will open for Old Dominion in the Quad Cities in late January

Country Music Rising Star Frank Ray will open for Old Dominion in the Quad Cities in late January

By Nicholas Cunningham, Hola Iowa

Quad Cities - It’s not often that a ten-year veteran on the police force hangs his handcuffs up and picks up a guitar instead, but that is exactly what rising Latino country star Frank Ray did just four years ago. And with the success of his single, “Country’d Look Good on You”, entering the Billboard Country Top 40 list in 2021, he, along with Kassi Ashton and Greylan James will open for Old Dominion on their No Bad Vibes Tour, with the Quad Cities, Vibrant Arena being their third stop on Saturday, January 21. “I’m most excited about connecting with new fans,” said Ray. “The Frank Ray brand is still very new and fresh, so my goal is to go out and show what we can do and hopefully gain some new fans and connect and make that impact with country music that we set out to do.” It was almost a decade into his career as a police officer in New Mexico that he won a battle of the bands of sorts, the prize being an opening spot for Keith Urban. With his band doubting the talent they had, Frank chose to go about this as a solo act and Frank Ray was born. “Music has always been my life’s passion,” said Ray. “It’s what I’ve known I wanted to do with my life since I was a kid. I left behind this really steady career so there was no way I could fail. I needed to succeed for my family and go back to prove to everyone and myself that I set out to do this and we did just that.” When talking about being one of a handful of Latino artists in country music today, Ray, whose real name is Francisco Gomez, is very aware of his surroundings and embraces it wholeheartedly with a laugh always ready on deck. “I’m really open and joke a lot about myself and self-deprecate a ton with myself and my band,” said Ray. “We crack all the terrible jokes that people are thinking but probably never say. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. It cuts the tension for sure.” And with that attitude, Ray, is happy to be the face of Latinos in country music in hopes that it will help break some barriers down in the music industry that are still present today. “I’ve always felt welcome,” said Ray. “Some people want to support me, but if they support me the other side will be like ‘you are only supporting me because I’m Mexican, you’re trying to look more diverse.’ On the other side, people don’t care about that and just like the music they do because I’m Mexican. I’ve always been like, let the music speak for itself. I don’t really care.” Not only is Ray winning over the ears of those that listen to his music, he has also got the attention from Congress in DC as Ray is bringing awareness to mental health for First Responders and he feels they are on track for something big in 2023. “When you serve the community first, you often put yourself last,” explained Ray. “So, I wanted to express that there are healthy ways to cope when helping your community and I struggled a lot with that. It’s still a work in progress. We are working with congress in DC to build up some legislation and get some funding and also at the same time build up my career so I have a bigger platform for this so we can talk about this issue.” A father of two daughters with a third on the way, Ray has found that balancing being a family man and a music man comes with his challenges, but he knows, in the end, it’s worth every mile that he travels. “It’s such a paradox,” explained Ray. “To support my family, I have to leave them. Honestly, the respect all goes to my wife. It takes a strong individual to live this lifestyle.” As his star continues to rise, Ray hopes to inspire those looking up to him, hoping that some step out of their comfort zone as he did and have success in whatever they choose. “I come from a small town in Columbus, New Mexico, barely one thousand people,” said Ray. It’s so close to the Mexican border. I was dirt poor. I had the bare minimum, the Latino starter kit. But having a dream and surrounding myself with the right people, I know our culture is full of people that are not shy of hard work. Go out there and get it. Country music belongs to everybody.” Don’t miss Fran Ray performing at the Vibrant Arena at the Mark on Saturday, January 21. He will be opening for Old Dominion on their No Bad Vibes Tour. For tickets visit vibrantarena.com

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obra, los expertos del sector afirman que los constructores ya tenían dificultades para contratar y retener a trabajadores de la construcción desde la Gran Recesión. Cientos de miles de trabajadores fueron despedidos o abandonaron por completo el sector tras el desplome del mercado inmobiliario en 2007, y las empresas sintieron el impacto después de que la economía se recuperara a principios de la década de 2010, dijo Patterson. Para satisfacer la demanda de mano de obra sólo este año, el sector necesitó 650,000 trabajadores de la construcción más, según Associated Builders and Contractors. El aumento de la inflación, la demanda de salarios más altos y el envejecimiento de la mano de obra son sólo algunos de los factores que contribuyen a la escasez, informó ABC. En los últimos años, el sector ha experimentado un descenso en el número de trabajadores jóvenes y una mayor proporción de trabajadores mayores que pronto podrán jubilarse. Por eso Deluca, de 45 años, creó la Escuela de Construcción de Iowa. Su objetivo es devolver la chispa a los oficios y animar a los jóvenes del área metropolitana de Des Moines a estudiar carreras relacionadas con la construcción. Y quiere que las mujeres sepan que también hay un lugar para ellas. En 2020, la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales de Estados Unidos informó que aproximadamente uno de cada 10 trabajadores de la construcción era mujer, una cifra que apenas ha variado en los últimos años. Esto recuerda a Deluca que hay mucho margen de crecimiento. “No hay nada que las mujeres no puedan hacer”, afirma. “Estuve en el campo durante años. Sé que hace frío. Sé que sudamos. Sé por lo que pasamos. Sé cómo nos tratan los hombres”.

Llegó a Estados Unidos con 100 dólares y grandes sueños

Deluca siempre ha tenido ambición. A los 15 años, decidió que Brasil era demasiado pequeño para albergar sus grandes sueños. Una economía en transformación le bastó para dejar atrás su país natal y su familia y poner los ojos en Estados Unidos. “Mucha gente me pregunta: ‘¿Por qué viniste aquí?’ Yo respondo: ‘Para ganar más dinero, para tener una vida mejor’”, explica. Deluca tenía 20 años cuando llegó a Estados Unidos en 1998, con 100 dólares en el bolsillo y ganas de trabajar. Primero llegó a Fort Lauderdale, donde se alojó en casa de una prima durante una semana mientras buscaba trabajo y un lugar donde vivir. Durante unos años, Deluca dijo que trabajó en un empleo tras otro. Limpiaba casas, era camarera y cocinera. No fue hasta que conoció en Florida a Joseph Cichowski, contratista general y antiguo propietario de Southeast Constructors, cuando su vida y su trabajo empezaron a cambiar. Cichowski contrató a Deluca, y ella ayudó a renovar casas residenciales, sobre todo pintando. Pero Deluca quería hacer más. En el sector de la construcción, dicen Deluca y Cichowski, se trata de tomar la iniciativa. No hay nadie que te enseñe cómo hacerlo. Observas, aprendes y haces. Y vuelves a hacerlo si no lo haces bien a la primera. “La única forma de fracasar es si te rindes, ¿cierto? Tarde o temprano lo conseguirás”, dice Cichowski, a quien Deluca encargó la enseñanza y la elaboración del plan de estudios de la escuela de construcción. “Cuando tratas de desarrollar habilidades y todo eso, tienes que centrarte en eso y poner tu 100% ahí”, dijo.

La construcción es una carrera “admirable” que requiere conocimientos y formación

Cichowski y Deluca afirmaron que a menudo se estereotipa a los trabajadores de la construcción como personas que no son lo suficientemente buenas como para ir a la universidad o que necesitan un trabajo sólo para llegar a fin de mes. Ninguna de las dos cosas es cierta. Instalar paneles de yeso, mezclar y verter cemento, cortar madera perfectamente recta, manejar maquinaria pesada como pavimentadoras de asfalto o topadoras, o incluso colgar repisas o un televisor en una pared requiere conocimientos y formación, dijeron. “La construcción es una profesión admirable”, afirma Cichowski, de 53 años y residente en Des Moines. “Es noble. Se construyen cosas. Construyes las carreteras por las que circulamos. Estamos construyendo los puentes que cruzan nuestras familias”. Cichowski y Deluca se mudaron a Iowa hace unas décadas. Deluca adquirió más habilidades mientras trabajaba para Cichowski. Como su confianza iba en aumento, le dijo a Cichowski que ya no quería trabajar para él, sino con él. Quería ser su socia y decidió obtener la licencia de contratista general. En 2013, tras acumular más de una década de experiencia, Deluca dio un paso aún más audaz: Compró la empresa de Cichowski y se convirtió en la única propietaria. “Él siempre dice: ‘Ahora trabajo para ti’”, dijo Deluca, riendo. “Y es verdad. Sé que trabaja para mí”. Aunque los latinos constituyen una gran parte de la mano de obra de la construcción, siguen estando infrarrepresentados en los puestos directivos. Aproximadamente el 14% de los directivos de la construcción son latinos, según la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales de EE.UU. de 2020. Las mujeres también están muy infrarrepresentadas en los puestos directivos, con sólo un 9%, según Zippia, un sitio de empleo. “La idea errónea es que no es un lugar para mujeres”, afirma Cichowski. “He estado en muchas reuniones en las que los organismos públicos tenían esa actitud, y no creo que sea correcta. Perlla es testimonio de ello. Es un sector dominado por los hombres, pero no debería ser así. Las mujeres pueden participar”.

El sector de la construcción se convirtió en “un trampolín hacia algo mejor”

Deluca afirma que la Gran Recesión les obligó a ella y a Cichowski a ver más allá de las reformas de viviendas. Hambrientos de trabajo, encontraron la oportunidad de reparar unos muros destruidos por la inundación de 2008 en Cedar Rapids. También emprendieron otros proyectos en Iowa, como la restauración de Normandy Drive en Iowa City, la creación de un estacionamiento adaptado a la ADA para el Blank Park Zoo de Des Moines y la repavimentación del tablero del Women of Achievement Bridge. Hasta la fecha, Southeast Constructors ha realizado docenas de proyectos en cinco estados. Deluca recuerda un proyecto en particular en el que su empresa recibió el encargo de rehabilitar el exterior de la casa del ex presidente Harry Truman en Independence, Missouri. “Ni siquiera soy de este país y me dejan arriesgarme a quemar la casa”, bromea. Con la vista puesta en el futuro, Deluca reflexionó sobre su carrera y su nueva escuela. Cree que es su oportunidad de dar un paso adelante y animar al próximo grupo de estudiantes -algunos de los cuales pueden ser mujeres o inmigrantes, o ambas cosas, como ella- que quieren una oportunidad de tener una vida mejor. “Creo que el hecho de haber realizado tantas cosas me ayuda ahora, quizá con los estudiantes”, afirma. “La gente me pregunta: ¿Por qué la escuela? Porque yo estaba allí. Estuve limpiando mesas. Quiero demostrarles que se puede hacer algo mejor, no que limpiar mesas tenga nada de malo. Sólo digo que es un trampolín hacia algo mejor”. F. Amanda Tugade cubre temas de justicia social para el Des Moines Register. Escríbele a ftugade@dmreg.com o síguela en Twitter @writefelissa.

Perlla Deluca paves way to open up the construction industry for women, people of color

By F. Amanda Tugade, Des Moines Register

It’s Friday afternoon in late October, and Perlla Deluca is walking down a quiet, empty hallway of an old school building on Des Moines’ southeast side. Deluca’s boisterous voice and the click-clack of her high heels are the only signs of life inside Percy Hoak Elementary School, a roughly 18,000-square-foot property that’s been vacant for nearly a decade and once was thought to be a potential site for affordable senior housing. Deluca’s pink nails and turtleneck stand out against her black attire and the building’s bare walls. Like an artist ready to unveil a new project, Deluca, an entrepreneur and owner of the Des Moines-based general contractor firm Southeast Constructors, said her vision for this space is simple: She wants to create an inclusive school to equip the next generation of young adults — young women, especially — with the right set of trade skills to work in construction. Deluca was chosen as one of the Des Moines Register’s 15 People to Watch in 2023 because, come next year, she and her team plan to reopen the former elementary school at 1801 McKinley Ave. under a new name — the Iowa School of Construction — and welcome their first batch of students. The students, 20 of whom have already signed up, will take a 12-week course that includes lessons on the basics of carpentry, welding, masonry, power tools and other machinery. Registration is ongoing, with classes set to start in February. “If you ever thought about building something, creating something, if you ever thought about buying a house or getting into flipping (houses), or if you want a job working for the city, or government or something constructionrelated, I would say this is your opportunity to get a feel for that,” she said. Tuition to the school, which received $50,000 from Iowa Workforce Development in 2022, is set at $4,200 for the three-month course. And with Latinos making up at least 30% of the construction workforce, the school plans to offer classes in languages other than English to help students still learning the language. Deluca, who emigrated from Brazil to the U.S. two decades ago, will step in to translate courses into Spanish and Portuguese. “People like Perlla, doing the school that she’s doing and offering different languages … it’s removing barriers,” said Brandon Patterson, who works for the Home Builders Association of Des Moines to increase the number of workers in the industry.

Construction industry scrambles to find enough workers

Deluca said the idea for the construction school came out of what she saw as a dire need in her industry. Though the COVID-19 pandemic worsened a labor shortage, industry experts say builders already struggled to recruit and retain construction workers since the Great Recession. Hundreds of thousands of workers were let go or left the industry entirely after the housing market crashed in 2007, and firms felt the impact after the economy picked back up in the early 2010s, Patterson said. To meet the demand for labor this year alone, the industry needed 650,000 more construction workers, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors. Rising inflation, demands for higher wages and an aging workforce are just some of the contributing factors to the shortage, ABC reported. The industry in recent years has seen a dip in younger workers and a greater proportion of older workers soon to be eligible for retirement. That’s why Deluca, 45, created the Iowa School of Construction. She seeks to put the spark back into trade skills, encouraging the Des Moines metro’s young adults to explore careers in construction. And she wants women to know there is a place for them there, too. In 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported about one in 10 construction workers was a woman — a figure that has seen little change in recent years. It reminds Deluca that there’s plenty of room for growth. “There’s nothing women can’t do,” she said. “I was in the field for years. I know it’s cold. I know we sweat. I know what we go through. I know how the guys treat us.”

She arrived in the United States with $100 and big dreams

Deluca always has been ambitious. At 15, she decided Brazil was too small to hold her big dreams. An economy in flux was enough for her to want to leave her home country and family behind, setting her eyes on the United States. “A lot of people ask: ‘Why do you come here?’ I said, ‘To make more money, to have a better life,’” she said. Deluca was 20 when she first arrived in the U.S. in 1998 with $100 in her pocket and the will to work. She first came to Fort Lauderdale, where she stayed with a cousin for a week while chasing leads for jobs and a place to call her own. For a few years, Deluca said she worked job after job after job. She cleaned houses and was a waitress and a cook. It wasn’t until she met Joseph Cichowski, a general contractor and former owner of Southeast Constructors, in Florida that her life and work began to shift. Cichowski hired Deluca, and she helped renovate residential homes, mostly by painting. But Deluca wanted to do more. In the construction industry, Deluca and Cichowski said, it’s all about taking initiative. There’s no one to really show you the ropes. You watch and learn and do. And you do it again if you don’t get it right the first time. “The only way you’re going to fail is if you quit, right? You will get it sooner or later,” said Cichowski, whom Deluca tapped to teach and curate the curriculum for the construction school. “When you’re trying to develop skills and everything, you have to be focused on that and you have to put your 100% in it,” he said.

Construction an ‘admirable’ career requiring knowledge, training

Cichowski and Deluca said construction workers oftentimes are stereotyped as people who weren’t good enough to go to college or needed a job just to make ends meet. Neither is true, they said. Installing drywall, mixing and pouring concrete, cutting wood perfectly straight, operating heavy machinery like asphalt pavers or dozers, or even hanging shelves or a TV on a wall takes knowledge and training, they said. “Construction is a career, and it’s an admirable one,” said Cichowski, 53, of Des Moines. “It’s noble. I mean, you’re building things. You’re building the roads we drive on. We’re building the bridges our families cross.” Cichowski and Deluca moved both the business and themselves to Iowa a few decades ago. Deluca collected more skills while working for Cichowski. With her confidence growing, she told Cichowski she no longer wanted to work for him, but rather with him. She

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wanted to be his business partner and decided to become a licensed general contractor. In 2013, after collecting more than a decade of experience, Deluca made an even bolder move: She bought out Cichowski’s company and became the sole owner. “He always says: ‘Now I work for you,’” said Deluca, laughing. “It’s true. I know he works for me.” While Latinos make up a large part of the construction workforce, they remain underrepresented in management positions. Roughly 14% of construction managers are Latino, according to the 2020 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women also are largely underrepresented in management positions at just 9%, according to Zippia, a career site. “The misconception is it’s not a place for women,” Cichowski said. “I’ve been in plenty of meetings where government agencies had that attitude, and I don’t think it’s right. Perlla is testimony to that. It’s a male-dominated industry, but it shouldn’t be. Women can get involved.”

Construction field became ‘a steppingstone to something better’

Deluca said the Great Recession forced her and Cichowski to look beyond home renovations. Hungry for work, they landed on an opportunity to repair some brickwork destroyed by the 2008 flood in Cedar Rapids. They also picked up other projects in Iowa including restoring Normandy Drive in Iowa City, creating an ADA-compliant parking lot for Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, and resurfacing the deck of the Women of Achievement Bridge. To date, Southeast Constructors has completed dozens of projects across five states. Deluca remembered one particular project where her company was tasked to rehab the exterior of former President Harry Truman’s home in Independence, Missouri. “I’m not even from this country, and they’re going to let me take a chance on burning the house,” she joked. With a focus on the future, Deluca reflected on her career and her new school. She believes it’s her chance to pay it forward and lift up the next group of students — some of whom might be women or immigrants, or both like herself — who want a chance at a better life. “I do think the fact that I did so many things helps me now, maybe with the students,” she said. “People ask (me): ‘Why the school?’ Because I was there. I was cleaning tables. I want to show them that you can do better — not that (there’s anything) wrong with cleaning tables. I’m just saying it’s a steppingstone to something better.” F. Amanda Tugade covers social justice issues for the Des Moines Register. Email her at ftugade@dmreg.com or follow her on Twitter @writefelissa.

Photos by Bryon Houlgrave / The Register

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