Attention construction trades of all types: The Oregon Department of Transportation announces $11M to build Emerging Small Business across the state.

Submitted by John Downing, ODOT

ODOT is stepping up to the task in these difficult times to help resuscitate Oregon’s economy and build small businesses into stable, strong companies positioned to deliver jobs across the state. Businesses certified through the Office of Minority, Women, and Emerging Small Business (www.Oregon4Biz.com) can embrace unique opportunities by ODOT to grow and thrive on projects where competition is restricted to those certified firms. Additionally, ODOT removes bonding requirements on these projects, which historically proves to be the greatest hurdle for most small companies.

ODOT is looking for certified Emerging Small Businesses (ESB) able to perform work on ODOT facilities, highways, and landscape, including specialty trades such as garage doors, guardrail, paving,windows,painting, roofing, striping, culverts, irrigation systems, architecture and engineering services, just to name a few. Relatively few businesses realize their potential to work on ODOT projects, but John Downing, ODOT’s ESB Program Manager, wants to change that.

Beyond hundreds of projects planned for the next two years, ODOT is joining the Oregon Small Business Development Center Network to provide classroom and online small business management courses to any certified firm able to work for ODOT. The classes are typically nine weeks long and include free, individualized business advising. The cost for each business is just $200, roughly 10% of the cost of enrollment. ODOT picks up the balance while adding ODOT-specific training to deliver a robust curriculum to participants. Visit www.BizCenter.org for more information.

Add the newly restructured ODOT-Specific Mentor-Protégé program, and you will find ODOT is paving new roads to build Oregon small businesses into stable, strong companies.