ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610210006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
After being professionally involved in highway construction for 33 years, Dick Anderson now is paving a new kind of way.
He's helping open the road up to more traffic from highway construction firms owned by minorities and women.
Back when Anderson first began his career with the Department of Transportation, building Virginia's roads was a big-bucks industry tightly controlled by an ol' boy network. Relatively few construction firms - all owned by white males - got the government contracts.
Things have changed, at least to the extent that many more firms compete for highway jobs both large and small.
But the field is still struggling to achieve diversity, even 14 years after a federal law required that 10 percent of all construction projects receiving federal dollars go to minority businesses.
Since 1989, Virginia has been trying to level out the highway through an incubator program for new or struggling businesses owned by minorities or women.
It's called the Construction Mentor Program, a cooperative effort by the Virginia Department of Transportation and Virginia Tech.
Anderson is the mentor. Drawing upon his years of experience, his job is to offer training, advice and support to the firms in the program.
"I tell them, 'Be competitive. Perform quality work. Do it in a timely fashion, and you'll be called back to work. You won't need affirmative action,''' Anderson said.
The national debate over affirmative action still isn't settled, but the federal law setting the minorities' share of construction projects is unequivocal. And the lack of minority firms competing for contracts has created problems, Anderson said, as contractors must search for minority firms or rebid projects.
In Western Virginia, the lack of highway construction firms owned by minorities or women was particularly acute. So the Construction Mentor Program focuses exclusively on a 28-county area from Lynchburg to the tip of Southwest Virginia.
Anderson says firms participating in the program are lent every kind of support except financial. They're typically small and relatively new businesses; so far, the program has dealt with 30 of them.
Six are from the New River Valley. Like the others, they heard about the program through the professional grapevine.
Firms pass through a selective process that has simple criteria. "We take them on their will to succeed. They agree to take our advice seriously," Anderson said.
Working out of his office on the Tech campus, or in the field with clients, Anderson offers his expertise along with the resources of Tech's Civil Engineering Department and its construction management division.
Teaching the clients to stand on their own may involve instruction on basic topics such as reading plans and preparing bids. The mentor program also offers on-campus seminars on various aspects of the business. A recent program focused on conversion to the metric system.
To date, participants have been a diverse lot from a variety of professional backgrounds. Not all have been previously involved in highway construction. Anderson says he's worked with ex-carpenters, X-ray technicians and a retired state trooper.
Clidia Lewis and her husband, Walter, have operated their family business, Lewis Construction Inc., since 1981 and have found the mentor program an asset. "I call Dick if I have problems," she said.
Lately, Lewis Construction, headquartered in the Pulaski County community of New River, has worked all over Virginia on primary and secondary road projects, some as the primary job contractor. Clidia Lewis says the guidance they received through the program helped them grow.
Donna Troutt of Shawsville's Tri X Inc., a construction hauling firm, hopes she'll follow the same path through the program. "They've really been helpful. I talk to them a lot," she said.
Troutt used buyout money gained when she left her job as a transportation department inspector to launch her business in May 1995. She says business has been up and down, and this past rainy summer was a significant damper on construction work.
Once accepted into the program, firms are not abandoned, Anderson says. "Every one started small. We're watching them grow each year. If not, I feel like I'm falling down on the job."
State figures show that construction firms owned by minorities or women are getting a larger scale of the market. Of $295 million spent on highway construction from January to February of this year, $34 million - about 12 percent - went to "disadvantaged business enterprises."
"There was some resistance," Anderson said of the initial reception for minority and female-owned firms. "They're by-and-large well accepted at this time."
Of major contractors, he said, "They found out a lot of minority firms that can do good work, competitively priced."
The mentor program was the first of its kind nationally, as far as Anderson knows. It has attracted inquiries from states from Arizona to Massachusetts.
Still, for all its work, Anderson says the most significant factor influencing participation in highway construction by women and minorities is beyond the program's control: the economy.
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Alan Kim. Donna Sue Troutt, with her 1987 Mack Tri-axleby CNBdump truck, which has a capacity of 17 tons. Her husband, Luther,
who is an independent trucker, does most of the maintenance. color.