Awarding subcontract also helps Washington Closure meet minority hiring goals.
Jonetta Everano’s gamble to start her own company has paid off with a subcontract worth up to $4.2 million with Washington Closure Hanford. Now’s she’s busy leasing rigs and hiring union drivers to start hauling Hanford nuclear reservation waste in July.
Everson, who grew up in White Swan on the Yakima nation, has been taking well-calculated risks for years.
The most recent was to start Phoenix Enterprises NW, based in Richland, to see if she could win subcontracts for construction work. The timing seemed right as the federal government prepared to spend $1.96 billion in economic stimulus money at Hanford.
It’s the first subcontract she’s bid on, but she’s working to get other Hanford work and will look at opportunities for commercial work when that industry improves.
The Washington Closure subcontract was reserved for small businesses, and Phoenix submitted the lowest bid among qualified bidders on the project, according to Washington Closure, Her company qualifies not only as a small business, but as woman- and minority-owned.
Although that was not given weight in the bidding award, it will help Washington Closure meets its goals in those subcontracting categories. Last year Washington Closure awarded more than 90 percent of its subcontracts to small businesses for work to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation along the Columbia River.
The Phoenix subcontract, which falls under Hanford’s annual budget, covers transportation, using heavy dump truck and dump trailer combinations – or truck and pups – to transport nonradioactive soils, debris, concrete and steel from cleanup sites near the Columbia river. Phoenix will take them to the landfill in central Hanford.