Construction incubator hopes to grow more minority contractors - By Repps Hudson, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
We don't have very many ethnic minority contractors,' Webb said. 'If we're talking about general contractors, there are very few, a handful.'
The incubator concept came into being after a lot of prodding by Terry Nelson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Carpenters' District Council of Greater St. Louis.
Nelson said he got tired of going to meetings of Pride of St. Louis and hearing there was nothing to discuss when the topic of diversity came up on the agenda.
'I said, 'Let's get rid of it,''...' Nelson recalled. But he quickly scrapped that idea.
Instead, he spent a year getting various contractors and labor and community leaders to meetings where they tried to figure out an effective way to build a minority-contractor base for the St. Louis metro area.