Womer & Associates honored with regional award

Womer & Associates, a Spokane-based architectural, engineering and environmental services firm, was awarded the Northeast Washington Minority Business of the Year Award.

The University of Washington’s Business and Economic Development Center made the selection and honored the company this week in Seattle.

Started in 1992 and Native American-owned, Womer has about 30 workers with offices in Spokane, Coulee Dam and Olympia.

Its projects include the Spokane International Airport, the Nisqually Tribe youth center, Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce, Northern Quest Casino, and Inn of the Mountain Gods in New Mexico.

Early in the economic downturn the company laid off some workers and cut the pay of others. Since then Womer & Associates has begun gaining a variety of jobs, many of them with West Coast tribes, said Nima Motahari, the firm’s public relations manager.

Motahari said at present Womer gets about 80 percent of its work from tribal projects.

He cited two other factors in keeping the company growing. “We are a multifaceted firm with lots of specializations. And second, we run this company as a family, so people like working here.”

Other Washington award winners announced by the UW are Seattle-based PromoShop Inc.; ExelTech Consulting, of Lacey; Grey Poplars Inc., of Yakima; R.J. Richards Construction, of Everett; Chameleon Technologies, of Kirkland; and adaQuest Inc., of Bellevue.