Minority & Small Business Week
September 30, 2015
The
INSIDE
Week in Review
page 2
Page 3
This page
Sponsored by:
L ocal N ews
Minority & Small
Business Week
pages 22-23
O pinion
photo by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Colas Construction has deep roots in the Portland community with members of the extended Colas
family overseeing a diverse company that has become a powerhouse in the construction industry.
Pictured (from left) are Colas principals Andrew Colas, Marc-Daniel Domand, Alex Colas, Aneshka
Dickson, and Hermann Colas Jr.
From the Ground Up
page 21
M etro
Black-owned
business
grows into
powerhouse
O livia O livia
T he P ortland O bserver
With Portland building and
growing as quickly as it is, engaging
communities of color in the devel-
opment of the city has been critical.
One family has managed to step for-
ward and become a powerhouse in
by
the construction industry, working
from a diverse group of builders,
plumbers, electricians, architects,
and other construction workers in
the growth of the city.
The Colas family has managed to
stay strong and bring in workers and
contractors from all walks of life in
their nearly 20 years of business
in Portland and much longer when
tracing the family history.
Hermann Colas Jr., a Haitian im-
migrant, came to the United States
in the late 1960s from a family that
used to run Haiti’s second largest
rum distillery.
He started off in real estate, pur-
chasing locations, and dreaming
up big plans, until he formally got
the construction company off the
ground, launching the company in
1997.
“We are a family of black entre-
preneurs several generations deep,”
explains Andrew Colas, Hermann’s
son and current president of the con-
struction company.
The family patriarch wanted his
son to stay in Haiti and take over
the distillery, but Andrew says his
father had a will and a dream of his
own.
C ontinued on P age 14
Black Parenting Symposium
Open forum
for sharing
empowerment
messages
pages
24-29
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
C lassifieds
C alendar
page 30
page 31
An organization that brings
black parents and caregivers
together is getting ready to
host their sixth annual sympo-
sium in Portland.
The Black Parent Initiative,
which was founded nearly Keith B. Wheeler
10 years ago to help families
achieve financial, educational,
and spiritual success, is call-
ing community members to-
gether to remind families that
“We Are The Village” we’ve
been looking for – noting that
interdependence and sharing
child-rearing and empower-
ment messages allows fami-
lies to address the idea that “it
takes a village” to raise every
child.
C ontinued on P age 7