It’s one thing to have women’s voices at the table when decisions are made. It’s another to have the voices of women owners.

Pence Construction recently elevated two women, Shannon Parker and Elisabeth Kenaston, to ownership roles. They’re the first women to achieve that rank in the company’s 73-year history. They join five other owners of the Lake Oswego-based contractor.

Parker joined Pence in 2015 and now serves as director of employee and client experience; she oversees human resources, communications, marketing and client experience. Kenaston arrived at the firm in May 2020 and now is director of finance.

Parker and Kenaston join longtime Pence principals Paul Schulz and Dave Hays as part of the ownership group. Chief Financial Officer Jim Grabski, Director of Revenue Operations Marc Monaghan, and project executives Philip Johnson and Dan Cowley also were elevated to owners recently.

Parker grew up in Albany, where her father was a contractor and homebuilder, and her mother handled administrative duties.

“I grew up on jobsites,” she said.

Despite the early exposure, Parker did not initially seek to join the construction industry. In high school, she became interested in drafting, language arts and journalism. She eventually earned a journalism degree at Linfield University before working in public relations for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Oregon State Building Trades Council.

When a Pence marketing job opened in Salem, Parker, who was living in Santiam Canyon at the time, jumped at the opportunity.

“It’s just been a fun ride,” she said.

The construction industry was not initially on Kenaston’s mind, either.

“I didn’t see myself there,” she said. “There are not a lot of women, and I’m not handy. This industry was not something that ever crossed my mind.”

Kenaston, an accountant, was working for Aldrich CPAs + Advisors, where she got to know Pence and other construction firms. As a woman, she stood out among her construction industry clients. One client, she said, good-naturedly called her “heels.”

Both women now balance weighty professional responsibilities with busy personal lives as wives and mothers. Kenaston has a 6-month-old son with her husband. In fact, Pence offered her an ownership role shortly before she took maternity leave.

“The support and encouragement of Pence has blown me away,” she said.

Parker and her husband have two children, a 15-year-old daughter and an 11-year-son who suffers from brittle bone disease. That has meant some flexibility by both Parker and Pence.

“I take him to his specialist visits in Omaha every year, and work out of hospitals sometimes,” Parker said. “That’s the gig, but between a supportive spouse and a supportive company and supportive colleagues, that’s really doable. But the company has to be willing to partner with and support you in those things to be successful.”

Both women have been encouraged to see a growing number of women join the industry in a variety of roles. One survey found women make up only 9 percent of the construction workforce, but that number has been growing.

“It’s grown pretty rapidly, and we are seeing a lot more excitement from women about joining the field,” Parker said.

For women looking to join the industry, Parker had a piece of advice: Be yourself, and don’t compromise who you are to fit in.

“The value you’re going to bring to a jobsite is being yourself and bringing your full strengths as a woman to the jobsite,” she said. “Whatever you see that as, bring that and don’t diminish that.”

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Jeff Moreland has led Raimore Construction through two decades of growth, from a small trucking and flagging outfit to a formidable heavy civil contractor that recently was awarded an approximately $60 million contract – the largest ever in Oregon for a minority-owned contractor – for transit improvements.

Despite his prominence within Portland’s building industry, Moreland – who is Black – still experiences racism on jobsites. Oftentimes, he said, it’s from people who don’t even realize that it’s going on.

“I can walk into a trailer as the owner of Raimore Construction with one of my project managers who’s white, and they talk to him the whole meeting until they realize that I’m the decision maker,” Moreland said. “This is just systemic.”

Robert Camarillo, an ironworker who now serves as executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, has experienced similar discrimination during his 25 years in the industry.

“Some of us are just used to being invisible,” he said. “It’s not just what is said, but it’s the actions that are hurtful. This is an industry issue that’s plagued not just the construction industry, but all levels of the business, from the developers to the engineers to the architects. All levels.”

Racism in the building industry takes many forms, including the implicit bias experienced by Moreland and Camarillo, discriminatory practices and a lack of opportunities for minority workers and business owners, and symbols of racial violence being placed on jobsites in Portland and other parts of the country.

As the nation comes to a reckoning on racism and discrimination in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, leaders in the local building industry are working to create a dialogue to address causes and potential solutions to racism in construction. Moreland and Camarillo were among multiple panelists who spoke Tuesday during an that drew more than 300 participants. The session was held by the National Association of Minority Contractors‘ Oregon chapter.

The first step to prevent continuing racism and discrimination on jobsites, Moreland said, is to acknowledge that it is a widespread problem, and not try to sweep it under the rug. An open dialogue is necessary, he added, because minorities in the industry often don’t feel safe speaking out for fear of being penalized or ostracized.

“You have to realize that this has been cultivated over a long period of time, and the discriminatory, racist behavior that you see has become normalized,” he said.

Andrew Colas, president of Colas Construction, said the industry needs to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for racist behavior and prioritize enforcement in the same manner that it has for safety. Decades ago, injuries and deaths were considered an acceptable risk to construction work before the industry took a stand and decided to make a change. Now, it’s common to see companies with multiple safety directors.

“I don’t think we’ve ever stopped and assessed how bad it is in regards to racism in this industry, and really decided that we’re going to make a fullhearted effort to change,” Colas said. “You have to put time into it, just like you spend time on making sure safety is important, we have to put time and focus into this.”

Forming bias incident response teams could make victims of jobsite racism more likely to report the abuse, said Willy Myers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council. Then workers experiencing racial harassment could work directly with the general contractor and would have an intervenor to turn to who is not a direct supervisor or business representative.

“A lot of times there’s a fear of being excluded from the next job or being excluded from a team that’s already built on a jobsite because they’re the person pointing out a problem,” he said.

Further, penalties are needed for people terminated for bias issues, Myers said. Moving them to another jobsite or placing them on the out-of-work list and allowing them back after a short suspension isn’t fixing the problem, he said.

Diversifying the ranks of those working in the industry is crucial, Colas said, calling for labor unions to recruit minorities who are already in their ranks to fill leadership roles on jobsites. Young people of color need to see people who look like them not only in roles as tradespeople, but as foremen and women, estimators, project managers and executives.

“If you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” he said.

Investing in local, minority-owned businesses needs to be a priority for banks and governments that are funding projects, said Alando Simpson, CEO of City of Roses Disposal & Recycling. Using public resources to elevate minority-owned firms and hire more people of color would mean those dollars stay local and benefit the overall community and create a more self-sustaining economy in the Portland-metro area, he said.

Colas agreed, calling on public agencies to help create an atmosphere that is more inclusive and allows everybody to achieve the American Dream, which he argued isn’t as accessible as people believe. Colas Construction is one of the largest Black-owned companies on the West Coast, he said, but their revenues pale in comparison to those of their peers.

“I can tell you five companies that do double our revenues that we’ve been in business 15 years longer than,” he said. “The reality is there are barriers. When you look the way I look, there are barriers. And we need to work to get rid of those.”

To view a video of the forum, visit

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The Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council has launched an industry-wide group to produce safety guidelines to help contractors work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 Joint Construction Safety Task Force includes representatives from trade unions, contractors and other industry partners, and has been meeting via video conference three times a week.

“The safety of the people who are out there working on construction sites is our highest priority,” Robert Camarillo, the trades council’s executive secretary, stated in a press release. “With this task force, our goal is to improve job safety and increase educational resources during an incredibly challenging time.”

Task force members and Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division staffers also are visiting jobsites to assess the effectiveness of safety practices intended to protect workers during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the group is monitoring current practices across the country, collecting data and sharing it with contractors and workers alike.

The task force is looking only at Oregon construction sites, which Gov. Kate Brown has left open during the coronavirus crisis. In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee initially shut down virtually all construction, but has since allowed some to reopen – with the requirement that safety measures such as social distancing be observed at all times.

People interested in learning more about the task force can contact Mary Ann Naylor at Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. at 503-819-9201 or maryann@tradeswomen.net.

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Sarah Moreno isn’t working much these days.

The heavy equipment operator has three kids – ages 12, 13 and 16 – at home. They would normally be in school, but with schools closed, Moreno is often home with them.

Moreno still goes to work whenever she can. Last week, she worked only one day – at a demolition site with contaminated soils at Portland International Airport for McDonald Excavating.

“You don’t want to use your kids as an excuse to miss work, especially me being a mom in the trades,” she said.

Moreno, an apprentice with Operating Engineers Local 701, moved to Portland from Southern California to take Constructing Hope‘s pre-apprenticeship program. Her kids can stay home by themselves, she said.

“They’re old enough now that I don’t really have to worry about it too much,” she said. “I’m grateful for that, because to find child care, it’s kind of hard.”

Many construction workers are juggling work and children during the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent weeks, contractors and subcontractors also have come to realize that their workers’ child care issues are increasingly their problem.

“I didn’t realize how many of our workers are single parents,” Maurice Rahming, co-owner of O’Neill Construction Group, said last week during an industry conference call that was organized by the Professional Business Development Group. “So with the schools being shut down, they’re responsible for taking care of their kids at home. They have to take the time off because they don’t have anyone else to take care of their kids.”

It can be difficult in the best of times for construction workers to find available and affordable child care. Before the coronavirus began to spread, labor groups in the Portland area were working to provide child care to pre-apprentices entering the industry. The Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council and allies were pitching a program called Labor’s Littles. Willy Myers, executive secretary of the labor council, said the group had asked Metro and other local governments to support the child care effort.

“We struggled to get public funding,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened those concerns. Schools and day care facilities are closed, and many families are practicing social distancing from grandparents and other family members who would otherwise help out.

Child care is especially needed for beginning workers on labor’s lowest rungs.

“It’s more expensive than people can afford until they reach a certain level,” Myers said.

Meanwhile, the shutdowns of schools and day care facilities have been particularly difficult on women workers, minorities and those with lower incomes. Constructing Hope, a Portland nonprofit that operates a pre-apprenticeship program geared to serve formerly incarcerated people, women and people of color, is speaking with funders to reallocate money for child care.

“There’s really no availability for day care right now,” said Bobby Hamilton, case manager for Constructing Hope.

The pandemic could also slow the entry of new workers into the construction industry.

Anthony Williams, a heavy-machine operator apprentice at the Northwest College of Construction and a recent graduate of Constructing Hope, said he had to take time off from his part-time job at Subway to care for two of his children who live with him, a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter.

“My child care facility closed,” he said. “I wasn’t able to work for about two weeks until I figured it out. I was forced to try to find someone who does in-home care.”

Williams began taking online classes earlier this month at the Northwest College of Construction. The move to online education has slowed what’s usually a four-year process to become a journeyman.

“Things are moving real slow as far as classes go,” he said.

Williams, 41, entered construction after attempts to have a white-collar business career ran aground because of a 15-year-old felony on his record.

“Construction is the only thing you can go through that you can make a living wage,” he said.

Construction firms in fact have seen some employees come back to work after they were unsuccessful in obtaining unemployment benefits, said Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council.

“We saw a lot of folks ask for voluntary layoffs early on,” he said. “What I’m hearing now, the reports that I’m getting, is a lot of those people that asked for those layoffs realized the unemployment system wasn’t there yet, wasn’t ready to be the safety net they were hoping. And so a lot of them have started to return to work.”

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As the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Portland-metro area, a massive shortfall of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care professionals quickly became evident.

With hospitals, clinics and first responders geared up for day-to-day operations, stocks of crucial equipment such as N95 respirators and filters, latex gloves, gowns and face shields were already low. Then a sudden and massive increase in PPE usage in health care settings led administrators to scramble for answers.

A number of building industry organizations became aware of the situation and stepped up to help. Because certain types of PPE, particularly N95 respirators, are widely used in construction, many firms were in a position to act quickly.

“I have neighbors who are in the medical profession, or that have family members who are, and there is a real and serious shortage of personal protective equipment throughout the region,” said Ryan Baker, a Mackenzie senior associate and a member of its structural engineering team. “We’re all thinking about the safety of our first responders and medical professionals who are doing everything they can to keep us healthy while, at the same time, considering the safety and health of their own families.”

After reading an email from a Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team, Baker suggested to Mackenzie’s disaster recovery task force and business continuity team that the firm donate its unused N95 masks from employee work kits. Mackenzie employees Cesar Villanueva and Mike Rueter then coordinated a company-wide roundup and delivered the masks to the designated Multnomah County drop-off site.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to homegrown solutions. Agencies are seeking specific equipment, which should be unused and in good condition. This includes latex-free gloves (sealed boxes only); procedural masks; surgical masks; N95 respirators and N95 filters; other respirators such as P100s and PAPRs, and associated supplies and parts; face shields; splash shields; gowns; hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes.

“We first started talking about it around March 17 or 18 as news stories started coming out,” said Kirsten Adams, public affairs counsel for the Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter. “As soon as we started hearing about the need, we tried to do something about it. Someone with OHSU reached out to me, and they were looking for PPE, so we were thinking about how to get this information out to our members and how do we act as a conduit for this.”

AGC quickly created a COVID-19 web page for members and issued a plea for donations at its March 20 board meeting. The group first connected with the Oregon Health Authority and its Salem drop site before coordinating with Oregon Health & Science University on another drop site in the South Waterfront District.

“We want to make it as easy as possible to get this into the hands of the people who need it most,” Adams said. “We’ve given our members as many options as we can.”

Trade groups, including unions, also responded to the call for PPE.

“We’re reaching out to everybody we know in our industry, and we’ve been able to collect a bunch of extras (N95 masks) from contractors who’ve had them,” said Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. “We were among the first group to be contacted.”

Camarillo added that unions around the country are mounting similar efforts.

“I talked to a business manager and he was dropping (equipment) off at a fire station earlier in the day,” he said. “And he said it was impressive to see how many people were donating.”

The AFL-CIO, added, has been doing the same around the country.

“That’s the labor movement jumping into action,” he said. “Everybody is making the necessary adjustments to adapt and help where they can, and we want to be there too.”

Other individual firms around the metro area are stepping up.

“We found and donated a few boxes that we had available to the hospitals,” said Todd Duwe, director of business development for Perlo Construction. “We are actually making our own masks currently. We gave away our N95s for the health care workers. We donated what we had to our health care clients we work with, so we are making our own now.”

The latter is a story in its own right.

“We have our own in-house counsel; she happens to be a seamstress,” Duwe said. “So she is making an initial batch of 500 (face masks) right now. In between looking at these Washington contract review items, she is sewing masks; I am not kidding. Everybody in the company is shifting a little to deal with this.”

Villanueva said early preparation, including Mackenzie’s creation of a disaster recovery task force, allowed action to be taken immediately.

“The team put in a lot of effort years ago to provide each employee with a small waist pack that had some basic first aid items and supplies to assist them in an emergency situation,” he said. “Gathering the N95 masks from those (packs) and dropping them off was the least that we could do. We were so happy to be able to help, and just thankful to our frontline medical teams.”

Awareness is critical, Adams said.

“We’re trying to keep it at the forefront of people’s minds,” she said. “Gathering hand sanitizers is a real need, and we’re trying to do as many little things like that as we can.”

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While construction activities have not stopped in Oregon as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship training programs have.

Union and nonunion training centers alike have shuttered their operations in the past two weeks to avoid unnecessary face-to-face interactions. One is Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., which last month celebrated the opening of its new 8,000-square-foot shop and headquarters in Southeast Portland. Now its office is closed through March 31.

“I can tell you that all staff are currently working remotely,” OTI communications director Mary Ann Naylor said. “We were able to complete training in the new space, but we did cancel the graduation ceremony on March 12.”

OTI canceled an environmental worker training and delayed the start of its spring pre-apprenticeship training until April 14. In addition, the group’s popular annual career fair, normally held in May, has been rescheduled this year for Sept. 25 and 26.

“We’re in process of sorting out the details, and making backup plans,” Naylor said. “We are also looking at ways to up our technology game to provide components of our training and education in a virtual manner, including information sessions about our class, career education, and portions of our curriculum that currently happen in the classroom.”

Virtually all union-affiliated training centers in the Portland-metro area shut down in-person operations before Friday, said Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. One of the only exceptions is Operating Engineers Local 701, which is continuing to offer limited training due to the nature of the trade, which places operators outside the normal risks inherent on a crowded jobsite.

“We had a conference call, and just about every one of (the training centers) have closed down the apprenticeships for the next several months at least,” Camarillo said. “Some are utilizing long-distance learning to continue to offer instruction as much as possible. Everybody is getting a little creative.”

Local 701 managed to wrap up a training round recently, said Jim Anderson, the union’s business manager. Recruitment and interviews of new apprentices will continue, he added, but full-scale training is on hold.

“We got the round of apprentices through last week,” he said. “There were 12 apprentices, and we had them set up two per instructor and we rotated them through. But for now we’re going to hold off on training classes until we get the OK from the governor.”

At the Northwest College of Construction in Northeast Portland, all apprenticeship classes are suspended until at least April 5 while administrators try to devise ways in which to offer instruction safely.

Instructional efforts at NWCOC are changing to remote and online forms for the time being, said Laurie Emery, the college’s interim executive director. Also, administrative staffers are being asked to work from home.

“We’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she said. “My team and I are developing an online training system that will go into effect April 6, but we’re still working out all of the kinks. As far as we’re concerned we will continue with classes, just with no hands-on instruction.”

The timeline is uncertain at present, but when circumstances allow, students will be able to receive required in-person instruction and take exams.

“It’s not a perfect system, but it keeps students in classes,” Emery said. “Our concern is not having students get too far behind, as well as those apprentices also who are ready to graduate. We want to help them meet that goal and as soon as possible.”

None of this will happen on regular schedule, Emery said, but it will allow the college to meet the hourly training requirements for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. The pandemic also is hastening plans by the college to move more instruction online, she added.

“We’ve been talking about online training for some time, but it’s never really fit into our model,” she said, mainly because National Center for Construction Education and Research accreditation requires in-person testing with a proctor.

“That makes it difficult to go to a fully online program,” she said. “But in a way it makes me glad that we have this option available to us now. Maybe it’s a future option for us; I don’t know. It will be based on what BOLI allows, but at least we have a framework.”

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Unpaid construction wages have caught the attention of Oregon lawmakers, who are taking action to ensure workers get paid even if a company goes out of business.

State Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, is the chief sponsor of a bill that improves reporting and coordination between two key state agencies, makes it easier for workers to recoup unpaid wages and aims to hold business owners responsible even if they shut it down.

The House and Senate have both passed versions of the bill, which is expected to go to Gov. Kate Brown’s desk soon.

The bill is backed by both industry and labor groups. Supporters include the Associated General Contractors, the Oregon State Building & Construction Trades Council and the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

“It really was to address the issue of wage theft in the construction industry,” Fahey said.

The bill followed one Fahey sponsored last year that would have held general contractors liable for subcontractors who fail to pay a valid wage claim. The aim of that bill was to make general contractors “more thoughtful” regarding their choice of subcontractors, Fahey said. The bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate amid opposition from the building industry.

“General contractors were strongly opposed to the idea of imposing liability,” she said.

John Rakowitz, an AGC lobbyist, said the earlier proposal was flawed.

“Why should one company pay another company’s employees?” he said. “That makes no sense.”

This session, Fahey came back with H.B. 3193 after discussions that began last summer with interested parties, including AGC. The bill tightens and improves upon existing processes rather than imposing new requirements. Fahey got buy-in from both labor and industry.

“It is in the interest of the industry, of contractors, that everybody gets paid,” Rakowitz said.

Under-the-table worker payment is a perennial issue for Oregon’s trade unions, which argue wage theft and tax fraud undercut legitimate contractors and skilled tradespeople.

“Not only does it hurt the workers, but it’s really undercutting the entire industry and creating that whole race to the bottom,” said Ben Basom, spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

Wage theft is particularly prevalent in drywall and wood framing, Basom said. Typically, a labor broker will show up with a work crew. The contractor will pay the broker, who will pay workers in cash.

“We have a large population of Latino workers gravitate toward drywall, and wood framing too,” Basom said. “They seem to be the most vulnerable population.”

Wage theft most often occurs on small and medium-size projects, Basom said. High-rise projects typically use unionized workforces.

Rakowitz pushed back on the concept of wage theft, saying unpaid wage claims can occur for any number of reasons in an industry with a $5.6 billion annual payroll.

“You’re going to have mistakes; you’re going to have disputes,” he said. “You’re going to have all kinds of things happen in an industry of that size.”

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries investigates unpaid wage claims. The agency received approximately 1,200 wage claims in 2017, and a large share involved the construction industry.

BOLI sustained 99 wage claims in the construction industry in 2018, the same as the year before, spokesman Saul Hubbard said.

Fahey’s bill makes it easier for the Construction Contractors Board to suspend the license of a contractor after 60 days of nonpayment of a wage claim. BOLI must notify a contractor of an upcoming license suspension.

H.B. 3193 also raises the cap for payments from the state wage accountability fund from $4,000 to $10,000. The fund was established in the 1980s to help timber mill workers, and the cap hadn’t been raised in more than a decade, Fahey said.

The bill also removes bureaucratic barriers to make it easier for workers to recover lost wages from a contractor’s CCB licensing bond.

Finally, H.B. 3193 gives BOLI new tools to pursue wage claims against contractors who close and then reopen under a new business name.

“It really is intended to address this issue of successor organizations,” Fahey said. “Even if they close up shop and open under a new name. … You still have to pay those wages.”

Separately, BOLI and the CCB have agreed to add verified wage claims to the CCB website.

“I think that’s a pretty cool change that will actually provide information to consumers and workers and general contractors,” Fahey said.

Meanwhile, Washington this spring enacted a bill to increase fines for wage violations. The bill was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on May 7 and takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

On April 15, trade unions hosted a protest at Director Park in downtown Portland to raise awareness about wage theft. Janet Bauer, a researcher at the Oregon Center for Public Policy, said the construction industry generates the highest number of wage claims by far. She decried cuts to BOLI’s staff that she said have reduced enforcement.

“Clearly we need better laws, but we need better enforcement,” she said.

Art Cortez, owner of Cortez Construction in North Plains, said contractors who follow the rules are undercut by cheaper bids from contractors paying workers under the table.

“While these people are winning, I’m losing,” he said.

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