Summer
2011
Flagger (left) on
the crew building
the Westgate Station for Walsh
Construction.
Woman at work
on the East Bank
where AmesMcCrossan Joint
Venture is in
charge.
Two prime contractors achieving workforce goals
The two large civil contractors on the Central Corridor LRT Project, Walsh Construction
and Ames-McCrossan Joint Venture, are achieving the project’s workforce participation goals for minorities and women.
As Walsh and AMJV mobilized and staffed up to full levels this spring, they did not
achieve the stated minority and female workforce participation goals early on. As construction moved into full swing, both were fully staffed and achieving the workforce
participation goals. They are 18 percent for minorities and 6 percent for women.
As of July, Walsh achieved an 18.8 percent minority participation rate and a 9.9 percent female participation rate. As of July, AMJV’s rates were 18.1 percent for minorities and 8 percent for women. Walsh is building the line’s eastern seven miles while
AMJV is responsible for the western three miles.
Workforce refers to individual tradespeople in the field doing the construction work for
contractors and subcontractors. Workforce goal participation is measured by the hours
that these individual tradespeople work. The Metropolitan Council Office of Diversity
and Equal Opportunity will continue to monitor construction contractors in the field to
confirm their workforce numbers. See the workforce table on Page 9 of this issue.
More
Jackson is project’s new workforce coordinator
Meet Leo Jackson, the new workforce coordinator for the Central Corridor LRT Project.
The St. Paul native and Cretin-Derham Hall
graduate studied psychology and health
education at Florida A&M University before
returning to Minnesota to become a program
coordinator with Community Action Partnerships. He later worked as the environmental
and construction worker training program
manager at Merrick Community Services.
Jackson said he was drawn to his new job
because of his desire to help “close the disparity gap between minorities and their
white male counterparts in employment.”
Jackson also grew up in the Rondo community and played sports as a child at the
Jimmy Lee Rec Center. “It’s my neighborhood,” he said proudly.
Leo Jackson
Three LRT construction supervisors:
How they got jobs on biggest public works project in Minnesota
An immigrant from Guinea in West Africa who had to learn English quickly to continue
his engineering career and build a new life in the United States. A woman with an undergraduate degree in resource management from a Midwestern university. A man who
has worked since he was 12 when he took his first job at a California fish market.
Abdoul Diallo, Corrie Neuens and Terry Willy Freeman have very different backgrounds
and career paths yet they all ended up working as supervisors on the biggest public
works project in Minnesota history. Their stories are meant to be inspirational for others
interested in jobs on public works projects.
Their stories are on the following pages.
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Meet Abdoul Diallo
Title: Assistant project manager for
Walsh Construction, which is building the
line’s eastern seven miles.
Duties: Include negotiating and writing
subcontracts, reviewing and pricing contract change orders, reviewing and approving all subcontract vouchers, writing
subcontract change orders, reviewing and
certifying the project equipment schedule; managing and assisting junior engineers and helping solve daily issues that
arise in the field, attending and presenting the project’s three-week look-ahead
at the weekly progress meetings, reviewing and forecasting project cost report
and reviewing production.
Q. What is your work history?
A. I began working for Walsh Construction in 2005 as a project engineer prior to becoming assistant project manager. I have been blessed while at Walsh to have been involved in many very interesting projects such as the Dan Ryan Expressway reconstruction project in Chicago, the Illinois Tollway reconstruction and the O’Hare International
Airport modernization project. In my six years with Walsh, my team and I have successfully completed eight projects on time and under budget. Before coming to Walsh, I
worked for Modern Continental Construction in New York City from 2002 to 2005 as a
field engineer and later as a project engineer. I was involved in projects such as the Interstate 495 (Long Island Expressway) reconstruction and the Jamaica Bay Landfill Rehabilitation.
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3
Meet Abdoul Diallo….
Q. What is your educational background?
A. I graduated from the University of Conkary in Guinea, West Africa, and
worked in Guinea for two years for the capital city’s water treatment and distribution company before moving to the United States. After learning English, (Guinea
is a French-speaking country), I entered the graduate school of engineering at
Drexel University and majored in transportation until completing more than half
of the credits before accepting a job offer from Modern Continental.
Q. What drew you to this field? What do you like about your job?
A. Growing up in Guinea and knowing that after college it would be a struggle to
find a job, I knew it would be best to choose a discipline where I would be able to
be self-employed if I couldn’t find a job with the government. Besides that, I always have loved to build stuff since childhood. What I like the most about my job
is the final product, being part of a legacy. I enjoy driving through a city such as
Chicago or New York, seeing my work and knowing it will last for generations.
Q. What are the challenges on this job?
A. The CCLRT is a big project. I have lots of information to process, disseminate
and manage while making sure my team and I meet our deadlines/milestones,
and work within our budget, balancing the project’s progress and satisfying the
needs of the community surrounding the project. I worked very hard to be where
I am today and continue to do so to better myself.
Q. What advice as far as education and work experience do you have for
someone who aspires to this or a similar job?
A. Believe in yourself. Know that you can do anything if you put your heart and
mind into it. I came from a different continent, didn’t know the language or the
culture but I worked hard. With the support of my family, I am building a great
career and have been involved in wonderful projects as a mentor and leader for
my company. We have great institutions and support to achieve high education in
this country. You just need to take advantage of them and work hard to better
your life and eventually your family’s life. Pick the field or career you love and get
it done.
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Meet Corrie Neuens
Title: Quality control manager, Walsh
Construction
Duties: Oversees all aspects of qual-
ity in construction of the light rail project to ensure the specifications are being followed by our production staff.
Q. What is your work history?
A. I have been in the quality assurance/control field for more than four years and with
Walsh for one year. Over the last 10 years, I have touched each aspect of engineering
from government to consulting and now contracting. Having the ability to manage a
project through the eyes of each level has helped me grow professionally. Quality assurance/control found its way to me. I spent three years as a quality assurance manager for the Illinois Tollway and for over a year now have worked in quality control
oversight.
Q. What is your educational background?
A. In addition to a bachelor’s degree in resource management from the University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire, I have taken several materials courses from both the Illinois
Department of Transportation and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Q. What drew you to this field? What do you like about your job?
A. I enjoy being outside and using my analytical skills to solve a problem.
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Meet Corrie Neuens….
Q. What are the challenges for you in this job?
A. Making sure there is constant communication among all the players involved
and preventing mistakes.
Q. What advice as far as education and work experience do you have for
someone who aspires to this or a similar job?
A. A background in engineering, construction management or other similar
fields can also lead you down the same path. Taking all the materials courses
from MnDOT is also highly encouraged.
“I enjoy being outside and using my analytical skills to solve
a problem.”
Corrie Neuens, quality control manager for Walsh Construction
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Meet Terry Willy
Freeman
Title: West metro project manager
for Highway Technologies, a subcontractor. The company provides
traffic control to Ames-McCrossan
Joint Venture on the Central Corridor LRT Project. Ames-MCrossan is
building the line’s western three
miles.
Duties: Organizing, planning jobs,
attending meetings on and off the
job site. I’m responsible for multiple
jobs for all traffic control issues,
needs and personnel.
Q. How did you end up in this field of work?
A. I started my long career when I turned 20. At that time, I was in a very bad place in
my life. I stumbled across this job through my uncle who advised me to turn in an
application. I started my career with Warning Lites of Minnesota as a shop laborer.
As time went on, I started to get more responsibilities while moving up in the company. I went from shop help to night servicing to out-of-town driver to route driver
to project manager, which I have been for 12 years. I have received employee of
the year twice and employee of the month twice.
Q. What is your work history?
A. I started working around 12 years of age at a fish market in California, then worked
at Burger King, a warehouse and car service industries (and as a father!)
Q. What is your educational background?
A. General Educational Development (GED).
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Meet Terry Willy Freeman…
Q. What do you like about this job?
A. It’s very physical, demanding and challenging. Everyday you arrive to work and
things change at a rapid pace so you must think on the fly. When I say think, I
mean it’s about safety first and trying to accomplish your task. I get more satisfaction out of my job when I get a new driver to teach and give them some of
my knowledge and experience and see them advance in the company.
Q. What are the challenges?
A. The position is very demanding of time and being organized with all aspects of
the job. It wasn’t easy. It took effort in understanding the job.
Q. What advice do you have for others considering a similar career?
A. Try to get as much education as you can. I started with only a GED, knowing
that it would be a lot harder to advance in my company. I was very fortunate
that my company had faith in me and allowed me to advance. I think if you
work hard at whatever you put your mind and heart to you can overcome any
obstacle that comes your way.
“Try to get as much education as you can.. I started with only a
GED, knowing that it would be a lot harder to advance in my
company. I was very fortunate that my company had faith in
me and allowed me to advance.”
Terry Willy Freeman, west metro project manager for Highway Technologies, a subcontractor on the CCLRT project.
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During July, crews from THOR Construction,
one of the largest minority-owned companies
in the nation, and Yaw Construction Group, a
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, placed
the first concrete to embed rails in Lowertown
St. Paul.
Workforce refers to individual tradespeople
in the field doing the construction work for
contractors and subcontractors, including
DBEs. Workforce goal participation is measured by the hours that these individual
tradespeople work.
August workforce percentages
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August DBE Status Table
What are DBEs? DBEs are firms with majority ownership by people who are recognized by the federal Small Business Administration as socially and economically
disadvantaged — largely racial and ethnic minorities and women. Projects that receive
federal transportation funding are required to make efforts to engage DBEs. The DBE
goal is 15 percent for the construction phase. The project total DBE achievement rate
to date is nearly 9 percent. The DBE participation will be monitored to ensure it increases as expected. Work done by DBEs typically increases later in the project due to
the nature of the work to be performed then and the type of work that DBEs do. The
DBE goal is cumulative over the life of the project, not for any given day or
month, and is based on contract value.
Contractors have committed to using these DBEs for CCLRT construction:
http://www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/ccorridor/DBE/DBEList.htm
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Central Corridor Project Office
540 Fairview Avenue N #200
St Paul, MN 55104
About the project: The Central Corridor Light Rail Transit Project will link downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis along Washington and University avenues via the state Capitol and the University of Minnesota. Construction began in
2010 on the planned 11-mile Central Corridor line, with service beginning in 2014.
The line will connect with the Hiawatha LRT line at the Metrodome station in Minneapolis and the Northstar commuter rail line at the Target Field Station. The Metropolitan Council is the grantee of federal funds. The regional government agency
is charged with building the line in partnership with the Minnesota Department of
Transportation. The Central Corridor Management Committee, which includes
commissioners from Ramsey and Hennepin counties, the mayors of St. Paul and
Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota, provides advice and oversight. Funding is provided by the Federal Transit Administration, Counties Transit Improvement Board, state of Minnesota, Ramsey and Hennepin counties’ regional railroad
authorities, city of St. Paul, Metropolitan Council and the Central Corridor Funders
Collaborative.
Questions or comments?
Call 651-602-1645 or email [email protected]
For more information, visit: www.centralcorridor.org
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