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Minority contractor business academy graduates first class
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
It was tough, but Stacy Casserly got through the contract law course. “There’s so much you don’t realize that goes into a contract,” said Casserly of North Charleston-based Cari-Bel Investment Group Inc., which invests in blighted properties for redevelopment.
Contract law was one of a number of required courses Casserly took during a rigorous 14-week program aimed at providing more construction-related job opportunities for minority contractors.
The intellectual effort paid off. In June, Casserly became one of 14 members of the first graduating class of the newly formed Lowcountry HUB Contract Business Academy. HUB stands for Historically Underutilized Businesses.
The academy’s goal is to open doorways for these businesses, which tend to be owned by minority contractors, so they can carve for themselves a larger slice of the region’s bustling construction industry.
The academy designed its curriculum to equip students with the necessary business skills to bid successfully for construction contracts and to manage projects. Experts in accounting, business management, law and project management from Carolinas Associated General Contractors of America taught the courses at the Lowcountry Graduate Center.
“The classes touched on every aspect of the construction industry that pertains to small businesses,” said graduate Alexis Kong of Carolina Affordable Builders in North Charleston.
The program also provided opportunities for students to network with construction project managers and bank representatives.
A South Carolina first
The academy, which began in March, is South Carolina’s first HUB Contractor Business Academy, a concept launched three years ago in North Carolina by the Charlotte-based Carolinas AGC.
The concept caught the attention of The Noisette Co. two years ago when the North Charleston developer began its first renovation project on the former Navy base.
“We wanted to attract qualified local minority contractors but didn’t know how to go about it,” said Art Titus, Noisette’s chief operating officer.
Through its construction management firm Bovis Lend Lease, Noisette learned of local minority contractors and about the North Carolina academy that helps those contractors upgrade their business management skills.
Noisette’s nonprofit organization, the Noisette Foundation, then assembled a consortium to help launch the Lowcountry’s HUB academy. Consortium members include Charleston County, the cities of North Charleston and Charleston, the Trident Urban League, Trident Technical College, South Carolina State University, Carolina Federal Savings Bank, Carolinas AGC, the Lowcountry Graduate Center, the Noisette Foundation, the Noisette Co. and Bovis Lend Lease.
The HUB academy is seen as a means for minority contractors to start a company or expand their existing firms and hire local residents to work on local construction projects, Titus explained.
And it helps minority contractors bring more to the table when they seek work from larger firms.
“You learn what majority firms expect you to know when you want to do business with them,” said graduate Stephon Edwards of Orangeburg-based construction company Paragon Builders, which performs work in the Charleston area.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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