Brooke Woodson
National Director of Trade Partner Diversity, Suffolk
Age: 57
Industry experience: 26 years
Brooke Woodson prepares Black- and women-owned contractors to partner with Massachusetts’ largest construction firm, Boston-based Suffolk, at major projects throughout the U.S. In his role as Suffolk’s national director of trade partner diversity, Woodson oversees its “Build With Us @ Suffolk” training program that gives diverse construction companies instruction on the technological, financial and legal skills needed to participate in major projects such as the Encore Boston Harbor casino. A former official in the Menino administration and an executive with nonprofit Madison Park Development Corp., Woodson joined Suffolk in 2017.
Q: What was your own path into the building trades?
A: It was a very circuitous route. My family is from Roxbury, and I went to Northeastern and got my bachelor’s degree. My first job was for Bruce Bolling, the first African American city council president, and he developed the Boston resident jobs ordinance [for construction projects receiving public funding]. I really got involved with this through policy, believe it or not. Mayor [Thomas] Menino appointed me to oversee the programs and I did that before I went to a nonprofit, Madison Park Development Corp., and then was recruited to Suffolk. I’d known Suffolk through the city position and oversaw their projects for compliance.
Q: What is the strategy for raising awareness about entry-level pathways into the building trades?
A: We’re highly focused on building a diversified workforce with a number of community groups, building pathways with apprenticeships such as YouthBuild Boston. We’re focused on women in the building trades and we did great work on the Encore Casino. It was the largest project in the commonwealth and that had a major impact. On the business side for minority- and women-owned subcontractors and general contractors, we have Build With Us @ Suffolk, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary. They are great at what they do, but some of the technical things you need to do, they may not have a grasp on. This is really just a way for them to get into the Suffolk environment: what systems we use, how we do estimating and purchasing, and how you get pre-qualified. And then we pair them with Suffolk mentors. It’s not just a check-the-box transaction.
Q: What are the core elements of the curriculum?
A: The curriculum is developed in-house. We start out with safety, which is central to our Suffolk core values, and then we go through risk and project management. And then as Suffolk is really focused on tech and innovation. We have Suffolk CoLabs which is our innovation hub, which teaches how to increase productivity with clients and how you become pre-qualified to work with Suffolk. We also focus on bidding: Specifically not submitting a bid that’s too low and then you get on a job, and the scope becomes too big for a smaller contractor. I’ve seen subcontractors go out of business when they submit bids that are not realistic.
One of the things our team emphasizes is: Give us a bid that’s reasonable for the scope of the work and the schedule. We’re here to support each other. We don’t want them to fall down. We want to get our projects done on time and on budget. On the legal and compliance end: what are the things we have to do under state law? There’s been a history in other states, not so much in Boston and Massachusetts, where people use minority- and women-owned business designations improperly, and that gets discussed. And we bring in external lenders and resources for minority- and women-owned businesses. That is critical, because MBE’s can often perform the work, but you need to be well-capitalized.
Q: What’s the process for a contractor to get pre-qualified to work with Suffolk?
A: We have an online system where the company enters the information, and it’s everything from how much revenue do you have to how much insurance bonding do you have? Suffolk has a credit committee to decide whether the company is qualified to work on a Suffolk project. You don’t want a company bidding on work that doesn’t have the capacity to do the work.
Q: How are the new diversity requirements by the city of Boston and Massachusetts agencies for public parcels affecting the selection of project teams?
A: It creates more demand for minority- and women-owned businesses. There was a void in the marketplace for a while, where the city did not have any goals when Suffolk created [Build With Us @ Suffolk] in 2012, and now for the last couple of years, the whole world seems to be focused on MBE’s and utilization. We’re really seeing that effect in the private sector as well. It’s the leadership of the city and the state driving demand in all sectors.
Q: What’s the growth rate of the Build With Us @ Suffolk program in terms of participants since 2012?
A: We’ve had 120 graduates to date in the Massachusetts program and we have another class of eight businesses about to graduate this week. And last year, we scaled the program to all of the Suffolk regions, including New York, California and Florida, and we’re going to be doing it in Texas.
Woodson’s Five Favorite Restaurants:
- Darryl’s Corner Bar & Grill
- MIDA
- M&M BBQ at Dorchester Brewery
- Slade’s Bar & Grill
- Suya Joint
