Sandy Trainor has carved her own career path in construction.

The 66-year-old Sherwood resident is the president of and 100 percent shareholder in Kodiak Pacific Construction, a paving and road construction firm located on Southwest Clutter Road slightly outside Wilsonville city limits. She is a Massachusetts native with a broad East Coast accent. She also claims a special prowess in mathematics and confidence to succeed in a highly competitive field.

“Honestly, I have a saying that the cream always comes to the top, and usually when people come into management skills it’s because of who they are,” Trainor said. “We have people who like to be told what to do, and they feel comfortable with that. And we have other people who don’t like to be told, and who like to be in charge. I’d say I’m one of the second.”

Recently, Trainor was named president-elect of Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter for 2019. She will be just the second woman to serve as president in the group’s 96 years of existence. She noted that service in the role is merely part of a larger five-year commitment by people who serve on the chapter’s executive board.

AGC is one of the most influential industry groups around. When it or one of its representatives speak, people listen. Despite that, Trainor is somewhat hesitant to speak for AGC before becoming president.

“I want to be very careful,” she said. “I wear the contractor hat and I wear the AGC hat. And how AGC looks at the future and how I look at the future as a civil contractor will obviously be different. The money hasn’t really come into the hopper like it has for the building side with all the bonds that have come through. We aren’t as prosperous as some of the building contractors right now, but there is some legislative funding that should come through and will help on the civil side. I’m looking at that for the next 12 to 24 months, and from there I can’t predict the future.”

Trainor is a relative rarity. According to the United States Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, women make up just 9 percent of the construction workforce. The number of women CEOs is even smaller.

But Trainor said she has never encountered any overt discrimination in a career spanning more than 40 years.

“To be honest, no,” she said. “And people are very surprised to hear that. But I’ve always been looked at by my peers as experienced, knowledgeable and having an understanding of the construction industry. And I think you can always stand on your own if you’re just there because you know what you doing.”

However, some implicit biases persist.

“The most interesting thing is people will come to the front office, and I have one of the guys next to me, and they’ll stick their hands out to the guy every time,” she said. “And then he says ‘Hey, I want you to meet Sandy. She’s the company owner.’ But the discrimination part, I have not experienced it.”

Trainor moved to Oregon in 1997 and really held little thought at that point of remaining in the construction business. She had worked some 30 years already on the East Coast, learning the business side of things inside and out. She was ready for a break and to devote more time to her two children, Valerie and Adam.

“I actually wanted to slow down,” she said. “I came out here to enjoy the wonderful Oregon and all it had to offer.”

A business acquaintance, however, had other plans, and handed Trainor’s resume to the now-defunct Benge Construction. As it turned out, owner Scott Benge had been looking for a liaison to help him sell the business to a high-ranking employee. Then Trainor made such an impression as the liaison that she was asked to take the reins as an ownership partner.

It was a big step up, but she proved to be up to the task.

“Once he went away, Scott gave me the asphalt and grinding division, which I had never done before, much less … in the western part of the U.S.,” Trainor said with a laugh. “I had to actively be involved with all of those gentlemen who were working really hard in the field, and that was a hurdle to some extent. But it was a great learning experience.”

In 2004, Trainor bought out the remainder of the company and became sole owner. The former owners, however, were slightly concerned about their name remaining attached to a business with which they had no further affiliation. So, Trainor brainstormed and turned to her mother’s family name for inspiration.

“My mother was 100 percent Finnish; my grandparents came over to America on the boat,” she said. “Her name was Karhu, which means ‘bear’ in Finnish – the bear clan. So, I decided I was going to name the company a bear of some sort for my mother.”

Kodiak-Benge Construction was thus born. She later changed the name to Kodiak Pacific Construction.

Trainor remains proud of her accomplishments.

“A lot of people think if you’re involved in a construction company and become any owner, they assume you’ve inherited it through the family,” she said. “And that is not my case.”

Trainor started her construction career decades ago at the ground floor and worked her way up via a combination of hard work and professional relationships.

“I had an Italian builder who started his company as a mason and spun off into building and he was my mentor,” she said. “He empowered me to expand, and he actually wanted me to become an estimator in his company because I was accurate on the job cost and accounting side.”

For now, Trainor hopes to finish her new home in Cloverdale, near the Oregon coast. In addition, she has grandchildren and plenty of business to keep her engaged.

“I usually stay pretty busy,” she said.

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The Interstate 5 Preservation Project from the Tualatin River to Wilsonville for the Oregon Department of Transportation includes the construction of a sound wall on the west side of the freeway that will have 280 panels when completed. The work also calls for the repaving of both lanes in the project limits, the repaving of selected on and off ramps, the addition of auxiliary lanes on both sides, the widening of shoulders and improving guardrails, barriers and signage. The general contractor on the $23 million project is Kodiak Pacific Construction.

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Metro, the Portland-area regional government, released recommendations Tuesday on how the region can handle the growth expected over the next 20 years and beyond. Significantly, Metro advises keeping intact the urban growth boundaries that govern where development can take place. In addition, Metro recommends maintaining existing roads bridges and sewers before building new ones.

After public hearings, the Metro Council will vote on the recommendations starting in December. Its decisions could be far-reaching, affecting everything from where people live to where they work, how they get around and where they go for recreation.

Today, the Daily Journal of Commerce looks at four areas that could be affected. We look at farmers’ thoughts about keeping the urban growth boundary intact. We examine how increasing density could spur development in Portland’s South Waterfront District. We focus on North Plains in a look at small-city expansion. And finally, we see if the business of road building could be disrupted by the recommendations.

The full list of recommendations and schedule of public hearings is at oregonmetro.gov. Search for “recommendations.”

A recommendation against adding new roads and bridges in the Portland-metro area may seem like a death blow to the companies that build and supply those new building projects. That is, if it wasn’t paired with a recommendation to properly maintain the existing system.

The Metro report includes both, though, stressing the importance of repair and maintenance in addition to cautioning against new road construction. If cities and counties follow that guidance, it actually could be good news for pavers, said Sandy Trainor, president of Kodiak Pacific Construction.

“As a contractor, to maintain or to build new all sounds good,” she said.

There’s no shortage of work that pavers could do, Trainor said. The first question, before new roads are built, is whether there will be money to keep up existing roads.

“What’s happening now is, over time, if you don’t take off part of the asphalt and repave it, you would perhaps have to take off more the next time,” Trainor said, and at an increasing cost. “At some point, you would have to take it all off and repair the subgrade.”

Chuck Gaskill, who manages the Portland office of Lakeside Industries, said he hadn’t seen the Metro report and couldn’t comment. As to whether he’d prefer building new roads or repaving existing ones, Gaskill said, “it probably makes no difference.”

While new roads may seem permanent, they represent only an initial investment in a system that gradually deteriorates. That investment must be accompanied by a long-term commitment to keep up what has been built, Trainor said.

Planners often understand that, she said, but the general public may not. And it’s hard to convince people to tax themselves more for roads that may appear to be in good condition.

“People need to be aware that if they don’t fund transportation and road repairs, eventually they will break down,” Trainor said. “Over time, (they) will need be repaired. And then it’s ‘Where do you get the money?’ ”

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The number of Oregon contractors renewing their general contractor’s licenses is declining, and some industry insiders worry that the drop signifies a more serious trend: an increase in unlicensed work.

According to the Oregon Construction Contractors Board, general contractor license renewals have dropped by almost 14 percent between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, a decline of 699 license renewals.

Last week, the CCB for the first time released statistics on the amount of civil fines it issued to contractors working without a license. Between April and June of this year, the board fined 220 construction businesses or individuals a total of $352,200 for working, or offering to work, without a license.

Rob Yorke, a CCB board member and principal at Yorke & Curtis General Contractors, pointed to a familiar culprit.

“We think there is an increase (in contractors working without a license during the recession),” Yorke said. “There are a lot of Craigslist listings and informal work going on. Half of the people on Craigslist aren’t licensed, and some of them even admit it.”

In the past two years, the CCB has hired about a dozen additional inspectors, and they are targeting Craigslist for phony contractors, Yorke said.

A search of the Portland-metro area Craiglist’s skilled-trade services section on Tuesday showed plumbers, HVAC workers, carpenters, electricians and others all offering their services. At the bottom of each ad is a space where the contractor can enter a CCB license number. Many ads left this space blank, or blatantly said, “unlicensed.”

“The CCB has worked diligently to get out there and canvass Oregon and make as many site visits as possible, even without all of the funding they need to do it,” said Sandy Trainor, CCB board member and president of Kodiak Pacific Construction.

“Whether we have more or less unlicensed contractors working during the recession doesn’t make a difference,” she said. “We should all recognize that unlicensed contractors impair anyone who uses them anytime.”

“Normally our report totals all of the civil penalties issued for illegal activity,” said Gina Fox, public information officer for the Oregon CCB. “In the past, our reports kind of lumped everything together. I thought it was important to look at the unlicensed contractors separately. We want to be certain that consumers are using a licensed contractor. If I didn’t know what we were looking at, I wouldn’t have something to tell consumers.”

Out in the field, some contractors are seeing a real correlation between the economy and the number of unlicensed contractors trying to get work.

Tim Schmidt, owner of Got Power Electric, said he has received dozens of calls from people looking for work since the recession began, and many of them are unlicensed.

“I can’t hire them,” Schmidt said. “There is work going on out there that is unlicensed and unpermitted. I know that for a fact.  People are stupid if they don’t renew their license. Even if you’re not going to use it, you should renew it.”

Six weeks before their licenses expire, contractors are notified to renew at a cost of $260 every two years. The CCB employs people to periodically check construction sites for proper licensing, and also has online forms and a phone hotline for reporting unlicensed workers.

A contractor caught working without a license can be fined up to $5,000.

Unlicensed electricians and other handymen are a huge concern for John Killin, executive director of the Independent Electrical Contractors of Oregon, who says that the lack of checks and balances that goes along with having a contractor’s license creates opportunities for danger.

“It is a scary thing to consider an unlicensed contractor or individual doing electrical work,” Killin said. “You could burn down a house. A trained journeyman should know better. You have to have those licenses to make sure inspections are being made. When someone comes along and does this, it undermines the entire effort.”

Killin is also concerned that journeymen are getting desperate and offering to take payment on the sly.

“Times are tough,” he said. “There are circumstances at the bottom and top of the economy that lead to unlicensed work. I am concerned about the handyman who is not trained to do electrical, plumbing and HVAC, yet is advertising and doing the work with no inspections, no training, and no safety.”

For Schmidt, the temptation to work under the table is very real. His small electric contracting company started out with five people and found success in the booming residential and commercial markets. Today, two of those people have been laid off, and all of the company’s commercial opportunities have come to a standstill.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen with my small company,” Schmidt said. “I have had customers ask if I give a discount for cash. They’re essentially saying, ‘You don’t have to declare it, Tim.’ For us, everything goes through the books. But it has crossed my mind, taking that money and putting it in my pocket.”

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