Minority & Small Business Week
Page 7
Biggest Chair at the Table
skill sets they needed to grow as well.
Stacy and Witbeck held monthly class-
es for Raimore and other DBE firms on
finance, payroll, invoicing, and other
subjects to assist in their businesses, a
TriMet workforce study stated.
Since then, the company has grown
tremendously, in part due to continued
work with TriMet for varying projects
over the years.
Two years ago, for instance, Raimore
was the recipient of a $6.8 million con-
tract to build shelters for the Max Or-
ange Line servicing Milwaukie. That
was considered at the time be the first
black general contractor to complete a
major construction project in Oregon.
The project earned praise from
Posey, who in 2016 called TriMet a
“perennial leader among governmental
agencies for successful results in hiring
and supporting minority contractors
and workers over several decades.”
In addition, Max Orange Line shel-
ters were Raimore’s largest contract
ever. That high water mark is expected
to be topped by the upcoming Division
Interstate Project, in which Raimore
will also be building shelters and street
improvement work to accommodate a
new high-capacity bus service stretch-
ing a 15 mile corridor between Gresh-
am and Downtown Portland.
Raimore received a $395,000 con-
tract for the pre-construction phase for
the Milwaukie project. The contract
on the Division project may happen as
soon as early 2019.
October 3, 2018
C ontinueD from f ront
“TriMet knows what they can expect
from us. That’s one of the cornerstones
for which we were able to win the proj-
ect,” Bruce said.
Though Bruce has only been work-
ing with Raimore for the past two
years, his relationship to the firm has
spanned over 20 years as he worked
for one of the prime contractors for the
Interstate Max Project under Stacy and
Witbeck, a Bay Area contractor who
enlisted Raimore for trucking and flag-
ging services during the project.
TriMet’s approach to that project is
lauded by Bruce and is generally con-
sidered to be a landmark national mod-
el for the federal DBE program.
“Interstate Max was the largest
public project that had meaningful in-
volvement from local minority firms,
specifically black firms,” Bruce said.
National Association of Minority
Contractor co-founder James Posey of
Portland, then-TriMet executive direc-
tor Fred Hanson, and others were in-
strumental in setting up the Interstate
Max Project’s DBE program at the
time, providing meaningful opportuni-
ty to minority firms in Portland.
Bruce, under Stacy and Witbeck,
helped Raimore acquire some of the
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Raimore Construction Project managers Jesse Jackson (left) and Bill Bruce are
two of the top assistants to Raimore co-founder and owner Jeff Moreland. The
African-American owned company has grown from a small trucking firm into a prime
contractor over the past 20 years.
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Raimore construction employees, of which over 50 percent are people of color,
work on renovations at Couch Park in northwest Portland. Pictured (clockwise from
top) are Yohalayne Moya, Jason Lacroix, and Pedro Interian.