“I helped build that”: Programs aim to increase Latino representation in Cleveland construction workforce

When he passes the towering MetroHealth Glick Center building in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood where he grew up, Adrian Maldonado thinks about how his small, Latino-owned company, Adrian Maldonado & Associates, played a part in this and other building projects around Cleveland.

“One day I’m gonna drive down there, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and say, ‘I helped build that,’” Maldonado said. “So, legacy stuff, you know?”

Edwin Lopez, a construction worker who graduated from the Latino Construction Program that Maldonado helped create, has a similar feeling when he sees the buildings that he worked on, whether it’s a library or hospital building. “It made me proud, going to this new building and seeing that I was part of that,” he said. 

With projects like the Sherwin-Williams headquarters underway and Progressive Field renovations on the horizon, there is a lot of demand for construction workers and construction businesses to take on this work, and local workforce and business support organizations that serve the Latino community are seizing these opportunities.

Latinos are underrepresented in Cleveland’s construction workforce. In 2019, Greater Cleveland’s construction workforce was 79.7% white, 12% Black, 4.6% Hispanic, and 3.6% Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, or two or more races, according to a report on Greater Cleveland’s construction workforce from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. (Cuyahoga County is 58% white, 30.5% Black, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino, and 6.3% Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, or two or more races, according to U.S. Census estimates.) 

To increase Latino representation in these typically well-paying jobs, the Spanish American Committee’s Latino Construction Program provides training in safety and construction basics and helps connect workers to unions. The program, which requires participants to have a high school diploma or equivalency diploma, has had 14 graduating cohorts so far and has placed over 130 workers in union jobs. Now, it plans to expand its program to help Latino-owned construction businesses launch and grow. Such an effort would add to the Hispanic Business Center’s existing training programs and outreach efforts for Latino-owned construction businesses, such as its construction opportunity fair and Latino Construction Capacity Initiative. 

Preparing job-seekers for construction work and making connections 

The Latino Construction Program’s six-week training program covers topics such as construction terminology, safety, and blueprint-reading. It also connects participants to unions, which provide technical training in specific trades. 

The program, which graduated its first class in 2018, has alumni who are in their second or third year making $35-45 an hour at a union job, said Gus Hoyas, one of the co-founders. Hoyas is president of the Hispanic Contractors Association of Northeast Ohio, which partnered with the Spanish American Committee to start the Latino Construction Program.

“I think it’s come from the heart. It has come from all the years of being swept under the rug,” Hoyas said. “We need to be at the table, not on the menu.” 

It also helps participants who primarily speak Spanish with their English language skills, including connecting them with the Spanish American Committee’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes. 

The instructors teach participants, some of whom are new to the U.S., what to expect in construction jobs in Cleveland, including breaking down the rate of pay and union dues, keeping in mind that some participants may have come from other countries that have different environments and cultural dynamics, said Kenny Torres, a program co-founder who helped create the curriculum and structure of the program. 

“The class kind of becomes ‘Cultural Diversity 101,’ in a way, too,” Torres said, because it includes information on how construction work in the U.S. differs from construction work in other places. “We do a really good job of tailoring our classes depending on the needs of our students at that time.” 

Up to 25 people can participate in each class, but lately the program has averaged 10-15 people per cohort, Torres said. 

Lopez, who previously did electrical work for a small company, graduated from the Latino Construction Program in 2019. Now, he has a union job with Next Generation Construction and is achieving his goals, including supporting his daughter in college and making upgrades to his house. He said that he’s made a career out of working in construction. 

He came to Cleveland from Chicago and became interested in working in the field after seeing construction on the MetroHealth hospital campus. Then, his wife helped him look for options and found the Latino Construction Program. He said the program provided an easy way to enter the profession and that it helped him professionally and economically. 

Now that he’s graduated from the program, he said that he still keeps in touch with Hoyas. “Anytime I need something from them, I call and he’s always there for me for sure,” Lopez said. 

The program has received recognition outside of Cleveland, too. A construction organization in Detroit reached out to the Latino Construction Program and is interested in bringing a similar program to their city, said Hoyas, who plans to meet with the Detroit-based group in Cleveland in the next few weeks. 

The Latino Construction Program is also in the process of planning and seeking funding for a version of its training program that would provide business support to people who want to start their own construction businesses, said Ramonita Vargas, CEO of the Spanish American Committee, the home organization of the Latino Construction Program.

That would mean teaching small construction businesses how to work with big construction management companies, said program co-founder Torres, who currently works for Gilbane Building Co. and received a Forty Under 40 award from Crain’s Cleveland Business last year. 

Helping construction businesses grow 

The Spanish American Committee was one of 76 exhibitors and partners at the Construction Opportunity Fair that the Hispanic Business Center hosted in partnership with Sherwin-Williams on Friday, Feb. 3 at Max S. Hayes High School. Forty-three students from the high school attended a youth expo earlier in the day, and 106 people attended the portion of the event geared toward the general public. 

Others at the fair included construction workforce organization Cleveland Builds, contracting companies like Cleveland Construction and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, the Cleveland Guardians stadium renovation project leaders, and the ACE Mentor Program. The fair brought together organizations that offer training, certifications, and mentor-protégé programs, as well as companies looking to work with construction contractors. 

“It’s all in this room. It doesn’t get any easier, guys. It’s all in this room,” Jenice Contreras, the president and CEO of the Hispanic Business Center, said at the event. “The intent for today is really for you to connect: to meet a person, to shake a hand, to grab a business card, to take a flyer. And the magic in the construction fair happens when we leave here,” she said, encouraging participants to follow up with the contacts they made at the fair. (If you missed the fair and want to find out about future events, following the Hispanic Business Center on Instagram is one way to stay up to date.) 

One of the attendees, Josue Fernandez, has been working as an electrician for another company for the past few years. He decided to attend the fair because he wants to start his own business flipping houses.

Karen Torrado and Katherine Nunez, who have run a flooring business called Flooring Solutions by K&K LLC for six years, attended to network and learn about opportunities that can help them grow. They learned about Cuyahoga County’s SkillUp program, which gives incentives to small businesses, such as reimbursing 50% of the company’s employee training costs and paying the company $500 for each $1 per hour wage increase in an employee’s salary and $500 (split between the company and employee) for each employee that earns a credential. The next step for their business is to earn certifications so they can do contract work for large buildings, Torrado said. 

At the fair, the Hispanic Business Center also promoted its Latino Construction Capacity Initiative, a free program aimed at helping Latino construction businesses grow. It offers training sessions in topics including proposal and project timeline development, as well as business accounting for construction. The next two sessions will take place Feb.17 and Feb. 24 at 9 a.m. at 3140 W. 25th St., the future home of the CentroVilla25 marketplace. The program will close on March 9 and 10 with free Occupational Safety and Health Administration 10-hour (OSHA 10) training, said Randy Cedeño, director of the business center’s Small Business Development Center. 

Contreras said that helping construction businesses build capacity was a primary goal of the fair, and that it’s not work that the Hispanic Business Center is doing alone. 

“We’re all here to help you build and grow; you just have to tap into the resources, right?” Contreras said. “You just have to activate us and stay on us if you don’t feel like you’re getting what you need.” 

Correction: This story has been updated to include that the Hispanic Contractors Association of Northeast Ohio worked with the Spanish American Committee to start the Latino Construction Program and that Gus Hoyas serves as president of the Hispanic Contractors Association.

Learn more about the Latino Construction Program by visiting the Spanish American Committee’s website or calling the organization at 216-961-2100. Learn more about the Hispanic Business Center’s Latino Construction Capacity Initiative here.