Program

Vamos actively works to bridge workforce and business development gaps through technical training, bilingual instruction, and interactive workshop facilitation with a focus on digital capabilities, project management, team building, pathways to capital, and business operations. Mobilizing collaborative team environments that improve organizational effectiveness and provide successful project outcomes, ensuring each member understands the value they bring and can recognize their contributions. Specifically as it relates to small business contractor operations, where every day significantly affects cash flow and profitability.

Vamos A Construir “Let’s Build” is an initiative we developed to build capacity for groups that are experiencing challenges with access to resources in the local construction market. With a focus on creating growth opportunities that can be made available through collaborative programming. We have worked with teams of different age groups and multicultural backgrounds, promoting the need for knowledge sharing, encouraging creativity, excitement, and collective problem-solving.

We believe vibrant cities are built from quality housing, diverse commercial corridors, infrastructure maintenance and improvements. This work is driven by skilled labor, minority contractors, and local builders yet, too often, these groups come across resource gaps and language or communication barriers, are intimidated by technical or municipal requirements / processes, and cannot reach their full potential. Affecting their business and economic mobility, and in turn, overall neighborhood development.

We understand that significant permit and inspection delays place site work on hold, affecting the firms contracted to carry out project phases. Thus leading to challenges with cashflow, payroll, and how owners and employees support their family. The lack of clarity or updates from city departments, eg. permit technicians, engineering, and inspectors can lead to financial loss on work days, if the material used or scope of work is not accurate. Most small-local firms have limited business capital they can access, they don’t have lines of credit, or other financial resources to remain sustainable and make it through times that are out of their control. Often times they are also underpaid, not fully paid, or paid late by developers and general contractors, especially when there’s a long list of subcontracts. This in turn affects profitability, having enough funds for operations, and becoming lendable.

Vamos seeks to address these challenges and resource gaps while also supporting small local firms with achieving project or site ownership by leveraging collaborations with local organizations that can help us curtail access to opportunity and project/ business success for minority firms. By meeting the greatest need for this community, offering training and education in their language, teaching material at their pace, and on their availability.

Who we built this for

Small Local Firms, Teams, and Professionals such as

• Skilled Laborers, Contractors, builders, or Project management trainees
• Womxn or early-mid level construction Entrepreneurs
• new or growing firms seeking tailored training or technical assistance
• spanish speakers or those not fluent in english
• teams with limited tech or digital abilities

Program Partners

We seek to work with organizations offering resources and service such as

• 1:1 guidance to spanish speakers or those with limited tech ability
• courses, workshops, training, or technical assistance
• competitive workforce or contract opportunities
• business capital, Vehicle or equipment financing, Lines of Credit, etc
• Land or Property Acquisitions, Pre-Development Loans, and debt Refinancing

Ari hold’s the below industry training, plus several years supporting contractors, builders, skilled workforce teams, and overseeing projects across 30+ municipalities in & around DFW. 

• Project Management Professional (PMP) (in progress), Project Management Institute
• OSHA 510 Safety in the Construction Industry, OSHA Institute-University of Texas at Arlington
• Competent Person Supervisor, TX Department of Transportation
• 811, Damage Prevention Council of TX
• Construction Management, Turner Construction Company
• Community Development Finance, Novogradac
• SCORE certified business mentor
• Monitoring & Evaluation, switchboard
• executive education in business administration, drexel
• MAster’s in public leaderships & administration, untd
• bachelor’s in justice studies & minor in spanish, shsu