Construction Buyers Honor Diversity Champions

The St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers Thursday honored people and organizations for leading efforts to promote racial and gender diversity in the St. Louis construction industry. Two companies and three individuals were recognized for their work.

Paric Corporation was named the Organization of the Year for its proactive efforts to diversify both its workforce and its vendor and subcontractor base. The success of Paric's efforts was illustrated by the 27 percent minority business enterprise participation level it achieved on its Peabody Opera House project.

Raineri Construction was named the Minority or Women Business Enterprise of the Year. Founded by Ashley Raineri in 2003, the firm employed 50 people and earned $32 million in 2011, which represents a 150 percent increase in staff since 2009 and a quadrupling of revenue.

The owners' council recognized two people as Diversity Champions: Christopher Bowers of KAI Design & Build and Leticia Lago of Alberici Constructors.

Sandra Marks, the diversity committee chairperson, said that Bowers, who is in charge of MBE contract management and monitoring at KAI, helps his organization consistently achieve minority business enterprise participation rates on its projects of 25 to 40 percent.

As Alberici's diversity coordinator, Lagos, she said, helps all of the contractor's departments develop strategies to increase the participation of women and minorities in projects regardless of owner requirements. She helps Alberici regularly meet or exceed minority participation goals. On the St. Louis Science Center's eastern expansion, for example, Alberici saw to it that 22 percent of contract dollars went to minority business enterprises and 12 percent went to women business enterprises.

For the first time ever, the council in 2011 issued an award for lifetime diversity advocacy. The Lifetime Diversity Advocate was the late Edward Frazier, who was a civil rights administrator for the Federal Highway Administration.

Marks said that Frazier went well beyond monitoring compliance to advocating for inclusion participation. She noted that he pushed the Missouri Department of Transportation to fund construction career days to introduce female and minority youth to the possibility of working in a construction career.

Columns