Introducing “Opportunity Report”

Date Posted: June 13, 2022

Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, Workforce,

by Ron Unterreiner, Founder, PEOPLE of Construction 

Editor’s note:  This marks the addition of a regular feature to ConstructForSTL.org — a column by PEOPLE of Construction Founder Ron Unterreiner that we’re calling “Opportunity Report”.

Martin Luther King wrote, “The struggle for rights is, at bottom, a struggle for opportunities.” Dr. King noted that it does no good to say that someone can live wherever they want if they can’t afford to buy a house or that their children can go to any school if there’s no money for clothes or lunch.

The mission of the Construction Forum is “To facilitate the collaboration of all the stakeholders in the St. Louis Region’s built environment in creating inclusive robust employment and economic growth.” Ron Unterreiner will address all these issues in this and upcoming issues of  “Opportunity Report”.

When I started PEOPLE eight years ago, it was with the intent to meet the customers I was trying to serve.

At the time, I had volunteered to head up a sub-committee of the AGC Diversity Committee and my assigned task was to come up with a plan as to how to build the capacity of the minority firms working in the greater St. Louis marketplace.  After a year of meeting with various industry leaders, I decided that we did not know the people and the companies we were trying to help, and so, I set out to find them and introduce them to the majority firms in town.  How could we ever work together if we did not know each other?

In many ways, PEOPLE meetings have served that purpose.  Working with the diversity directors of the major general contractors and construction management firms in town, we raised the visibility of many minority and women-owned firms and a certain level of success was achieved.  As any good businessperson knows though, visibility and marketing your name and your existence is an ongoing project and that is the intent of this brief spotlight section that the Forum has agreed to let me experiment with in the coming months.

My intent with this column is to simply spotlight the successes of the many good minority and women-owned firms in our marketplace.  I am always disappointed to read stories of completed projects with nary a mention of the many good subcontracting firms, including the minority and women-owned firms, that played an important role in the success of those projects.  My hope is that this small spotlight on the achievements and successes of MBE/WBE firms will help in that ever-present goal of “building the capacity” of their businesses.

For contact information on any firm mentioned or to recommend certain MBE or WBE firms for mentioning, please email me at PEOPLEofconstruction@gmail.com.

There were three firms present at my first PEOPLE meeting that stand out in my mind.  Cordell Sawyer was looking to increase the capacity of his small carpentry firm, Sledroc Construction; Dave and Wyndel Hill were just launching their union affiliated painting firm called Two Hills Painting; and Shaun Carr was in the process of building his flooring company, Carr Flooring, to be a major player in the commercial construction marketplace.  All three firms are now a most important part of our industry, consistently performing on many of the major projects in town.  My personal congratulations to all three firms and their most capable leaders.

In the eight years since starting PEOPLE, I have had over 200 MBE/WBE firms attend meetings and exchange their business cards.  I wish I could say they all succeeded in this tough and demanding business.  To succeed in this business, regardless of minority or majority status, one needs commitment, knowledge, experience, passion, working capital, tenacity, more working capital, and a boatload of good luck.  And you have to make yourself known to others.

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to spotlight the successes of those firms that are making a difference.  With the help of the major majority firms in town and with some much-needed change in the payment practices that are practiced in our industry today, MBE and WBE firms can “build their capacity” and they can succeed.

But who are these firms?  Stick with me and I will shine a light in their direction in the coming weeks.