Detroit Construction Conference bridges gap between contractors and upcoming projects
Detroit's annual construction conference continued Saturday at Wayne County Community College.
The event is where contractors who hope to work with the city on upcoming projects go.
Rafhael Mack sat in a classroom taking notes during a breakout session on day two of the Detroit Construction Conference.
"Come to the conferences. You go run into obstacles. You're going to have people tell you that you can't do this and that you can't do that, but if you don't try, you never know what you can do," Mack said.
A few years ago, Mack lost his job at Home Depot and was going through a divorce. He was ready for a change.
"I saw an ad on Facebook for Ser Metro, and that's how I ran into the [Detroit At Work] program," Mack said.
Mack was looking for a new opportunity. What he found was a career as an electrician.
"It's not as hard as people think. It's a lot of math. I love math and science, so it kind of goes hand in hand. At first, I thought was, 'just plug switches and lights,' and there's way more to it," Mack said.
Like Mack, contractors are hoping to do business with the City of Detroit.
"When you think about us, the City of Detroit, inclusion and opportunity is at the forefront," Renard Richmond, construction outreach manager with the City of Detroit, said. "Really reaching out to our smaller contractors. You see 'Two Women and a Truck,' and we want to scale that to ten women and a building."
The conference connects service providers with others in their industry and department heads. They learn about the city's open bid opportunities and private development projects.
"This is just an opportunity for them to get registered and all of the various systems that we may have that they may not know about. For example, the Office of Contract and Procurement, we use a system called Bonfire and Oracle," Toni Stewart-Limmitt, deputy chief procurement officer with the City of Detroit, said.
Now, Mack is in the process of growing his small business.
"I want to be able to teach what I know to youth and give them the same opportunities that I had that's not really available to them," he said.
Through programs like Detroit at Work and the Construction Conference, Mack is well on his way to achieving that dream.
"I feel that if, as long as you believe in yourself and you work hard, you can accomplish anything," he said.
There will be another opportunity this summer for anyone who missed the Detroit Construction Conference.