MY DAY: PROCTOR: BLACKS IN CONSTRUCTION SERIES
John Proctor is a one –of-a-kind personality, a coat of many colors, with one single objective. He is focused 100% on black ownership, black producers and black owned businesses. Being extremely proud of his roots, John Proctor is from Calvert, Texas, his undisputed first love, and if you are not very careful, you will hear more about Calvert, Texas, than about his company, his passions, his family and his achievements. First of all, in a three minute conversation, Proctor wants to know if you know where Calvert, Texas, is. Whatever you do, do not answer with a ‘no’, because then you have opened up the Proctor Texas Library on Calvert, Texas. His favorite American is Rube Foster, from Calvert, Texas, the pioneering executive of the Negro Leagues. His next favorite subject is about Tom Bradley, also from Calvert, the former Mayor of Los Angeles doing the days John was in California.
I cannot write about Blacks in Construction without thinking of Coverall Management and Associates, University General Hospital, some DISD Projects, the asbestos and demolition clean up, on and on. All of these construction site were chaired by John Proctor and Coverall Management. His firm has completed over 35 projects with a respectable dollar value exceeding millions. Coverall Management started business in 1978 in San Diego, expanded to Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii in the electrical, telephone construction area. The resume of the company boost a list of government agencies, timely completion of projects, fair pricing, extensive experience working with private and not-for-profit developers and owners. The man is considered a work of art.
You may remember GTE. John Proctor years ago staged a one man boycott against the then GTE, now Verizon, located then in their new grandeur offices in Las Colinas, Texas. A few weeks into the boycott, he was joined by many, many friends. John Proctor is daring and debonair, driven and demure, definitely not reserved. He has always been in a leadership role, even as football captain in Calvert, Texas. You may wonder why with all this west coast attention is John Proctor and Company in Texas. Well, he came to Texas and fell in love with Chris Paris, the model, his wife who works as hard as he does in the business.
As mentioned in my last week’s column, John Proctor was elected Chairman of the Regional Black Contractor Association (BCA) now with new offices on MLK Blvd. His focus has not changed. As chair, he tells me he will use this wider platform to build momentum while actively growing black businesses in the Dallas Fort Worth region. And that we can depend on, I assure you.
Ester Davis can be reached www.esterday.com or 214.376.9000
Correction: We mistakenly printed H. K. Russell last week and it should have been H. J. Russell Construction, home officed in Atlanta.
