Women in Construction LLC has busy summer lined up

In 1988, founders of the Women’s Coalition were the first in Minnesota to confront the need for affordable temporary and permanent housing for women and children moving from the Duluth nonprofit’s east side shelter.

Some of those visionaries, including Michelle LeBeau, are at it again, this time breaking new ground as a residential contractor, providing training and construction jobs for low-income women, as well as housing.

In its first year of operation last year, Women in Construction, LLC finished nine housing units. Six were delivered to the Women’s Transi-tional Housing Coalition, raising its Duluth inventory to 47 units of transitional and permanent housing. Overall, this work generated $900,000 in revenues last year for the construction company.

LeBeau, Women in Construction project manager, said the nonprofit’s 2004-05 schedule will jump to at least 21 units, and she predicts revenues will top $1 million this year. That work includes two new owner-occupied homes it will build for the Northern Communities Land Trust and a shelter and five rental units for the American Indian Community Housing Organization. It also will completely gut abandoned buildings at 317 N. Second Ave. W. and at 18 W. Fifth St. acquired early this year by Women’s Transitional. Some of the work will spill over into 2005. In the end it will mean 14 new apartment units for Women’s Transitional.

“We want to do about one to two projects at a time,” LeBeau said.

The company will employ about a dozen women on its job sites and at the 3,000 square-foot cabinet and furniture shop it also operates at 114 N. 1st Ave. W. The firm has a limited number of men on the payroll filling key positions in the shop and field.

While female-headed contracting firms no longer are a novelty, Women in Construction is the first in the nation providing both training and construction work for low-income women and women of color, she said.

North Shore Bank of Commerce is the primary lender for these construction projects. Bank executives viewed the contractor’s remodeling of 21 units of transitional housing in 2001 at Transitional Housing’s flagship operation at 14th Avenue East and East Second St.

“We were very impressed,” said Brian Murphy, North Shore’s vice president-business banking. “Key is finishing a project, according to specs. They did both. The fact that they are mission-based also adds a level. There’s not just a profit motive here,” he said.

LeBeau agrees. “There’s no construction company like ours, we’re pretty unique,” she said.

It wasn’t intended that way.

Women’s Transitional launched its Women in Construction Training Project in 2000 because there are few liveable wage jobs for low-income women in Duluth’s service sector. “Our goal was to place women in existing (construction) businesses,” she said.

Nationwide, just 3 percent of the industry’s work force is female.

But the response from most firms in the male-dominated construction industry in Duluth/Superior was that they weren’t hiring secretaries, LeBeau said.

“After the first year, we realized starting our own company was the way to go,” she said.

There are exceptions to that chauvinistic, old school mindset.

Women’s Transitional has forged working relationships with a handful of contractors that Women in Construction works with jointly, or hires as subcontractors. The field includes Stout Mechanical, James LeNard Electric, Darrell Johnson Excavation, general contractor Glenn Yorde and Tri-Star Constructors, all in Duluth.

The alliances are crucial for a startup firm with few licensed tradeswomen.

“Sixty percent of our work force is not skilled labor,” she said,.

LeBeau also noted some construction unions are actively recruiting women into their apprenticeship programs. And she praises the effort of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to raise its contingent of both female and minority employees.

In 2003, Women’s Transitional joined with the St. Paul Urban League, MnDOT, and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to become part of a collaborative that recruits and trains women and people of color for union jobs with MnDOT. Women’s Transitional is recruiting and screening 30 people for state jobs this year.

Meanwhile, Women in Construction was adeptly tapping government and private resources to get the construction company off the ground.

Grants in 2002 from the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) and the U.S. Depart-ment of Housing and Urban Development helped to finance the company’s startup costs. The Duluth Workforce Center, Northeast Minnesota Office of Job Training and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe also agreed to refer women from their own job training programs, which helped pay for the 400 hours of training women have to complete to work for the company.

Its heavy reliance upon trained, but semi-skilled construction workers is helping to control its costs, allowing Women in Construction to bid competitively. Women who complete the training start at $8.25 an hour. After two years, women working as apprentice carpenters earn about $12.50 an hour, and receive a full benefit package.

The company doesn’t intend to compete with the rest of the construction industry to keep its workers. In fact, feeding those employees to higher-pay union and non-union jobs will be an important benchmark of success for the Women in Construction Training Project.

“We want to maintain the training aspect,” LeBeau said.