andersen’s, said Brian Knudson, Andersen Construction’s regional vice president.

“It is with a heavy heart, extreme disappointment and hurt that we are reporting the discovery of a noose on our Benson High School jobsite Saturday, Aug. 13,” the company said in a statement. “The tradepartner immediately notified Andersen Construction. The scene was secured, Portland Police Bureau was notified and responded at 11:15 am. The FBI has been notified also.”

It is at least the second noose to be found on an Andersen Construction job since May 2020. The first was discovered at the Vanport Building (previously 4^th and Montgomery) site in downtown Portland. When the noose was found it was not until 20 days later that Andersen executives became aware of the incident — a Facebook post by an employee of another subcontractor notified them of it.

The incident launched the Safe from Hate initiative, a campaign to fight hate crimes and racial bias in the construction industry. Many of Portland’s industry executives, firms and groups have signed on to it – including Andersen Construction, which helped organize the effort.

Monday morning, Andersen Construction held a “stand down” at the Benson jobsite. Knudson said they gathered everyone on the site to make all aware of the situation and what options are available for support. A leaflet was distributed with a QR code and a hotline number where people can provide information anonymously.

Andersen is also offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the identification of the person or people who committed the act.

“We want to show that this is very important to us so we can stop this,” Knudson said.

Benson Tech is one of the most diverse high schools in Portland and largest with “equal numbers of white, Latino, African-American, and Asian American students,” Portland Public Schools says on its website.

The 100-year-old school is receiving a seismic retrofit and modernization. Crews broke ground in August 2021 and completion is expected in fall 2024.

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Contractors in the Portland-metro area are continuing to address the skilled labor shortage by reaching out to educators. Walsh Construction, for example, is helping Benson Polytechnic High School build up its construction technology program.

Last year, Walsh employees spent time in the Benson woodshop to give students hands-on carpentry construction. This year, expansion has allowed instructors to take better advantage of Carpenters International Training Fund (CITF) curriculum. And from a pair of half-full woodworking classes a year ago, the construction technology program has grown to around 100 enrollees – approximately 10 percent of the Benson student body – engaging in classes that could lead them to careers in the skilled trades.

Participants in the two-year program take courses focusing on construction industry soft skills and preliminary hard skills they can use to eventually learn a trade or even go into project management. Students even are taught how to use 3-D modeling software.

“We’ve dramatically changed in the sense of participation,” said Benson woodworking instructor Dave Ketah, a former design professional. “We started the new elective woodworking, and last year was my first year on staff here, so on some level there is new direction for our department. We have gained some really good, new strategy; we have the partnership with Walsh and we’re amplifying our participation and our coverage of the curriculum we use from CITF.”

All told, students who participate in woodworking all year will have taken enough CITF coursework to earn pre-apprenticeship level 3 status, Ketah said. They will have soft skills and building skills needed to qualify for an apprenticeship with their local carpenters union – in this case, United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 1503 of Oregon City.

A few of Ketah’s former students already are making their way into the industry.

“The results are that we have had students in our partnership with the (Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute) entered into an apprenticeship,” he said. “We had a visit from a student last month who graduated last year and he told us about it. He got some credit for this stuff here and for doing the PNCI construction camp. He got pre-apprenticeship credits that put him as a second-term apprentice.”

Someone following that same path, Ketah said, could earn as much as $80,000 annually after reaching journeyman status at age 22.

“We’re able to tell that story to our students as we recruit them to come into our program,” he said.

The partnership with Walsh Construction came about through Portland Public Schools‘ new Partner Connect initiative.

“We’ve talked before about increasing participation in the workforce and getting more people into construction at all levels,” Walsh Construction senior project manager Afton Walsh said. “Being involved in the high schools is a really critical piece of that, and especially being in a high school like this, which is very much targeted at getting people some fundamental blocks to enter the trades or enter into construction with.”

Walsh Construction volunteers spent three months during the 2018-19 school year mentoring and advising Ketah’s students as well as brainstorming new ways to improve the construction career program at Benson. One of those volunteers was project engineer Courtney Mitchell.

“If you look at the way I grew up, I was not exposed to any of this,” she said. “It was an accident how I even ended up in construction. And I want these guys, especially at the high school level, to know that this is something that is attainable. You don’t have to go to a four-year college, and if you get into this field anything is possible. I feel like I have been a result of that.”

Benson senior Dinah Sosa-Martinez does not have family in the construction industry; instead, she learned about career possibilities from friends and now intends to apply to be an apprentice carpenter when she graduates at the end of this school year.

“Originally when I came here I wanted to (pursue) the health occupation major,” she said. “But I had friends in construction and saw what they were making. They have the creative freedom to do what they enjoy and they are in the construction industry.”

Sosa-Martinez enrolled in the woodworking course last year and worked with classmates to build a tiny house. That work helped her land a summer internship with Skanska USA Builders; she spent eight weeks learning the ropes on jobsites.

“This program means so much to me because now I know I want to be a carpenter, and that can help pay for my college and then (I can) become a project manager,” she said. “And honestly I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for this program; I would have went to Jefferson instead as my home school.”

Hearing such messages from peers “can be really influential,” Benson construction technology instructor Luke Hotchkiss said.

“We’re helping them understand the different paths to careers,” Ketah said. “We’re project-based here, but I have just as much of a boss mindset as I have a teacher mindset. Jobsite culture is taught here – soft skills and professional expectations.”

Much of students’ resistance to the idea of a construction career comes from their parents, according to Hotchkiss.

“A lot of kids’ parents want them to go to college, and we’re still fighting that struggle,” he said. “But the kids who want to come here and take advantage of the opportunities, the sky is the limit. They can go into the carpenters’ or laborers’ union and get a head start in life, and we see a lot more response to that recently.”

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Workforce development has become more than a topic of discussion among contractors; it’s now a mantra.

“Everyone is looking for skilled labor and not finding it,” Northwest College of Construction President Bob Strader said.

But nonprofit and Rosemary Anderson High School have partnered to make a difference in the situation. They are offering a pre-apprenticeship course to young people ages 17-25, most of whom are minorities and come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Work Opportunity Training classes kicked off at the Northwest College of Construction in Northeast Portland a month ago, and the 12-week program will conclude June 21. At that point, graduates will be able to start work or continue their training in a formal apprenticeship program.

And even though the program is just starting, contractors from throughout the Portland-metro area already are expressing interest in connecting with these first 10 students, according to Torre Sathrum, a POIC instructor.

“We’ve been flooded with inquiries,” he said. “We’ve been overwhelmed.”

For 26-year-old Benson Polytechnic High School graduate and program participant Trayvayae Cason, there is little time to waste.

“I’m the old one in here,” he said with a laugh. “I want to become an electrician. So, first, I’m going to start off here and work my way into a union and their apprenticeship program if I can. I could also do carpentry or HVAC; whatever I choose in the next eight weeks or so, I can definitely see myself doing it.”

Cason said many of the men in his extended family have taken jobs in skilled trades. And at Benson, known for its construction course and other vocational programs, he developed an interest in trades that survived having two children and a stint in California before a return to the Northwest.

“When you enjoy learning it’s the best thing to do,” he said. “You can learn how to build your own house or whatever structure you want. It’s always good to have something to pass on to your children.”

A training program evolves

The POIC is an affiliate of the national , which was founded in 1958 in Philadelphia to help young black men and women obtain employment training and work opportunities. The Portland affiliate was established for the same purpose a decade later, and currently serves more than 700 students and work trainees each year.

Three programs are offered to young adults (up to age 25) in Portland: Rosemary Anderson High School, for those in need of a diploma; POIC Work Opportunity Training, for those in need of career training; and Rosemary Anderson Transitions, for graduates in post-secondary education in need of mentorship and support.

“Our focus has shifted over the years toward youth,” said Lanya McClintock, director of employment and training for the POIC. “We work with students who have not had success in traditional high schools. And we’ve always had a focus on employment and training.”

In addition to the new pre-apprentice program, the POIC also offers family services, young parent education, street-level gang outreach and other initiatives geared to help people in poverty.

“For a while we have wanted to train youth for a specific career path,” McClintock said. “There’s such a need in Portland to fill these construction jobs, and especially with young people of color and women, that’s really where this came from. The wages and opportunities are so great in the trades and construction, it’s really a pathway out of poverty.”

Expectations and experience

On a recent Monday, the 10 students enrolled in the program filed back into their college classrooms after an early-morning visit to a new POIC space. Remodeling is under way in the former home of a Gresham Police gang outreach office at the corner of Southeast 187th Avenue and Stark Street. Located in the heart of Rockwood, in east Multnomah County, the new space will give the POIC a seat in the Rockwood Rising development poised to rise soon. It’s a central location that likely will attract additional job seekers.

But for now, it’s a first glimpse for the 10 students at what construction is like in the real world.

Sathrum said students, who must pass an application process, must be at work or in the classroom by 6:30 a.m. each morning. Attendance is compulsory, just like an employer would demand. And students are expected to adhere to industry safety standards and regulations while they work.

Each student gets a paycheck during the entirety of the 12-week course, along with the skills needed to step into an apprenticeship either via another training course or with a company looking to fill a labor gap.

“It’s like a real job for them,” Sathrum said.

Sathrum knows full well the value of pre-apprentice and apprentice programs like those offered at the Northwest College of Construction. He’s worked as a general contractor as well as an instructor. And in the latter role, he said, he has often seen students quickly succeed in the construction after completing their training.

“A lot of those guys come back here and the first year they’re driving new trucks,” Sathrum said. “And then the second year they’re looking to buy a house.”

Opportunities are out there

There is an increasing emphasis on getting minorities and women into apprenticeship programs and jobs in the field, in part because of increasingly rigorous public project workforce requirements.

For instance, subcontractors working on the ongoing Multnomah County Courthouse project are required to employ at least 20 percent minorities and 6 percent women on the job. And that’s among the journeymen working; for apprentices, the numbers are even more aggressive: at least 20 percent minorities and 25 percent women, said Justin Paterson, a project manager with Hoffman Construction.

“There’s this message out there and that is: ‘Get out there and get women and people of color into trades,’” he said. “It’s a big systemic issue we’re not going to solve completely on this project. But more and more, people recognize it. Public agencies like the county are pushing for it, and we’ll push the needle on projects like this.”

Strader agreed, saying construction in the public sector is what is driving students to the Northwest College of Construction.

“The demand generator is the U.S. government,” he said. “A third of everything that’s built is owned by the public, and the public agencies require prevailing wage; they require 20 or more percent of the hours on a job be dedicated to training. That’s what creates the demand, and that’s what has me in business.”

Some contractors working entirely in the private sector still send students to training schools like the PNCC. But that represents a “small minority” of the industry, Strader said.

“There are contractors that don’t perform public works that still send their students,” he said. “But it’s based on getting their people skilled up, not based on public works.”

Outreach to young adults

Money for POIC’s pre-apprentice program comes from Worksystems, a Portland nonprofit that focuses on workforce development. Worksystems receives money from local, state and federal governments and distributes it to workforce development programs around the region.

Further, Metro and Mortenson Construction have chipped in to help develop the program so that it would be able to complete the Bureau of Labor and Industries pre-apprenticeship program certification process.

This has allowed POIC students like 23-year-old Jennifer Geisler, who commutes daily from Kelso, Washington, a chance to achieve something meaningful.

“I enjoy it so far, it’s really interesting being the only girl here,” she said. “The first day it was (intimidating), but after I got to know everyone I was like, ‘This is fine.’”

Unlike her twin sister, Geisler added, she had to navigate through a number of life obstacles before finding herself responding earlier this year to an online ad for the POIC program.

“I’ve had a few bumps in the road,” she said, admitting to a yearlong stint in a juvenile facility as a teenager. “Now I’m just trying really hard to find somewhere that I’m comfortable. I’m trying to stick with something. I don’t even care what type of job it is, if it’s going to make me money and pay my bills I’m going to stick with it.”

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A three-story building with self-storage space and ground-floor retail space could be coming to the Lloyd District next to Benson Polytechnic High School.

Developer PacTrust is proposing a building with a 37,500-square-foot footprint at Northeast 12th Avenue and Irving Street. The building would have a 350-foot-long façade facing Benson High along Irving Street. It would reach to 40 to 45 feet in height.

The design is by Mackenzie. The project team received design advice from the Portland Design Commission on Thursday.

The project comes amid strong growth in Northeast Portland’s multifamily market. Projects such as American Assets Trust‘s Hassalo on Eighth have added thousands of apartments to the area.

As a result of Portland’s growing population, the self-storage market is booming. Several new proposals call for self-storage facilities, including U-Store Pearl under the Fremont Bridge in the North Pearl District. That project is from local developer Joe Weston and Hoyt Street Properties.

“It seems that storage is the new multifamily housing, and we’re going to see a lot of it,” Design Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said. “It would be good to have some examples to point to.”

The PacTrust project would offer a coffee shop and a small courtyard at Northeast 12th Avenue and Irving Street to activate the streetscape. Brick and metal panels would form the exterior.

Livingston asked Mackenzie senior associate Adam Solomonson why the building’s exterior couldn’t be completely brick. “I didn’t want it to be so similar to Benson High School as to make it look like a portion of Benson High School,” he replied.

Commissioner Andrew Clarke seconded the notion that an all-masonry building would better meet design guidelines.

The building would be visible to drivers on Interstate 84, just north of the project site, as well as neighboring surface streets.

Design commissioners said some of the exterior materials needed refinement.

“It seems to me this is a building looking for a concept,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said. “It’s not there yet.”

PacTrust purchased the parcel for $5.6 million in February 2016, according to public records.

Weston owns to the east of the site a neighboring 4-acre parcel that he purchased for $28 million in September 2017. In a letter to the Design Commission, Weston asked why he wasn’t notified of the PacTrust project. He asked the commission to reschedule Thursday’s meeting, but wrote that he didn’t oppose the project. “I offer no objection if a self-storage facility goes on the subject site if the zoning will allow it,” Weston wrote.

As Thursday’s meeting concluded, PacTrust Vice President for Asset Management J. Benjamin Chessar declined to comment on the project’s economics, saying it’s too early in the design review process.

The project is scheduled to return for another design advice hearing on March 1.

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The ACE Academy, a public-private trade school set to close next month, might not be at death’s door after all.

Under an idea now moving forward, the career-tech charter academy would relocate its programs to Benson Polytechnic High School for one year while it looks at solidifying a partnership with Portland Public Schools.

PPS spokeswoman Christine Miles confirmed that ACE applied to become one of PPS’ charter schools, though not in time for 2016-17.

The potential partnership was discussed Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Oregon Construction Workforce Coalition. Many of the coalition’s members have paid into ACE over the years, and have regularly expressed frustration with what they see as a lack of urgency regarding public education and the state’s complicated rules regarding charter schools.

ACE’s teachers have applied to work next year at Benson, a trade skills-focused school in the Buckman neighborhood. And Benson has extended an “invitation” to house ACE’s architecture classes next year, according to Tom Goodhue, Oregon Building Congress’ executive director. Since Benson already has a robust construction program, it wouldn’t need resources from ACE. But the charter school’s architecture program could be used by the district, Goodhue said.

The coalition was formed to address a dearth of young blood entering construction – a trend that threatens to stunt the growth of companies and continue to drive up construction costs. As shop classes and other electives have been cut in favor of college prerequisites since the 1990s, stakeholders thought programs like ACE could fill a gap for training for craft skills.

The ACE Academy opened its doors in 2007 with a goal of enrolling 500 students. That number was reduced as the school struggled to take on even 200 students. In addition, the school’s board of directors faced waning interest from two of its four school district partners. ACE was finally forced to close shop when its landlord, the Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute, asked for its space back so it could expand.

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