Portland observer., September 21, 2011, 2011 special coverage issue, Page 32, Image 32

Page 32
JJj Minority & Small Business Week
Septem ber 21, 2011
Contractor Lady Renovates PCC Classrooms
Sharon Maxwell-Hendricks comes
full circle from student to career
Sharon Maxwell-Hendricks is
known as The Contractor Lady. And
this summer, she returned to the
place where she began her career in
the construction industry, Portland
Community College.
“This is definitely coming full
circle,” said Maxwell-Hendricks,
who completed the Cascade Skill
Center’s Construction Trades Pro­
gram and an associate’s degree in
business and political science more
than 20 years ago.
“This is my neighborhood where
1 was born and raised. People know
me in the community as a general
contractor, or The Contractor Lady.
I have a passion for what I'm doing.
I enjoy the fact that my vision is
coming true to be able to employ
people from the community, and
also to make connections in the
trades for the people of color who
traditionally are under-utilized in this
workforce.”
As part of a property tax bond
levy to expand and renovate facili­
ties, Maxwell-Hendricks Boanerges
Group, a general contractor based
on North Vancouver Avenue was
selected to remodel two classrooms
in Jackson Hall and one in the Stu­
dent Services Building on the Cas­
cade Campus.
Her com pany renovated the
rooms so that PCC can replace exist­
ing hard-wired computer worksta­
tions with standard classroom
tables, chairs and Netbooks, light­
weight, inexpensive, wireless laptop
computers. The Netbook technol­
ogy is a pilot project to take advan­
tage of this new flexible classroom
space to serve the growing number
of students on campus.
In stru c to rs w ill d istrib u te
Netbooks to students when needed,
or store them in a locked cart in the
classrooms when not in use. Each
cart holds 24 laptops and plugs into
the wall to recharge batteries for the
next class. The new room configura­
tions can accommodate between 24
to 38 students.
The previous configuration of
computer labs limited the type of
instruction in the classroom and
restricted an instructor’s ability to
use large or small work groups and
different classroom seating arrange­
ments.
Maxwell-Hendricks said working
with PCC was an opportunity to
showcase her company’s work.
“It allows people to see a small
business, a women-owned and Af­
rican-American-owned business, in
action. That definitely does some­
thing to people in the community
who see folks they know doing the
work.”
Maxwell-Hendricks has owned
Boanerges Group for 13 years and
the majority of her business is in the
neighborhood where she grew up.
The company handles m ultiple
projects at one time and is involved
in as many as 200 projects per year.
With 50employees, she tries to find
enough work to lessen the blow in
the off-season from D ecem ber
through February, so she doesn’t
have to let anyone go.
“W e're trying to build our capac­
ity as a company so that we’re more
in control of the work so we can
The Contractor Lady graduated from PCC's construction trade program 2 0 years ago and is now
owns her own construction agency. Her firm, the Boanerges Group, recently finished work on a
remodeling project at the Cascade Campus.
create better opportunities to keep
our employees working all year
around,” said Maxwell-Hendricks.
“The PCC job has been a huge op­
portunity for us as a business be­
cause we’re located right here in
North Portland and the majority of
our workforce lives and works here.
As a company our size, we need to
have a continuum of work so we can
keep the same workforce going. A
project this size helps that to hap­
pen.”
Community is a big part of what
Maxwell-Hendricks does. For years
she toiled as a sprinkler fitter and
Sharon Maxwell-Hendricks, the locally-owned owner o f the Boanerges Group, a contracting agency
with 50 employees, inspects remodeling work her firm completed on the Cascade Campus o f
Portland Community College in north Portland.
jo u rn e y m a n in n e ig h b o rh o o d
projects like the Rose Quarter, buck­
ing the trends of being female and a
minority in a mostly white, male
workforce. But today, she hasn’t
lost that sense of community and
uses her company to spread the
word of opportunity to people in
North Portland, including hosting a
summer work program where she
brings youths from the community
to her projects not only to work, but
to see their potential.
“It’s a great way to connect their
education to career choices and see
the opportunities for their future,”
she said. “That was part of my vi­
sion for me in getting into construc­
tion; to be part of the rebuilding of
the community when it had gone
through such a blight. When I went
through the training at PCC I took
the courses that would allow me to
start my own construction company.
That gave me a hope, a vision that
one day I would own my business.”
Boanerges Group field superintendent Bart Jankins inspects the
new carpeting for o f the Student Services Building at Portland
Community College's Cascade Campus.