Thirteen years ago Jack Reynolds was the founding president of Pittsburgh’s National Association of Minority Contractors. Though retired, he is now back as the organization’s director because he says, “nothing has changed.”
“We’ve been called porch monkeys and spear chuckers by the big companies,” he said. “There’s an image that Black contractors can’t fix a sink let alone build your house. Even Black churches don’t hire us. So the idea is to clean up that image—I’m here on behalf of the contractors.”
That is essentially the message he gave the membership during an Aug. 19 meeting. He said the organization needs to solidify its membership, pick its battles and have more Blacks in general contracting positions. Reynolds said waiting for the crumbs from large union jobs is a waste.
“We can all join the unions, but we prefer not to because we’d have to pay dues and hire all White guys,” he said. “Besides, we don’t really need to.”
Reynolds is already working on the first issue and has a plan to address the other two, which he said will lead to growth.
“We already have 30 contractor members, guys I brought in,” he said. “I’m working to get another 32 to sign on because we’re not as diverse in certain trades as I’d like.”
The other two issues, Reynolds said, could be addressed by concentrating their efforts in the modular home market, because competing against companies like Turner and Massaro on large commercial projects is impossible.
“We can’t do $30 million jobs. We’re looking at $1 million, $2 million, $5 million, tops—we can handle that,” he said. “We’re basically designed out of big jobs; the casino, Mt. Ararat, even Kingsley—but Malik (Bankston) got us in there anyway. With modular, we can compete because of time and insurance issues.”
With more Black general contractors working on housing developments, Black contractors with the concrete, plumbing, electrical and HVAC expertise will get more work, as will Black laborers.
“With modular, we’re just as viable. We’re in with modular home builders, many of us are certified,” he said. “We have competent people here and if we stick together we can do this.”
Once he has the people in place he needs, Reynolds’ plans to ask the Urban Redevelopment Authority for enough of its vacant properties to build 100 modular homes.
“We’ll finance it ourselves and turn them over (to the authority) for sale because we don’t want to sit on them and we’re not Realtors,” he said. “It’s time to make this happen because what we need is people to believe in Blacks and not say I won’t buy it because Blacks built it.”
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