Meet Nosa Ehimwenman O’Hare’s 1st black concessions prime contractor

Nigerian-Born Nosa Ehimwenman is the founder of Bowa, a fast growing construction company that has been involved in a lot of projects in Chicago. His company was contracted to renovate a Starbucks concession in Chicago airport, the same airport where his father used to pick passengers from so his family could survive.

By Maudlyne Ihejirika

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South Side construction firm owner Nosa Ehimwenman was having a good day on Wednesday.

It was the ribbon-cutting for what’s believed to be the largest airport Starbucks in the country, built by Ehimwenman’s Bowa Construction Inc. at O’Hare Airport.

The coffee shop’s size is a novelty — it abuts his newly built Wicker Park Sushi restaurant — but the project is also Chicago’s first airport concessions construction project awarded to an African-American prime contractor.

Ehimwenman was thrilled enough, before Inc. Magazine on Wednesday released its Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America — placing Bowa at #1248.

Nosa Ehimwenman, founder and CEO of Bowa Construction, stands in the newly-opened Starbucks location that his company constructed for HMSHost in Terminal 1, C Concourse at O’Hare International Airport. | Photos courtesy of HMSHost

“My last name means ‘you have a good spirit,’” said Ehimwenman, whose family emigrated here from Nigeria when he was 6, settling in Rogers Park, where his father drove a cab for 15 years to provide for his family.

“Sorry, I get a little emotional,” said the 37-year-old Hyde Park resident, when mentioning his immigrant parents.

“I just remember watching my dad come home late and leave early, driving for Yellow Taxi, then Checker Cab, and hardly seeing him because he was always working,” he said. “I look back at my parents’ sacrifices, at where we’ve come from. To be standing at O’Hare doing a ribbon-cutting for possibly the largest airport Starbucks in the country, it’s kind of mind-blowing.”

Steve Johnson, CEO of HMSHost; Demetrius Carney, CEO of The Carney Airport Consulting Group; Nosa Ehimwenman, founder and CEO of Bowa Construction; and Jamie Rhee, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, gather at the ribbon-cutting of a new Starbucks and Wicker Park Seafood and Sushi locations in Terminal 1, C Concourse at O’Hare International Airport. | Courtesy Chicago Department of Aviation

Ehimwenman’s 9-year-old firm has seen 300 percent growth since 2013, when he quit his job with Gilbane Building Co., one of the industry’s largest global construction and facilities management firms, to build his own company. Despite reaching multimillion-dollar status, Ehimwenman maintains his South Shore headquarters.

Bowa’s portfolio includes many projects at the University of Chicago Medical Center and several at O’Hare, including the new O’Hare Police Station Bowa began building last month.

The Rise of the African Multinational Enterprise: The most authoritative book on private enterprise in Africa. Get a Copy from SPRINGER

“I got to meet Nosa’s dad today, and to see the look in his eyes, how proud he was of his son, was heartwarming, because he’s certainly overcome challenges. It would be disingenuous for us to say that small minority- and women-owned companies don’t face greater challenges than majority-owned companies,” Chicago Aviation Commissioner Jamie Rhee said.

“But the mayor has made it clear from Day 1 that my job is to remove barriers to entry and building capacity for small businesses. And we’re finding that one size truly does not fit all,” she said. “You have small contractors that like the world they’re in and want to continue operating in that sphere, and then owners like Nosa, who say, ‘I can do that, and I want to do more.’ We’re breaking up these projects … in a way that promotes participation in 77 community areas.”

Ehimwenman, a father of three who married the college sweetheart he met when both were on the track and field teams at the Ohio State University, said his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college. A full-ride track scholarship got him there. He majored in construction management.

“Some folks will say, ‘I was born building stuff, right from the Legos.’ That was not my story,” Ehimwenman said. “I knew I enjoyed engineering and architecture, and always kind of enjoyed seeing things come together. But it was really my college counselor who said, ‘Hey, you should look into construction management. There’s not many African Americans doing it.’”

An internship with Gilbane his junior year led to a nine-year career with the firm.

“It was a three-month internship, and I worked my butt off, literally everything from getting coffee to document control to engineering, wherever and whatever they wanted me to do,” he said.

Nosa Ehimwenman, founder and CEO, Bowa Construction (3rd from left) joins representatives from HMSHost and the Chicago Department of Aviation for the grand opening of O’Hare’s newest Starbucks that his company constructed in Terminal 1, C Concourse | Photos courtesy of HMSHost

“I was asked to lead a clean-up crew with a rep from each firm. We’d meet every Friday and clean the job site. They nicknamed me ‘Captain Clean-up.’ I learned so much, working with all those tradesmen; whether black, white, green or orange, we all came together to clean the site. When summer was over, they offered me a job for the school year.”

The Rise of the African Multinational Enterprise: The most authoritative book on private enterprise in Africa. Get a Copy from SPRINGER

They later offered him a job in his hometown. By 2009, he was thinking about owning his own firm. His father had been able to save enough money driving a cab to purchase the family’s first home, eventually buying and selling real estate, and leaving the cab business.

Ehimwenman incorporated his company in 2009, obtained his MBA. Then, in July 2013, “I walked out of corporate America and walked out on faith.”