A coalition of local organizations is hosting a series of Saturday vaccination clinics for construction workers.

The effort seeks to increase vaccination rates, particularly among contractors owned by women and people of color.

“For us, it’s not just about increasing vaccination rates within the BIPOC community. It’s about our BIPOC and women-owned contractors leading the effort to protect individual workers and their loved-ones,” Kenechi Onyeagusi, executive director of the Professional Business Development Group, said in a news release.

PDBG is working with the Oregon Health Authority and the Northwest Oregon Labor Council to hold the clinics.

The remaining clinics are scheduled for Saturday, July 17, at Tualatin High School, ; and Saturday, July 24, at LiUNA! Local 737 in Portland, The clinics are offering the Pfizer vaccine. Hours are 11 a.m.-2 p.m. each day.

The clinics will offer free food and raffle prizes.

Vaccine seekers can , but it is not required.

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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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The Professional Business Development Group has a new executive director. Kenechi Onyeagusi took over on Feb. 17.

PBDG focuses on supporting minority-owned and disadvantaged construction contractors and professional services firms to become more competitive through training, mentorship and making connections.

Onyeagusi comes to PBDG from 12 years in commercial banking and portfolio management. A first-generation immigrant from Nigeria, Onyeagusi came to Portland from Cleveland, Tennessee. She has worked for several banks, most recently Heritage Bank, and served on the boards of groups such as Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon.

This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

91��Ƶ: Do you have any near-term goals for the PBDG?

Kenechi Onyeagusi: PBDG’s been around for six years. I feel like it’s one of the better kept – it’s not a secret, because I feel like people in the industry know about PBDG. But folks outside the industry do not know about PDGB. And so bringing awareness to the work that we do and then really highlighting the folks that are members and the people who supported the organization in the past.

91��Ƶ: You mentioned bringing more awareness to PBDG’s work and highlighting what it’s doing. How can you raise its profile so it becomes better known in Portland and throughout the industry?

Onyeagusi: Well I think to do that, you have to highlight the whole industry. When I started doing my research on the subcontractor community, I was like, it’s not a community; it’s an industry.

There’s a whole movement around making sure that there’s equitable distribution of wealth and wealth creation in the community. I think organizations like ours are really one of the vehicles that this is being done.

91��Ƶ: We’ve seen some successful and growing DMWESB firms in Portland and Oregon. Colas Construction getting the Oregon Convention Center contract was a high-water mark. How can the industry or policymakers support contractors in getting those large public contracts?

Onyeagusi: Access to capital is a huge one. Subcontractors should not have to do some of the things they do just to get capital. I don’t know that there’s a lot of attention given to the construction industry – certainly when you’re a certain size. But there’s a hole, right between where you start to where you’re doing $200 million in contracts, and so this whole industry is being built on the backs of HELOCs (home equity lines of credit) and car sales and credit cards, and I think that’s a shame.

We can’t build a subcontracting industry on the back of credit cards or HELOCs. I think that serves nobody well. For a lot of subcontractors, that’s kind of the path of least resistance. You go and get a HELOC. You know, $10,000, $20,000, and you start with a truck and $10,000. But there are ways as a community, and I think Prosper (Portland, the city’s economic development agency) is in position to do this well, where they have a lending program and they can certainly use the resources they have to support a growing community and a growing industry without being in competition with any of the other CDFIs (community development financial institutions).

91��Ƶ: Are they doing a good job of that, or is there more room to grow?

Onyeagusi: There’s room to grow. It’s just starting. So I know they just put it out on the market last year that they’re doing it, so they’re tweaking. I think this is the time. This is the opportunity to really leverage their wealth-creation mission, right? Let’s create wealth in a way that is sustainable for a new industry.

If you’re talking about disadvantaged, minority, small businesses, giving them access to capital, giving them access to predictable capital, to sustained capital – you know, you can give somebody all the contracts you want, but if you don’t give them the tools to do it, that’s just setting them up to fail.

91��Ƶ: The city has some funding coming from the Community Opportunities and Enhancements Program. Where could that funding best be used?

Onyeagusi: Right now, the funding is for the apprenticeship and then organizations like ours that do technical assistance and business support services work, and I think that’s right on the money because we do need to make sure that our apprentices and our workforce get funding.

For the work that we do at PBDG, we can’t do the work consistently and with the right tools if we’re not properly funded.

So it’s wonderful that there’s a sustained channel, but I think the key is to make sure it survives government changes, that it’s not the whim of which politician is in the seat, that it’s really embedded in the framework of doing business with public agencies. It would be a shame to start all this work and then have to stop because a different person is in power.

It’s displacement when you think about it. When businesses start to expect the support we’re giving them, and start to rely on that and you yank it, you’re displacing their resources, and that would be too close to history.

91��Ƶ: It seems in the world of COBID contracts, there are a few fairly large firms that are getting these contracts. Is there too much concentration in the industry? Would it be good to broaden the number of firms who can compete for these contracts?

Onyeagusi: Yeah. That’s one of the things that I think we get through data. There has to be a granularity of data. If you’re trying to make impact, you have to be able to measure the impact of your dollars. How much of that went to job creation, and how many firms benefited from it? It’s time for us to start disaggregating data to really see who is really getting chunks of the money. It’s the only way to grow a fresh crop.

When you look at it from the perspective of money, people don’t want to talk about it because it sounds icky and they’re not doing anything wrong. But it’s not about the money, and it’s not wrong to make money. But what are we trying to do with this work? We’re trying to build businesses, and you don’t do that by doing the same old thing that’s always worked. That’s disingenuous.

91��Ƶ: What are the obstacles you’re seeing for COBID contractors and subcontractors?

Onyeagusi: Other than the lack of money thing? (Laughs) They need technical assistance, they need classes, they need education, being in the right rooms, being a voice.

I see the city and county and Metro really trying to figure out how to do this. And the policies they’ve put in place, they’re really putting the money where their mouths are. It would be great to have 10 companies the size of Colas and Raimore and O’Neill in five years. That’s when you build wealth.

91��Ƶ: If I could ask a more personal question, I’m sure it’s difficult to be an African-American woman in Portland. Portland and Oregon more broadly have a history of exclusion. How has that journey been for you and how could the rest of us do better?

Onyeagusi: It’s been interesting. I’ve always just looked for allies. Banking is one where it’s one of the whiter industries, but I’ve been very fortunate to find allies. And not just people-of-color allies, but white women allies, white men allies, allies that have mentored me and pointed me in the right direction.

I feel a personal … everything I do is in this goldfish bowl, and everybody’s watching, and I’m representing all the black women, and that has pressure.

But I’ve found just owning my voice and being confident in who I am to be helpful. Every room I walk in, probably 95 percent of the time in my career, I’ve been the only person of color. And so I’ve just had to be comfortable in those settings by knowing exactly what I bring to the table and knowing my craft.

It’s felt like a journey of just proving myself over and over and over again. Every room and every meeting, proving myself. I don’t know that that’s particular to me. I think as a woman, as a minority person, you go through that and there’s the pressure of needing to do that even faster than everybody else. But I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had some really good mentors and family support.

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Abdias Calixte grew up in Haiti and began to learn the trades by working alongside his father, a preacher who also worked on houses. Calixte held a job as a security guard before moving to the United States in 2003. While earning an associate’s degree in welding at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington, he heard a presentation in which the students, especially minorities, were encouraged to explore careers in the trades.

“He told me that I could make $30 an hour within four years. I had never dreamed of making that kind of money in a lifetime and I wanted to investigate,” Calixte said. “He said it was all possible if I was willing to learn.”

The presenter assured Calixte that his English-speaking skills were strong enough to be successful, and encouraged him to do an apprenticeship with the local union.

“As an immigrant black male, I was lost. I wasn’t sure what to do or what to say, but I was welcomed and they helped me get started, true to their word,” he said.

Calixte launched his new career in 2006 and in 2012 started his company, Complete Fusion Welding LLC, which provides full-service structural steel and miscellaneous steel welding services. “The quality of my work represents who I am, and I wanted to be able to express myself through the quality of my work,” he said.

He has experienced his share of bumps along the way. He started his company with no bonding, a partial inventory of equipment and some administrative challenges. At one point, his truck – and all of his equipment – was stolen.

Calixte, who is a member of the Professional Business Development Group, credits mentors such as fellow Building Diversity award recipient Faye Burch and Bruce Reid at Turner Construction Co. with providing the knowledge, guidance and support that has helped him grow his company. He noted his gratitude for the 91��Ƶ’s recognition as well.

“I’ve never been more humbled to see the whole world is trying to help me out,” he said.

While he is firmly established in the Portland metro area, Calixte’s home country is never far from his mind. He used his own money to establish a small orphanage there.

“I’m not looking for funds and I’m not looking for help. I just wanted to do this because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

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Daniel Miranda grew up working in his father’s sheet metal shop in Mexico, and swore he wasn’t going to do the same work for a living when he was older. But when he moved to the United States, he joined the apprenticeship program with the Sheet Metal Worker’s International Association Local 16 and now owns Just Right Heating and Cooling with his wife, Jodie Marion.

The company specializes in commercial and industrial HVAC projects in Oregon and Southwest Washington. In its newly opened shop, the company fabricates ductwork and architectural sheet metal, which its crew installs along with HVAC equipment. Just Right Heating and Cooling also services HVAC systems. It partners with architects, engineers, owners, plant managers, contractors and suppliers and other project team members.

Its portfolio of projects includes Portland 5, the city of Vancouver Operations Center, and the Oregon Zoo and its AfriCafe. The company is now partnering with General Sheet Metal and Hoffman Construction Co. on the Multnomah County Central Courthouse project and the Gladys McCoy Health Department Headquarters. It also will replace the HVAC equipment at the Gresham Library later this season.

Just Right Heating and Cooling, a member of Professional Business Development Group, hires MWESB businesses as subcontractors and “we share our story and insights as much as possible and listen to theirs – that’s how we learn from each other,” Miranda said.

“We value the traditions and experiences of being a Local 16 signatory, and we combine that strength with diverse outlooks, experiences, and behaviors to drive innovation and efficiency,” the company states on its website. “We know the best way to build trust and long-term relationships is to treat our partners fairly, perform above expectations, and work together to solve problems.”

Miranda and Marion believe that environmental stewardship is their duty and consistently look for ways to “green it up.” Just Right volunteers to drive trees for Friends of Trees as participants in plantings. The company will raise money for pancreatic cancer research this fall in the PurpleStride 5K. In addition, the company and many of its field crew provide pro bono work for people who lose heat and have no means to pay for repairs.

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