By Gregory Davis

I was sitting in a Priority Hire Advisory Committee (PHAC) meeting this past winter, and the Financial Services Administration’s (FSA) Purchasing and Contracting division presented a performance dashboard for the Priority Hire program. 

You may recall that RBAC was one of several grassroots, community-based organizations that successfully advocated for an ordinance in the City of Seattle. This ordinance mandates that 25% of the workforce on any City of Seattle capital construction project must come from underinvested zip codes throughout King County. We (Got Green, Puget Sound Safe, and the Sierra Club) are proud of this achievement.

We then got to the data points about the number of women benefiting from this tremendously successful project. The best word for it is paltry. The share of hours by year through March 2025 is 6% after a project high of 15% in 2014. I leaned back in my chair, turned to my right, and motioned to Virginia Bethea, a member of the community stakeholder group on the PHAC. I said, “Let’s organize a Women’s Construction Fair.”

Virginia replied, “Let’s do it.” I then turned to my left, where Abdirahman Omar, another fellow community stakeholder to the PHAC, said, “Let’s organize a Women’s Construction Fair and ask the PHAC to host it.”

Abdi said, “Let’s do it.”

The planning has started. We do not have a date or venue yet, but you can share this link with anyone you know who is interested in getting into the construction for their livelihood.

Stay tuned for updates on when and where the fair will take place. Additionally, below is a list of upcoming and past projects that are eligible for priority hire.

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