PRIDE MONTH/MEMBER SPOTLIGHT


A construction career was not really


on Brown’s radar seven to eight years ago when he was moving back to the Sacramento region and looking for a well-paying and rewarding job. Tat’s when he heard about an opportunity at a heavy civil construction company, Magnus Pacific (since acquired by Great Lakes Dredging). He was offered a position as subcontracts’ administrator at Magnus, working under the same boss that he later followed over to Odin Construction Solutions, CEO and founder Louay Owaidat. Brown accepted the job with some


measure of apprehension. “I came in with fears and reservations,” he said. “I thought, I’ve got to make sure I fit in, and I’m going to have to conform to these heteronormative behaviors. I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.” He eventually realized his own


insecurities were holding him back. “After working there for a while and getting familiar with everyone, I realized that if I’m uncomfortable, others are going to be too. If I want to have an open and accepting work environment, then I have a responsi- bility to contribute to that as well.”


Empowering Employees Brown said he has felt empowered


and supported at every turn at Odin – whether for his decision to attend school to obtain his masters of legal studies from Washington University School of Law while working full-time, or the way his boss and co-workers always have his back when he has occasionally faced homophobic comments or attitudes during contract negotiations with subs or vendors. “Tere is a sense of empowerment


that comes from our company culture,” Brown said. “Knowing that I have that support empowers me to stand up for myself and against those sometimes- derogatory comments that come from a place of ignorant beliefs.” He has developed a strong bond with his construction industry


www.AGC-CA.org


coworkers over the years. “I am accepting of them, and they are accepting of me; that mutual respect has been a strong foundation for a great working relationship,” he said. Many of them also moved over to Odin Construction Solutions when Louay Owaidat started the Rocklin, CA-headquartered heavy construction company in late 2018. Brown readily accepted Owaidat’s


offer to join his new company. As the firm’s contracts manager, he handles all procurement, purchase orders, subcon- tracts agreements, risk management, regulatory compliance and every- thing in between. “If it doesn’t fit an engineering or accounting job description, it usually falls to me,” he said with a laugh.


Ranked ‘Best Place to Work’ Now in its third full year in


business with offices across the country, Odin currently employs around 130 permanent workers. Te company’s 2020 sales totaled about $120 million and it has a backlog of approximately $250 million. As a self-performing


environmental remediation and geotechnical contractor, Odin delivers a wide array of levee and dam rehabili- tation, mechanical dredging, habitat and wetland construction, and disaster recovery projects. In recognition of the positive


workplace culture that Owaidat has built, the Sacramento Business Journal ranked Odin among the “2020 Best Places to Work.” Te ranking is based on employee responses to questions measuring employee engagement in categories such as teamwork, trust, compensation and benefits. “I attribute a lot of our success to


Louay’s ability to build diverse teams,” Brown commented. “He is really skilled at building diverse teams that work well together and that have a strong sense of loyalty and unity.” “We are a solutions-based


contractor,” Brown added. “When you build diverse teams, you get more varied perspectives and approaches on how to fix the problems – and you tend to get away from that group- think, homogenous, one-size-fits-all solutions.” 


Odin Construction at work on The Tiger Creek Afterbay Dam in Amador County, representative of its many dam and waterway projects in California.


Associated General Contractors of California 11


Photo by Tino Maestas


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