6/29/2012 There's still time to save money

There's still time to save money

The registration fee for the WCOE Western Regional Conference on July 23rd in Los Angeles is still an unbelievable $225 for members until July 7th. Take a minute now and register to save yourself some $$$. This is going to be an amazing conference with a packed full agenda, including presentations from the some of the biggest construction companies on the West Coast who are trying to find you. We've told them WCOE has lots of qualified women construction companies and they are specifically coming to meet you. Let's show them what we've got!

Stop what you're doing and click this registration link now.

A hearty welcome to our newest member

Please help me welcome Mary Axelson, Founder & President of The AHKI Company in Winchester, VA. AHKI is SWAM certified as a Native American, woman-owned company and the company name is devised from the Native American word for “earth”. Mary's firm is committed to providing services that focus on utilizing various green building strategies in facility, energy and construction management.
AHKI is also a full service construction company doing both residential and commercial projects, including significant success as a government contractor. You can welcome Mary to WCOE by emailing
maxelson@ahki-global.com or calling 540.336.6079.

Council of 200 member featured in Forbes article

Karen Barbour, President of surety bonding company The Barbour Group, received some very positive press this week in a Forbes article about building a successful business reputation. The article's words of wisdom are to be an outspoken, assertive advocate for small business; be a change-agent. Karen certainly exemplifies that with her comment that “small businesses need to wake up”. She points out in the article that women in particular do not get equal treatment when starting a business, often with a credit score harmed by divorce or having no track record because they relied on their husband's score. It's a great article and one worth reading!

Oregon WCOE Member's project featured

Tara Kramer has been honored by ABC's Pacific Northwest Chapter with the 2012 Eagle Award for her Central High School project which features a 2-story 100 KW rooftop photo voltaic system. The roof system is 80-mil-thick white GAF TPO single-ply membrane for which the school district received a 30 year labor and material no-dollar-limit warranty. Tara is President of Ri Ky Roofing headquartered in Portland, OR with offices in Seattle, WA and Pittsburg, PA. Congratulations, Tara, we are very proud of you! Tara says she is in an expansion mood and is planning new offices in Denver and Phoenix in 2012.

So, ObamaCare really is a tax after all

After months of political drama and thousands of pages of Congressional testimony saying that the ObamaCare mandate is not a tax, the swing vote upholding ObamaCare yesterday came down to the Chief Justice's belief that no matter what the politicians called it to get it passed, it is clearly a tax. You can read the full Supreme Court decision on our web site. Now, rather than clarifying the health care situation for employers, it becomes even more muddled. If Governor Romney wins the Presidency, he has vowed to grant waivers to all 50 states as his first official act and then work to repeal it. Since most of the provisions of ObamaCare do not kick in until 2014, there would be time for Congress to repeal the law before it became entrenched. If President Obama wins a second term, then ObamaCare will become the law of the land.

Major coup for ConsensusDocs

The construction industry consortium that makes up the ConsensusDocs effort has scored a major victory with this week's adoption by the state of Iowa, Department of Administrative Services, to use ConsensusDocs for its building contracts.

The new on-line accessibility of all of the contract documents and the ability to modify, save and archive personalized contracts is a major factor in their adoption according to Iowa's legal counsel, T. Ryan Lamb. You can read the full press release on our web site.

CalTrans seeks time to "adjust" its DBE program

In a letter this week from CalTrans Director, Malcolm Dougherty, to all stakeholders, CalTrans reports that the Federal Highway Administration has granted them an extension of the June 30, 2012 deadline to modify their DBE program to comply with federal standards.

Citing the need to make several “process changes”, CalTrans did not commit to a completion date. You can read the complete letter on our web site.

Pittsburg, PA city contracting program in the hot seat

Reported in the local TribLive News this week, the city of Pittsburg may have been fudging the numbers on its reports of WBE/MBE contract participation. The city's Equal Opportunity Review Commission is responsible for ensuring minority participation to meet or exceed the established goal of 18% MBE and 7% WBE. While the Commission's annual report for 2011 says the city exceeded its goals, a City Councilman along with the City Controller don't agree. Controller Michael Lamb said he found errors and contract duplications that overstate the Commission's claim. The full news report is available on line.

Get ready to grit your teeth!

To the surprise of no woman business owner, despite the best efforts of a proactive Congress to create federal contracting opportunities for women owned firms, the results have been dismal. In fact, last year, total awards to women-owned businesses by federal agencies actually dropped by 4%. As Bloomberg News points out, this is in spite of the fact that 2011 marked the first year of the WOSB 8m set-aside program. In 1994 the federal government set a goal of awarding at least 5% of the total value of eligible contracts to women-owned businesses – a goal it has NEVER met – and in 2011 it did even worse.

WOCE's legislative advocate, Ann Sullivan, was quoted in a Bloomberg News article in response to new Bloomberg compilation reports that under the WOSB program, only $21.1 million in contracts were awarded to only 150 women-owned small businesses last year, an average of $140,000 per contractor. More than half of the contract awards were in 8 congressional districts – and 4 of those were in the Washington DC area.

During the time period when this $21.1 million was awarded to women-owned firms, the federal government awarded $310 billion (yes, with a B) in contracts. Not only are we not getting 5%, we are getting less than 0.01%. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is working on legislation to fix the program, but until contracting officers (who actually award the contracts) know about WOSB and work to implement it, there may be little that new legislation can do.

San Francisco Bay Area seeks construction companies

If you are a company based in the Bay Area, at least 3 years old, at least 51% MBE or WBE or SDVAB and provide general engineering, electrical, elevator, flooring, fire protection, glazing, insulation/acoustical, HVAC, masonry, painting, roofing, sheet metal, rough carpentry, reinforcing steel, structural steel, ceramic tile, cabinets, millwork, finish carpentry, concrete, drywall or (whew) doors – then you are eligible for a 8/10/12 free workshop from Economic Empowerment Fund. If you are interested, contact Richard Ventura, Richard@eefsf.org or call him at 415.793.2551.

Women Construction Owners and Executives
www.wcoeusa.org | info@wcoeusa.org