July 31, 2002
Page A4
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The Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publication-is a member of the
National Newspaper Association—Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Repre
sentative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publishers
Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver.
Progress on Minority Business is Our Goal
A PROGRAM OF THE AFRICAN
AMERICAN HEALTH COALITION
2800 N. Vancouver Avenue, Suite 100, 97227; 503 413-1850
Sponsored by the C e n te r s f o r D is e a s e
C o n tro l a n d P r e v e n tio n and made possible
in part by Legacy Emanuel, PSU-RRI and CareOregon.
REACH
WHAT?
stands
for
Racial
and
Ethnic
Approaches to Community Health.
It is a community action plan to decrease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the Oregon African American
community.
in Oregon
WHY?
an African American
is twice as likely to die from a
stroke and one and one-half times as likely to die
from a heart attack.
higher incidence
Of premature death, diabetes, stroke, heart
African Americans have a
attack and high blood pressure.
For
STAY
TUNED...
more information programs such as
HOLLA (youth peer education) and Lookin'
Tight Livin' Right (beauty and barber
shop based education) to decrease the
disparity of preventable chronic diseases.
days, public owners set “good
faith” goals, but then are often
required by law to take the low
bidder.
That hasn’t stopped local gov
ernment owners, or Hoffman, from
reaching out to minority firms.
We may have a long way to go,
but no large Northwest contrac
tor has been trying harder to in
crease diversity on public con
struction projects.
On all of our public projects, we
advertise in the Portland Observer
and other community newspa
pers.
H offm an C onstruction Co.
would like to thank Faye Burch-
Wilson for her “guest view” in the
July 17 Portland Observer. Taking
Hoffman and our public owners to
task for our record on minority
contracting really surprised us.
We thought the progress we were
making in diversifying our jobsites
had earned us more goodwill.
For example, at the Oregon
Convention Center expansion, we
were given a goal of 10 percent
minority, woman-owned, emerg
ing small business enterprises. So
far, we have achieved 19.8 per
cent. T h at’s not entirely
A frican A m ericans (that
numberis about 16percent),
but it does represent signifi
cant ethnic and gender di
versity.
On one o f our private
projects, the Brewery Blocks
on B u rn sid e , we have
achieved an 18.6 percent
diversity factor. ForTri-Met
at W ashington Park Station,
we achieved a 19 percent
diversity factor. The list goes
on, sometimes as high as 20
p erc e n t, alm o st alw ays
higher than the “good faith”
goals set by the public owner.
Still, if the column represents a
perception within some segments
of the Portland community; if that
is true, Ms. Burch-W ilson has
provided a service to Hoffman,
minority contractors and local
public owners.
Many of her comments really
resonate with us. She asked us to
create more opportunities for m i
nority subcontractors; she asked
for greater accountability; she
asked for a more focused effort to
inject public construction dollars
into the communities where the
facilities are being constructed.
We hear this.
In the wake of recent Supreme
Court rulings, most of our govern
ment clients face even more chal
lenges increasing diversity on their
projects. There are no quotas, no
set asides, no preferences. These
lu tio n s th at w ill lead to m ea
su rab le improvements.
We opened lines of communi
cation. Construction is a people
business and many small, minor
ity contractors have never been
to visit us. What we heard is, our
size and location makes us appear
inaccessible. So, we began hold
ing breakfast meetings in north
east Portland. We invited minor-,
ity subcontractors to tell us what
we could do better.
Some of the ideas that we have
already started to put in place
include the development of a more
flexible payment system in
order to ease some o f the
cash flow challenges that
plague small businesses.
We work with M/W/ESB
firms and their agents to
better enable them to meet
the insurance and bonding
requirements, actively en
courage our large subcon
tractors to use M/W/ESB
firms as second tier subs.
We hold specific M/W/
ESB pre-bid conferences to
help educate minority firms
J
on bid requirem ents and
break up bid packages into
“economic feasible units” that
allow more M/W/ESB participa
tion.
This is only the beginning. We
are eager to continue meeting with
leaders within the African Ameri
can contracting community to
jointly solve the challenges of
public contracting.
In essence, Ms. Burch-Wilson
challenged us to be an “industry
leader” in the realm of minority
outreach. We hope to earn her
praise when we meet this chal
lenge. It will take teamwork, coop
eration, collaboration and two-
way trust.
W ith the continued help of lo
cal public owners, community
leaders, OAME and other organi
zations that represent minority
businesses, you will see more
women and people of color on
Hoffman jobs.
* No large
Northwest
contractor has been
trying harder to
increase diversity on
public construction
projects.
— Hoffman Construction Co.
We belong to the Oregon As
sociation o f Minority Entrepre
neurs and we encourage the
OAME membership to submit
bids. We belong to the Port of
Portland’s Mentorship Program,
where we volunteer our time to
mentor minority firms about the
business side o f subcontracting.
Hard work without excellent
results is not good enough. In the
last 6 months, we raised the bar on
ourselves.
E arly in 2002, we hired tw o
c o n su lta n ts w ho sp e c ia liz e in
m in o rity o u tre a c h . O ne is a
m em ber o f the A frican L eader
ship C ouncil. Both are people
o f co lo r. T hey have done e x
te n siv e re se a rc h w ith in the
m in o rity c o n tra c tin g co m m u
n ity . T h e y h av e id e n tifie d
m ajo r pro b lem areas and are
h elp in g H offm an d ev elo p so
H. & B. Too
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