How do we as a region make sure minority-owned businesses get a fair share of contracts and economic opportunity in St. Louis?
The question has been posed many times since Percy Green II and Richard Daly scaled the partly constructed Gateway Arch in 1964 to protest the lack of minority inclusion on the job.
There have been many attempts at answers, from executive orders by mayors, to minority contractor associations, to committees and projects sponsored by majority contractors.
Now there is a new answer in town: Minority Contractor’s Initiative, a collaboration between Sal Martinez’s Community Renewal and Development Inc. and the Jeff-Vander-Lou Initiative, with Kem Mosley serving as director.
The program is funded by an $135,000 one-year grant from the City of St. Louis with the option to renew it for two years.
“We have ambitious plans to serve minority contractors,” Martinez told The American. “We want to facilitate capacity-building, training and expertise and offer one-on-one as-needed technical assistance.”
Mosley is a 28-year veteran of the minority contractor grind and scuffle, and as such in a good position to advise others in the field.
“Sometimes contractors need help in making the paper work flow,” Mosley said. “It’s a problem that is easy to fix if you share with them how it is supposed to be.”
Martinez said they will work with minority general contractors and subcontractors, certified as M/WBE or not. Unlike MOKAN, for example, the initiative is not a membership-based association.
“Capacity-building is a big piece,” said George Robnett, executive director of the Jeff-Vander-Lou Initiative. “Do you have a strategic plan, or don’t you? Are you MBE-certified? If not, why not?”
It is no coincidence that the Jeff-Vander-Lou Initiative is at the table at a time when the Northside Regeneration project is battling toward the first stages of its ambitious redevelopment plan. Paul McKee Jr.’s plans for the near North Side overlap significantly with the project area served by the Jeff-Vander-Lou Initiative.
“We’ll be there for the first round of bids on Northside – demolition, environmental remediation, recycling,” Martinez said.
Martinez said McKee has been in close touch and offered to make presentations to groups organized by Minority Contractor’s Initiative.
“We are trying to get ahead of the game and make sure people are ready when the opportunities come,” Robnett said.
“We want to help people prepare and become eligible for contracts. When they get the contracts, we want to help them to be accountable.”
Mosley said the initiative also aims to help businesses that get opportunities build upon them and grow – again, capacity-building.
“Contractors need to learn, as they start to grow, the owner can’t do everything,” Mosley said. “You can’t be in the field, and administrating, and estimating the next job, if you are going to continue to grow.”
The payoff can be exponential. “When minority contractors grow, they tend to hire other minorities,” Mosley said.
Martinez, who chairs the St. Louis Housing Authority board, has extensive experienced with mixed-income housing and other crucial aspects of urban development. “I know the industry,” he said.
When Martinez’s extensive industry contacts – many of them scarred from previous minority inclusion battles and eager to find a way to manage this particular challenge – heard of the new initiative, they expressed immediate interest.
“Scott Wilson called me and said, ‘How soon can you come see us?’” Martinez said of the principal of SM Wilson, who also is the current chair of the Association of General Contractors of St. Louis.
In addition to Wilson and McKee, Kevin Bucheck, president of EM Harris, also has started to work with the initiative, as have KAI Design Group, Confley Financial Group, Caldwell Law Firm and others. “We will be bringing in people in leadership positions,” Martinez said.
Martinez said the organization can help tie together existing programs and coordinate other efforts to connect minority contractors with opportunities.
“So much of it is networking,” Martinez said. “There is this excuse you hear, ‘We couldn’t find any qualified MBEs.’ We want to make sure that excuse is removed.”
