In 1996, stakeholders in Portland were fed up with the dearth of public contracts going to woman- and minority-owned companies, and the relative lack of women and minorities in the workforce. City leaders pledged to do better, establishing programs to increase “participation,” which hovered between 3 and 5 percent total for those groups.

Twenty years later, those facts are all roughly the same. O’Neill Electric President Maurice Rahming, a regular voice on this issue, said now he and others are working to keep things from getting worse.

“Ideally, we’d like to see those numbers go up,” he said, “but realistically, we’re fighting to keep those extremely low numbers. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We’ve been setting goals, but we haven’t been meeting them.”

What’s new today is that the construction industry in Portland is beset by the disruptive effects of a building boom and a labor shortage. To adjust, there’s talk in City Hall of using less of the low-bid procurement method, and “disaggregating” DMWESB data. There are also calls on private industry to step up.

“Looking at the latest data the city has, it still shows very low utilization of minority and women contractors,” said Tony Jones, executive director of the Metropolitan Contractor Improvement Partnership. “While there’s been lots of effort over the last 20 years, when we look at the results, they’re the same.”

Eager for change, at long last

Earlier this month, a shaky half-year after the Portland City Council established the Equitable Contracting and Purchasing Commission, members – including Rahming and Jones – approved a no confidence motion against the city council. The vote will have little practical impact, city officials say. But it did lay bare tensions that had simmered on the commission for six months.

The city later delayed release of video of the meeting and left key details out of meeting minutes, as first reported in The Oregonian.

Commission members received an email asking them to not speak on behalf of the ECPC.

Josh Alpert, the mayor’s chief of staff, said he takes “full blame” for the flare-up. When Mayor Charlie Hales shifted his focus to addressing the problems of homelessness and housing affordability, the business of the ECPC and other matters were pushed aside. Alpert said the city could have done a better job preparing and communicating with the commission.

“There’s a lot that’s been tried over the past few decades, and the numbers really haven’t moved a whole lot,” Alpert said. “The whole point of establishing this commission was to address that.”

In 2007-08, the city awarded minority-owned businesses just $80,000 of $91 million in construction contracts, according to a by the Center to Advance Racial Equity at Portland State University. In 2013, the state of Oregon awarded minorities less than $2 million out of $2 billion, or less than 1 percent.

Last week the commission held a retreat, to “hit the reset button,” according to Alpert. The city hasn’t been effective in finding incentives for established construction firms, he said, “other than all the good reasons that are already out there.”

There are several notable examples of partnerships between a large general contractor and a large DMWESB firm, including R&H Construction and Colas Construction, and Walsh Construction and O’Neill Electric.

The city of Chicago has policies that support large firms that already work with diverse subs on their private projects, Jones said.

“They’re looking at: How do you act when no one’s looking?” he said.

Last week Rahming attended an input-gathering session related to the impending $195 million overhaul of the Portland Building. The council has committed to spending 1 percent of the construction cost on efforts supporting diversity. The meeting was one of two held to determine how that money should be spent.

Interested parties filled out comment cards, calling for pre-apprentice training for women, and for data breaking down minority goals by ethnicity. Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president of the Urban League of Portland, wondered why they weren’t discussing the “99 percent.”

“We’ve heard all this before,” she said after the meeting.

The city is still hopeful that women and minorities play a major role in the interior remodel and seismic upgrade of the 33-year-old Portland Building. The project team opted to pursue the “progressive” design-build method, which brings builders into the fold earlier and allows for closer collaboration between private parties and city staff, according to Christine Moody, the city’s chief procurement officer. This could go a long way toward ensuring diversity targets are reached, she said.

The customary low-bid method required by state law tends to favor larger companies, Moody said. And those larger companies tend to favor larger subcontractors they’ve worked with before.

“In my experience, doing an alternative method allows us more flexibility,” Moody said.

Under Oregon law, getting a project exempted from the low-bid requirement is a lengthy process, one involving completion of a 14-finding test and posting notice for two weeks. One of the findings is for cost savings, meaning alternative procurements are chosen typically for larger projects, where the city can make up costs in the design phase.

Advocates like Nate McCoy of the National Association of Minority Contractors‘ Oregon chapter and Jones of MCIP favor breaking open the initials DMWESB to “disaggregate” the data used by governments. Too often companies will circumvent hiring goals by playing with these numbers, McCoy said.

“Pretty much, most of the certifications are white-dominated certifications,” he said.

At last week’s input-gathering meeting, several attendees said there’s no need for the city to spend money on further studies when their groups have already studied the issue.

Moody said that for the city to use such outside data, it must have been gathered using methodologies that would hold up in court. She suggested at the meeting that a portion of the 1 percent set-aside could be used on a study disaggregating the city’s data – an idea met with frustration by some in attendance.

Acting in ‘good faith’

The city isn’t the only institution in the Portland area performing projects. TriMet, Metro and the Port of Portland fall under the guidelines of the federal Disadvantaged Business program. Multnomah County has a big upcoming courthouse project as well and also maintains six bridges in the Portland area. Portland’s public school districts, subject to state law, also offer opportunities to contractors.

Since 1996, the Portland City Council has adopted a number of policies in this arena, for construction as well as professional services. For each city project, there’s a workforce goal of 18 percent minorities for apprentices and journey-level workers, and 9 percent women.

There are also subcontracting goals, which the city is in the process of changing. The city’s existing “good faith effort” program requires that 35 percent of subcontracts go to women and minorities, and that general contractors act in good faith to reach that total. (State law currently prevents disincentives from being attached to diversity goals.) The city hopes to roll out in the next few months a new program requiring that 20 percent of the overall construction cost go to DMWESBs.

“If you’re not subcontracting anything, it’s kind of easy to meet that existing goal of 35 percent,” Moody said. “When we move to the 20 percent, the contractor can decide what they want to self-perform, and what they want to sub out; they just have to worry about meeting that 20 percent.”

The city also has its Prime Contractor Development program, which emerged from a 2009 disparity study finding that far fewer prime contracts went to women and minorities. The program allows state-certified DMWESB firms to bid against each other – rather than against major firms – for smaller city projects.

Swimming with sharks

Gale Schmidt, who owns A2 Fabrication, said there are lots of “sharks” out there.

“If you’re small, you really get tossed around and chewed on quite a bit,” she said.

Schmidt has been in business since 1996. She has nine employees and recently completed her largest project to date, a $3 million job supplying about a mile of railings for TriMet’s Portland-Milwaukie light-rail line.

Sizable change orders that a major contractor wouldn’t bat an eyelash at can mean success or death for a firm like A2. Schmidt says there’s subtle pressure by general contractors to be agreeable to such changes, or risk not being included in future projects.

Another factor, Schmidt said, is that often bid packages for public projects are too large for a small startup. Last week she saw a posting seeking a steel supplier, including $100,000 in structural beams, along with ornamental steel, railings and other materials. Schmidt could’ve provided the ornamental steel, she said, but not nearly all the steel for the entire job. So she didn’t submit a bid.

It’s this way for other trade divisions. Schmidt said this issue comes up often in conversations with other minority subcontractors. The city’s Christine Moody said alternative procurement methods like construction manager-general contractor or design-build have a better track record because they give general contractors the time and flexibility to break down those large bid packages.

Val Solorzano has operated COAT Traffic Control for more than 10 years. The acronym stands for Chick of All Trades, though these days she focuses mainly on flagging-related work. Many minority owners operate on the fringes, as subcontractors in fields like flagging and custodial work. This helps explain why total wages for minorities are lower than white for large projects like the recent Sellwood Bridge replacement.

Swimming with the sharks on large projects – where payments can take up to 90 days – can quickly sink small, emerging firms. Solorzano suggested establishing a fund for small businesses to draw off.

“You have to be tough, or they won’t respect you,” she said.

The post Fighting for a bigger piece of the pie appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Arturo “Art” Cortez has a family history that goes back to well before Texas was part of the United States. He had relatives at the Alamo who fought alongside Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. When Texas became a state, all of his ancestors who survived became citizens, but they never lost their Hispanic roots.

Generations later, his father moved to Oregon in the late 1940s to work harvests in the Willamette Valley.  He saw other opportunities and eventually opened his own company, but maintained relationships with the farm workers he befriended.  They became almost like extended family.

“I grew up around farm workers,” Cortez said.

He became aware of how some workers were taken advantage of, subjected to terrible living conditions, had little or no medical coverage, and often ended up short-changed on their pay. One day at the Centro Cultural in Cornelius, he saw Cesar Chavez, the famed advocate and leader of the civil rights and fair labor movements for Hispanics on the West Coast. Chavez was so inspiring that Art’s father became active in organized labor and that lesson stuck with the young Art Cortez.

Cortez was 15 when he started working for his father’s residential drywall company. When he graduated from high school, he already knew that he wanted to get into the construction industry as a career. He was 21 in 1991, when he worked with other contractors – including AKC Inc. – on custom homes that typically were priced at over $700,000 each.

He was enjoying steady work and a good income, but he wanted more. He wanted to learn more about the various trades and especially the business aspects of construction. He also witnessed abuse of workers, particularly Latinos, at the hands of unscrupulous contractors – treatment that reminded him of what he’d seen as a boy in the agricultural fields of the Willamette Valley. Unsafe working conditions, long hours with no overtime, pay below scale and sometimes below minimum wage were not uncommon. It compelled Cortez to become a champion for those whose voices were not being heard.

Over time, his expertise grew.  He worked as a superintendent for Martin Construction in 1997-99, and in spite of moving steadily into managerial roles, he joined a union.

He later went on to work for several contractors, including Performance Western Partitions and Cascade Acoustic.  At the same time, he encouraged more Latinos to join the union to help keep them from being exploited.

“There were contractors who were really taking advantage of the Latino work force, especially if either the worker or someone in his immediate family was not a citizen,” Cortez said. “It really made me angry that those men were working just as hard and just as well as any other crews, and they’re getting less than half the pay for the same job.

“I really wanted to do something to stop that. I saw the union as their best protection and really impressed on people that this would be good for everyone.”

In 2007, wanted to be more available for his children, Cortez realized the best way to have a more manageable schedule was to run his own business. He established Art Cortez Construction that year and incorporated the business in 2013. Since then, his responsibilities have changed considerably.

“(The business) grew double to triple every year. Commercial, residential … I was constantly running crews of up to 40 at a time, assisting foremen, reading plans, calculating materials, purchasing, scheduling – all the things it takes to keep a contracting  business working,” Art said.

He wasn’t shy about asking for advice when he needed it, either.  He got close to several regional general contractors, including Hoffman Construction. He credits that company with teaching him the finer points of governmental contract work.

“Several years ago, I got into a Portland mentoring program,” Cortez said. “(The Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors) was suggested and it got me wondering about how other diversity groups operate. Recently, NAMCO reached out to me and wanted to address my concerns. The organization is changing, growing. I’m more neutral on diversity because I think we need to be Americans first. Put away cultural or racial stuff. It’s about doing the job, but getting the opportunity to do the job is still sometimes a problem.

“My belief is that it’s changing, but I think we really need to have a more direct approach to business. MCIP is a great example of the kind of outreach that helps smaller companies become more successful. When I had AKC Inc., I didn’t wholly understand all the aspects of business, so I closed the company until I learned.”

That learning included attending workshops, obtaining more than two years of assistance of mentoring assistance related to the legal side of contracting, studying and conducting research, and taking his questions to more experienced industry people.

“Turner (Construction) showed me projects that were the whole design. J E Dunn had a program on management.  Hoffman always mentored me though things like Construction Secure Alliances for Safety,” Cortez said. “Lease Crutcher Lewis likes to put me on jobs and we work close; they’ve always been there for me if I had any questions.

“Howard S. Wright is part of the Executive Round Table Program. It not only helped me grow my business, but left me wanting to do the same for others.”

Art Cortez Construction was featured on the governmental agency website, gsa.gov, as an example of a successful small, minority-owned business.

A turning point for Cortez was working with Cascade Acoustics on the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building modernization project. The $139-million project focused on turning as 18-story office tower in downtown Portland into a LEED platinum-certified building. Cortez’s portion of the work was valued at nearly $500,000.

He performed well enough to earn a subsequent contract with Howard S. Wright. Since that time, his projects have grown to $20 million in ongoing contracts.

“Those kind of projects — the bigger ones — bring in a whole new set of problems.  How much money will I need to keep functioning through the project? For small businesses, it’s hard to get banks to work with you.  If you can’t get operating cash, you can’t grow. I’d really like to see more programs for loans and funding (MWESB) contractors. Through organizations like NAMCO and MCIP, we have an opportunity to address those needs.”

Mentoring, both being guided and extending assistance to others, has helped Cortez grow both Art Cortez Construction and his second company, The Harver Company, at a steady rate.

“I think that companies in the industry as a whole have to plan growth patterns that are manageable,” he said. “I mentor smaller businesses because I think it’s important. I understand what it’s like and I couldn’t have achieved this much success without progress partners. I like participating with MCIP.  They have practical workshops that are designed to help (small contractors) avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made, that most small businesses make.

“Helping a growing company have fewer growing pains is satisfying. It’s my turn to give back, to help the small guys grow. I love having a hand in it. I have to manage how much is on my plate with two companies, but I always find the time to help others when I can.  And I want to tell those smaller businesses not to give up. Ask for help. Get educated. That worked for me.”

Art Cortez Construction specializes in cold-formed steel framing, sound and thermal insulation, gypsum board installation, and finishing and acoustic ceilings.  The firm is professionally affiliated with several professional organizations, including the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, the Association of General Contractors, the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland, the Portland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, and is a member in good standing with NAMCO.

So, what’s next for Art Cortez Construction?

“I really love tall buildings, steel and concrete,” Cortez said. “We’re growing and participating on bigger and bigger projects.  Portland is growing and there are more opportunities for expanding who we are and what we do.”

This story originally ran in the fall 2015 newsletter of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors. It is published here courtesy of NAMCO.

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When Ortiz & Associates President Buzz Ortiz looked at the Oregon Department of Transportation‘s most recent disparity study, he was baffled by the findings.

The study, published in 2011, analyzed whether there is a level playing field for minority- and women-owned firms in the transportation contracting industry and ODOT‘s contracts. The information is used to help ODOT work within the federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program for its federally funded contracts. Findings also shape the state agency’s goals to hire minority- or women-owned firms for future contracts funded by the Federal Highway Administration.

“The results were that the Hispanic community was being overutilized in the goals,” Ortiz said. “The truth is it really hasn’t been overutilized.”

The study’s finding that the only minority groups ODOT had underutilized for transportation construction contracts were African American- and subcontinent Asian-owned firms is grossly inaccurate, he said. This led Ortiz, whose Sandy-based firm specializes in asphalt milling, to get involved with the Diversified Builders & Engineers Council (DBEc). He serves as board secretary for the volunteer-run group that aims to serve as a voice for Hispanic and other minority contractors.

Members have been adamant about exposing what they believe are shortfalls with the data collected in the 2011 ODOT disparity study. Together with other minority contractor groups they’re pushing for a more accurate representation of Hispanic contractors in an updated disparity study that’s under way and scheduled to be released next year. In particular, group members say the 2011 study gathered data only from a handful of larger, more successful Hispanic-owned contractors, producing skewed results that leave out smaller companies.

“That’s what got this organization going was trying to bring to light that was happening,” Ortiz said. “We’re trying to say, ‘You have some numbers, but we don’t think they’re entirely correct.’”

Concerns raised by the DBEc and other minority contractor groups about the 2011 study results have led ODOT officials to seek more oversight for the 2016 study being compiled by private consultant Keen Independent Research, said Tiffany Hamilton, small business programs manager with the ODOT Office of Civil Rights. The agency is seeking extensive public input and will expand the study’s sources for information on minority- and women-owned firms, she said.

“A lot of folks said, ‘Hey, we didn’t … participate (in the 2011 study),’” Hamilton said. “It led to a lot of poking at the report … We can control the process and make sure we do it differently this time.”

The DBEc was founded two years ago by Marcela Alcantar. She’s president of Portland-based Alcantar and Associates, which provides support services and project management for the transportation industry. Alcantar said one reason she started the DBEc was to advocate for a more inclusive 2016 study.

“We realized the pot was being distributed unfairly,” she said. “There were improvements that can be done.”

She believes Hispanic-owned construction and engineering companies were misrepresented in the 2011 ODOT disparity study because the firms were not involved enough while it was being compiled. Through the DBEc, these firm owners have been much more vocal about the data collection process for the 2016 disparity study, she said. In addition to serving as DBEc board president, Alcantar is a member of an ODOT external stakeholders group that provides oversight for the updated study.

Alcantar said she and other DBEc members know personally that Hispanic-owned companies, especially smaller startups, continue to struggle to break into the transportation construction and design industries. ODOT’s minority contracting goals can help those firms get a foot in the door, she said.

“We don’t want a handout; we want to work for it,” Alcantar said. “We just want an opportunity. Just give me one opportunity to show that I can. We have tried to bid, but there is a system in place that we can’t break in.”

Serving as a voice for the Hispanic contractor community is one way that the DBEc can ensure the updated disparity study better represents those businesses, said Manuel Castañeda, the group’s board vice president and a member of the external stakeholders group. He’s the owner of Hillsboro-based PLI Systems, which specializes in soil stabilization projects.

When Castañeda approached ODOT with concerns about the 2011 disparity study, he learned that Hispanic-owned firms like his own weren’t involved.

“What I was told is that we were not at the table,” he said. “There was no representation from the Latino community. If you’re not at the table, you’re going to be left out.”

National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon board President Andrew Colas said the group backs the DBEc’s assertions that the Hispanic community was misrepresented in the 2011 disparity study.

“I tend to agree with the comments in regards to the overutilization of Hispanic contractors,” he said. “That was a skewed result.”

It’s among concerns that NAMCO members raised with ODOT, Colas said. This includes pushing for the 2016 study to widen where it collects data on minority contractors. The study should go beyond relying on numbers compiled by Short Hills, N.J.-based credit reporting firm Dun & Bradstreet because many smaller minority-owned firms don’t register with this listing, he said.

“It’s a real way to create a smaller pool,” Colas said. “If they use the DBE and (Minority Business Enterprise) database, that would be the best pool.”

Hamilton said ODOT does intend to use this state directory to collect data for the 2016 study.

“We’re trying to get as comprehensive a list as possible,” she said.

ODOT officials have listened to NAMCO and the DBEc and acknowledge that results from the 2011 study may have been inaccurate, Hamilton said.

“We’re engaging them and listening to what they have to say,” she said. “Just a couple of firms can throw the whole analysis off.”

Castañeda said he’s confident that the DBEc’s efforts to represent Hispanic contractors will pay off when a draft of the 2016 disparity study is released early next year.

“I have a feeling the results will be different,” he said.

The post In search of true contract disparity appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Andrew Colas is adamant about his inspiration as president and co-owner of Colas Construction.

“My dad (Hermann Colas Jr.) started this business in 1997,” Colas said. “His ideals, his business approach, his work ethic is really what we’ve built on.”

That strong foundation helped the firm make headlines this past August when Colas Construction was selected to serve as general contractor for a new Natural Grocers store in Northeast Portland. Colas played a role in helping Majestic Realty, the developer of the mixed-use project, woo the company as an anchor tenant.

The contract is an important one for Colas and his firm. Ground will be broken at Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Alberta Street, in the historically ethnic King neighborhood. Colas is resistant to calling the project taking place in that neighborhood gentrification; he prefers, instead, to see it as an opportunity for minority-owned firms and businesses like his.

“Considering Majestic (the owners of the development where Natural Grocers is moving) is a large real estate company, they had the opportunity to choose any contractor they wanted.” Colas said. “Colas was chosen based on who we are, what we do and how we do it.”

Colas Construction has plenty to keep it busy until that project is in full swing. The company is working on the IronCrest Estates in Gresham and a new office building for Hacienda Project.

Colas also serves as president of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors, a role that reinforces the basics on which he and his father have built their family business. Colas Construction not only seeks to employ minorities, but takes special care to select subcontractors that have a diverse workforce. The company also leads by example, helping subcontractors understand the positive ripple effect that hiring locally and making good jobs with living wages available for minority companies can have on neighborhoods.

“Most projects within the city are in neighborhoods.” Colas said. “Those new businesses and housing will serve those neighborhoods. Including people from those neighborhoods on construction projects builds community. These are opportunities that help a neighborhood to grow and prosper and opportunities for subcontractors, large and small. It creates economic impacts that sustain neighborhoods. You can’t outsource construction.”

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The Portland Housing Bureau is moving full steam ahead with plans to build more affordable housing in North and Northeast Portland.

Since the Portland City Council last week unanimously approved a proposal for implementing Mayor Charlie Hales‘ pledge to invest $20 million to increase access to affordable housing in those neighborhoods, PHB staffers have worked on initial steps, said Traci Manning, the bureau’s director.

The five-year strategy aims to address concerns about a history of gentrification in the area. The proposal is based on feedback gathered during an extensive community outreach campaign and calls for construction of at least 100 new units of affordable housing.

“The team is churning away as we speak,” Manning said. “Creating the affordable homes will take a bit longer, but we’d like to move on those right away.”

One of the first projects expected to benefit is a $4.5 million, 40- to 80-unit affordable housing complex with ground-floor retail space on a 32,400-square-foot, city-owned lot known as the Grant Warehouse site, at Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between Northeast Cook and Ivy streets. Plans call for larger, family-size units and family-friendly amenities.

Manning said she was unsure when the city will start soliciting proposals from firms interested in designing and constructing the complex, but noted that a project timeline will likely be established in the next couple of weeks.

Another $3.5 million investment will create 30 to 60 affordable housing units via redevelopment of additional properties owned by the city, Multnomah County, nonprofit agencies or private developers. Identifying these properties will be a long-term effort in collaboration with the Portland Development Commission and the resulting projects aren’t scheduled to move forward until 2017, Manning said. At this point, no sites have been selected for future affordable housing projects in the area, she said.

“I have nothing in my sights right now,” she said.

The PHB also plans to spend $3 million to buy more land for future affordable housing projects. The remaining $9 million will be spent helping homeowners repair their properties and creating homeownership opportunities.

Along with the $20 million investment, the housing strategy calls for increasing the PHB’s goals for hiring minority-owned, women-owned and emerging small businesses to work on affordable housing construction projects. The bureau’s current MWESB subcontracting goals are 20 percent of construction costs, but officials would like to increase that percentage for projects in North and Northeast Portland, Manning said.

This goal, along with plans to include construction trade pre-apprenticeship programs on affordable housing projects in the area, will be achieved through a continued partnership with the National Association of Minority Contractors‘ Oregon chapter, she said.

“It’s important to us, but we don’t know how we’ll work it out,” she said. “People want jobs … The economic benefits that accrue will accrue to the community.”

While developing the affordable housing strategy, PHB staffers also worked closely with industry firms with extensive experience in the area, such as Portland-based Colas Construction and Carleton Hart Architecture. Carleton Hart principal Bill Hart said city staffers reached out him for feedback on the proposal because the firm has designed a lot of affordable housing projects in those neighborhoods.

The mayor’s pledged investment in affordable housing stems from concerns raised by community members over the lack of transparency in a November 2013 PDC deal to sell the 1.79-acre lot at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Northeast Alberta Street to California-based Majestic Realty.

The developer planned a commercial development that included Trader Joe’s as an anchor tenant. Amid the controversy, Trader Joe’s pulled out in February 2014. Natural Grocers has since signed a letter of intent to take its place. Colas Construction crews are scheduled to start work on the project this month.

Meanwhile, an oversight committee will be formed by this summer, Manning said. Members will hail from the targeted neighborhoods and oversee all projects that result from the five-year plan. This will help combat a long history of input from North and Northeast Portland residents being left out of city development plans, Manning said.

“The idea of this committee is it is community-based,” she said. “Anybody funded under the plan will report to them.”

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The Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors, the Metropolitan Contractors Improvement Partnership and the Business Diversity Institute on Wednesday will hold a joint holiday party to celebrate another year of progress and growth.

Event organizers said they feel they have picked an appropriate venue: the Billy Webb Elks Lodge at 6 N. Tillamook St. in Portland. The building, constructed in 1910, formerly held the first primarily African-American Elks club in Portland and became an important gathering place for African-Americans through the 1950s.

By the late 1990s, the Elks chapter was gone and the building was in disrepair until a coalition of builders and community leaders rallied and raised money to restore it into a community center. The facility now hosts functions almost every day. These include jazz performances, bingo games, business meetings, neighborhood gatherings, dominoes tournaments and wedding receptions.

The holiday party will run from 5 to 8 p.m. Contractors, businesses and individuals who have worked with any of the three organizations are encouraged to attend, party organizers said. For more information or to RSVP, call 503-284-4853.

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The Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors wasn’t happy with initial results of studies of the city of Portland’s use of minority contractors on public projects.

But now the group is downright frustrated.

The NAMC-Oregon board of directors last week sent the city a list of flaws it found in the methodology and results of the studies, conducted by a Denver-based consulting firm and presented to the city and the Portland Development Commission. The board not only asked for the flaws to be fixed, but also expressed doubt about the strength of its relationship with the city.

“Over the last 10 years our organization’s level of trust in the city of Portland and PDC’s commitment to equity has increased significantly … Unfortunately, based on the findings led by the BBC Research & Consulting firm in the Draft Disparity Study, that trust is now in jeopardy,” the board wrote in a letter attached to the statistics in question.

The 800-page results report for the studies covers a lot of topics, but in essence it found that between July 2004 and June 2009 the city used at least an equal amount of minority-owned contracting firms that were available in comparison to majority-owned firms. For projects owned by the PDC, however, minority-owned firms were employed 4 percent of the time, even though availability was 6 percent. The disparity was larger for projects the PDC didn’t own but contributed money to.

According to Maurice Rahming, former president of NAMC-Oregon and president of Portland-based O’Neill Electric, the studies’ results should be taken with a grain of salt because the numbers the city used are flawed.

For example, he said, the data shows that 0.5 percent of all available firms are Hispanic-owned, and another 0.5 percent are African-American-owned. Any contractor with knowledge of the area would say that Hispanic-owned firms outnumber African-American ones, he said.

“It definitely draws some questions to the validity of the results,” Rahming said. “And considering these results could potentially affect how the city does procurement, we need to make sure the numbers are accurate.”

The board also called into question the sample size for the study. Of the 3,726 firms the consultants tried to contact, 1,972 participated.

“We simply know nothing at all about almost half of the population,” the board said in its statement. “This raises a very real question as to whether statistical sampling would have been a better and more accurate method.”

Rahming added that city officials should have at least sent out a letter to the firms they knew and informed them about the study, and that results could affect procurement. Then those firms could have passed word on to others.

“I know I have call screeners at my office, and you aren’t getting to me if you are calling from an out-of-state number wanting survey results,” he said.

Nevertheless, the city plans to stick with what it was given.

“The basic analysis and study will not be redone,” said Christine Moody, chief procurement officer for the city of Portland. “We’ve been working on this for the past 18 months, and so far, from the comments we’ve received, nothing has indicated we should change the methodology.”

But Moody added that the city is editing the executive summary – which could impact procurement – to more accurately reflect study results. Because the study will go toward creating new programs and altering existing ones, the city wants the most accurate information, she said.

John Jackley, the director of communications and business equity at the PDC, said he recently met with Moody and discussed NAMC-Oregon’s concerns. Jackley said he and Moody decided to forward the questions to the consulting firm, which will respond to NAMC-Oregon directly.

Rahming understands that the study – which cost nearly $1 million – most likely will not be redone; however, he does believe there are some solutions.

“We don’t expect them to fully change the methodology, but there are some things that can be done,” he said. “The solution, in my opinion, is to add more transparency by using a second set of eyes to look at this thing. No one is without error, and having the city auditor take an objective look at the study could really help it.”

Moody said that city staffers will spend the next month adding to the report and finalizing it. They will then present it to City Council during its June 22 meeting. Jackley added that the PDC Board of Commissioners will hold a similar public hearing on the study at a meeting on June 8.

After results are presented to the council and the commission, advisory committees will be formed to develop practices.

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The Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors believes that the real disparities that exist are much greater than recent studies compiled for the city of Portland show.

NAMC-Oregon, a nonprofit building trades association, last week released its initial response to results of studies commissioned in 2009. The studies looked at how often the city and the Portland Development Commission used certified minority- or women-owned firms on their projects in comparison to the number of those firms available for use. Read the 91��Ƶ’s analysis of the studies

“The city’s and PDC’s contracting programs are far from ‘OK’,” the statement said. “The city, PDC and the community cannot be satisfied with a contracting process that sees no prime contracts awarded to an African-American or Asian-American firm over a four-year period.

“In fact, substantial disparities were found for these firms as well as Hispanic-owned firms for prime contracts, even under the city’s Good Faith Efforts (Minority/Women/Emerging Small Business) program.”

The nonprofit also took issue with the finding that minority-owned firms receive less than 0.5 percent of contracting dollars for PDC-sponsored projects – those in which the public agency is not the only financial contributor.

Due to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the studies were needed for the city to maintain its Good Faith Effort program and the PDC to continue use of its Business and Workforce Equity policy.

“NAMC-Oregon acknowledges that the city’s disparity study was a necessary step to identifying and addressing the underutilization of all the talents that Portland’s metropolitan area has to offer, including those of minority-owned businesses,” the statement said. “The study does not, however, address some critical issues that disproportionately affect minority communities in the Portland area (such as) poverty, schools that don’t educate our children, and the historical remnants of societal discrimination that continues to plague the creation and growth of many minority-owned businesses.”

According to the statement, NAMC-Oregon, like the other organizations that have responded to the study, is looking forward to working with the city to identify ways to eliminate the disparities.

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There’s a new name attached to the president’s seat of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Minority Entrepreneurs.

Mark Matthews was elected to the position by an “overwhelming” majority, according to the organization. He will take over from outgoing president Maurice Rahming of .

Matthews is the president of Pacificmark Construction, which he owns and operates with his wife, Deborah. The company serves as a general contractor on commercial, health care and public works projects.

Also elected to leadership seats for NAMC Oregon were Gill Carreon of Liberty Steel as vice president, Vicqui Guevara of Valley Growers Nursery and Landscape as secretary-treasurer, and Faye Burch, who was re-elected as the organization’s DMWESB consultant.

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The National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon (NAMC OR) is looking for an Executive Director to join their team. Please see the full job posting for description and necessary qualifications for this job opening. For more information, please visit www.NAMC-Oregon.org.

The post Employment Opportunity – NAMC Oregon is looking for an Executive Director appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.