Negocios Now

www.negociosnow.com Diciembre 2013 9 NegociosNow NegociosNow www.negociosnow.com Marzo 2018 9 NegociosNow NegociosNow of that comes together. Negocios Now: How did the minority owned company change your life and your venues? Ray Rivera: It helped me get in the door initially. Did it change the organization? No. Did it help me get in the door faster? Yes. But we still had to become a really good company. That's the hard part. How do you become a really good company that is managing costs and become experts at what we do? The MBE gets you in the door but the performance takes you further. Negocios Now: Can you say that the first thing to get the opportunity is not to become a minority company first but to be a good company first? Ray Rivera: Be a good company first. A lot of people fail. They say I am an MBE company, just give me the work. It doesn't work like that. You have to be a really good company. Once you can do that the MBE just opens more doors for you. We project everything. We do cost analysis and data analysis. For next year, our goal is 18 million dollars in revenue. In the next five years - should be 25-30 million dollars in self-performance reve- nue. This is work that we actually do. A number of general contrac- tors they will go and they build but their hands are not on the concrete and asphalt. We go out there and perform the work every day. We are a full union company. We hire from the communities. We do business and we employ 50 plus people. We employ a lot of people from these neighbour- hoods, other Latino and African- American neighbourhoods as well. I grew up in the Pilsen commu- nity. My goal is how do we give back to these communities? We hire people from those communi- ties. We go back to the neighbou- rhoods and reinvest our dollars in these communities. We ensure we educate our children and other people's children how to navigate the world we live in. Our goal is how do we educate other people so they are able to succeed? How do we educate our peers and our youth so they are able to compete in a marketplace that's growing? R ay Rivera, 38-year-old entre- preneur from Pilsen, sha- res his story of success and how he built a multimillion dollar construction company from the basement up - CSI 3000. His story is empowering and reflects how there is an entrepreneur in all of us and all it takes is starting a good company. Being a single dad didn't stop Rivera from achieving his dream and now he shares his success with everyone. Negocios Now: When did you start the company and what is the company about? Ray Rivera: I started the com- pany in 2009 and I just incorpora- ted it. I was running it part time. For a couple of years the economy was terrible and it was a terri- ble time to start a company in general. In 2011, I quit my job. I was working for an organiza- tion called HACIA. I worked for HACIA for a couple of years. I was hired as a project manager to help other small businesses to learn how to run business effectively. I was hired by Gilbert Viegas, now Alderman Gilbert Villegas and Paul Cerpa. The economy was bad and I was looking for a job and they reached out to me. I found a home there for a little while. I saw a need in the marketplace for minority owned companies who knew how to work within the construction industry and I say that because everybody thinks the construction industry is how to put up a dry wall and it is a multibillion dollar industry. So as a minority owned company how do you really deve- lop a business model within the city of Chicago and Illinois? I was a single dad at the time. I was raising my daughter by myself. I had full custody of my daughter and I quit my job to start the company full time. I started the company in my basement apartment. Negocios Now: Did you have a family then? Ray Rivera: Yes. I had family here in Chicago. When I started the company it was just me and my daughter. Now I am married. My wife came with three kids. Now we have a bigger family of four chil- dren. When I quit my job in 2011, I was running my business out of my basement. I started it by myself with one other person. My accou- ntant started as a part time emplo- yee. Then I hired another person and another person, and now my company is growing. We are a con- crete asphalt contractor. We have 50 employees. Last year in 2017, we did 16 million dollars in reve- nue of self performed work and we are just trying to grow the orga- nization little by little, doing the right things, growing organically CEO Ray Rivera opens up about his construction company CSI 3000 and being positioned as the con- tractor of choice. We have clients like ComEd, Nicor Gas. We also do work for general contractors in Chicago, like Clark Construction. We finished the McCormick place redevelopment last year. We did about 4 million dollars of work there. We were the ones putting concrete on the ground. Negocios Now: What is your new idea now to grow your busi- ness and move forward? Ray Rivera: Moving forward we will try to grow organically. How do we get better at what we do? There is a big need in the market for people who can perform. We perform; we do it really well; we understand the metrics behind it; we understand the science behind concrete and asphalt. How do we create an organization that is posi- tioned as experts? Negocios Now: Are you a minority owned company? Ray Rivera: Yes we are a minori- ty owned company. Negocios Now: You owned the company and became minority owned company right away? Ray Rivera: When I started the company we did part time work. I applied for my MBE certification and I got my MBE certification. We were doing work for the city and in the state but some of tho- se markets weren't good for small businesses. I learned right away it is not all good work. Some of those projects can put small businesses out of business. We found other clients like ComEd, Nicor Gas and People's Gas to work with. Out of 8.5 billion figure it is maybe 4 billion dollars in construction. Out of that, 25 percent should go towards minority and women owned companies. How do we position the work effectively? How do we get the work effectively? How do we act as subcontractors, general contractors, construction managers and engineers? That's what I do on daily basis. I make sure we are part of the conversa- tion because this is our commu- nity. My goal is how other mino- rity owned companies like myself become part of the conversation. That's why I am part of organiza- tions like HACIA and that's why I sit on the Board of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. My goal is to have a voice when all "M y goal is how do we give back to these communities? We hire people from those communities. We go back to the neighbourhoods and reinvest our dollars in these communities."

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