Minority Contractor of the Year

Gonzalez keeps advocating

By Jennifer Pfaff

Robert Gonzalez President of the National Association of Minority Contractors Wisconsin Chapter

One year later, the devastating effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita are still strongly felt in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Many neighborhoods still sit in the same disarray they were in 12 months ago, said Marty Payne, a member of the Wisconsin and national boards of the National Association of Minority Contractors.

Payne got a glimpse of the stricken area when he and Wisconsin NAMC President Robert Gonzalez joined the national board on a trip to the Gulf Coast. That’s when Gonzalez and Payne saw an opportunity to help.

Since then, the Wisconsin chapter, led by Gonzalez, took on a key role in forming a new NAMC chapter in Jackson, Miss., and is working to form one in New Orleans. The goal is to help Gulf-area minority contractors rebuild their businesses so they can help their communities rebuild.

“Bob has been very vocal in expressing a desire to get involved,” Payne said, noting that one of Gonzalez’s most effective leadership traits is his ability to talk to a wide variety of people. “We want to use local people, use local contractors who lost everything. Their staffs are spread all over the country.

“We met with contractors who lost 80 to 90 percent of everything — everything on their computers, all of the plans.”

Gonzalez and the Wisconsin chapter recognize that a permanent construction in-dustry needs to be reformed in the Gulf region.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘I’m going to go there and build houses,’ but you have to have an organization,” Payne said. “You have to have someone on the ground every day.”

Gonzalez’s leadership in the NAMC, both in supporting the formation of Gulf-area chapters and in strengthening Wisconsin’s organization, led Wisconsin Builder to name him the Minority Contractor of the Year.

While efforts in the South move forward, Gonzalez remains a tireless advocate for local minority contractors, making sure they realize their share of the work in Wisconsin.

Named the group’s leader in 2004 after serving on its board, Gonzalez helped the NAMC expand its membership base and raise awareness of the importance of hiring qualified minority contractors, Payne said.

One of Gonzalez’s strengths is his ability to reach out to people looking to hire contractors and to help them connect with minority workers.

Jim DeNomie, director of the Loonsfoot Center for Native American Studies, said Gonzalez is helping his organization meet its goal of using 100 percent minority labor to construct a $4 million American Indian Cultural Center in Milwaukee.

“He’s a sharp businessman to begin with,” DeNomie said. “He’s aggressive. He pursues. He follows up. He works hard to put these projects together.

“We’re a small nonprofit, and we need people like Bob, people who know what they are doing, to help us.”

Working with minority contractors is important to the Loonsfoot Center, which is run by a group of people from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The center focuses on breaking down false — but persistent — stereotypes by educating the general public about American Indian people and cultures.

Supporting minority contractors is a way to stay true to the group’s mission even before ground breaks.

“Being a minority myself, I’ve seen too many instances where really good, qualified minority contractors don’t get the job,” DeNomie said.

Gonzalez is fighting to change that, and he is leading the effort to work with Wisconsin’s largest hirers of contractors, including We Energies and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, to increase their hiring of minority workers.

“He is pretty much leading the effort to aggressively increase the number of minority and woman businesses that work with MMSD,” Payne said. “He has been pushing that issue and bringing it to the forefront that there is talent here.”