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Failing county certification, firm gets OK from state
Friday, June 09, 2000 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The letter was emphatic.
In June 1997, the Allegheny County Department of Minority and Women's Business Certification denied Tri-City Steel Inc.'s application for certification as a woman-owned company capable of installing concrete reinforcing bars on major public projects.
Certification Consultant Carl H. Brown said the company's owner, Donna M. Altavilla, was not eligible.
"I have determined that woman-owners did not demonstrate the knowledge, education, and/or experience to conduct the day-to-day management of the firm," wrote Brown.
Donna M. Altavilla and Kim Altavilla were listed as president and secretary-treasurer of the firm, but Brown determined it was, in fact, operated by Frank Altavilla, a 40-year veteran iron worker who was listed as superintendent of the jobs the company did.
The women -- Altavilla's wife and daughter-in-law -- had no experience in the rebar business, Brown said.
In an appeal, the company expressed "severe disappointment and frustration" over the denial and said both Donna and Kim Altavilla had day-to-day management responsibilities for the company, sometimes working 10-12 hours a day, sometimes without pay, to make the company work.
They complained that they received only a half-hour interview.
On Aug, 29, 1997, an Allegheny County Certification Appeals Board upheld Brown's findings, stating neither Donna Altavilla nor Kim Altavilla have real and substantial control of Tri-City Steel Inc.
Yet on the Steelers and PNC Park jobs, Tri-City has re-emerged. It has contracts totaling $2,624,432 for rebar and related work. All of it is credited toward the Pittsburgh Sports & Exhibition Authority's woman business enterprise goals on the job.
How could that be?
Less than a year after it lost its Allegheny County certification, Tri-City applied for certification through the state Department of General Services, one of five entities whose certifications are accepted by the Sports & Exhibition Authority.
Initially, the state also denied certification.
Like the county's ruling, it said Donna and Kim Altavilla did not share in the risk of profit commensurate with their ownership interest, that they did not provide the capitalization for the firm, that they did not have technical knowledge of the business, that they did not have operational control over the firm (non-minority men did) and that the women did not have signatory control over the company's books.
The company hired Contract Management Services of Crafton, which is certified as a woman's business enterprise in Allegheny County, to "initiate the necessary steps for reconsideration," according to a letter Tri-City Steel provided to the state.
Through Contract Management Services, Tri-City Steel disputed virtually every element of the state's findings.
Two-and-a-half months later, John R. McCarty, deputy secretary of administration at General Services, reversed the denial "on a condition that the male signature be removed as an authorized signer for your company bank accounts."
So Tri-City finally got its certification, even though almost nothing of substance had changed from application's earlier denials.
A postscript: Lorna Nicholson, owner of Contract Management Services, has since been hired as project manager for the city of Pittsburgh's nearly completed diversity study. It will determine if there is a history of discrimination against minorities and women by the city and if that discrimination continues. Nicholson also is being paid $158,000 by the Pirates as a diversity coordinator on PNC Park.
Cheryl Williams of Swissvale was an equal employment opportunity specialist for the Department of General Services when Tri-City's certification was approved.
She said she met with Gary Crow, secretary of the department, for more than two hours during that period and told him the state's investigative process of proposed minority and women owned businesses was itself a sham.
Williams said companies like Tri-City Steel -- who fervently protest suggestions they are not owned and operated by women -- routinely overcame certification obstacles not on merit, but because of a lack of vigilance by the state.
She said she told Crow that on-site visits were not regularly done and that the state did little to check whether white-owned companies are pulling the strings of minority and women companies that are in reality shams.
Tri-City Steel did not respond to written questions.
For her candor, Williams claims, she was effectively fired in August 1998, when she was ordered to relocate from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg in a week's time, an assignment she refused.
She has filed a federal civil rights case against officials in her former department.
"Instead of numbers of companies and dollar amounts of so-called contracts, I want to see that real minority and woman companies actually benefit from the programs," Williams said. "There needs to be investigation and follow through. Prime contractors basically do what they want and the [General Service] agency assists them. I want to see prime contractors de-barred based on their violations of the law. I want to see people prosecuted for fraud.
"I am a strong supporter of affirmative action, but I'm a stronger supporter of equality. If these programs are not doing what they designed to do, they should be dismantled," she said.
Because of Williams' lawsuit, state officials refused comment.
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