March 31, 2026
As a society we owe much to the work of women and the Port of Seattle is no different. The Port of Seattle is strengthened by women in the workforce and one of those people is Nicole Norman, owner of Pacific Bio NW WA LLC and contractor on Port projects. The Diversity in Contracting team was graced by Nicole’s energy and eloquence in an interview to hear about her journey as a small business owner. We are so excited to share her story with women-owned, diverse, and small businesses looking to work with the Port.
Background
Tell us a little bit about yourself, professional background, and what inspired you to start Pacific NW Bio.
Honestly, I’m surprised to be where I am as a professional. I didn’t enjoy school, so I dropped out in the 11th grade with 10th grade credits. After that, I had no choice but to join the workforce but I bounced around a lot of jobs looking for a good fit and was either fired or quit. The only jobs that I somewhat enjoyed were jobs that kept me active.
I worked for ServePro which is a company specializing in fire and water restoration, and they dabbled a bit in hazardous cleanup which I was excited to do. One of my coworkers had a sister that worked for a company called Bio Management Northwest which is an emergency biohazard, crime scene, and property cleanup company. When I was about to leave ServePro, my coworker connected me with her sister, so I landed on my feet at Bio Management Northwest as a technician and ended up being there for seven years.
Thankfully, at one point in my life I wanted to be a mortician, so death didn’t scare me much because as a technician, I saw everything. I’m talking unattended death cleanups, encampment cleanups, trash-outs, hoarder homes, I saw it all. I was working jobs that made the headlines, and others that should’ve. I got comfortable with the work I did and not only began running my own cleanup crews, but I also did job walks, scheduling, started representing the company in meetings marketing our work, and then working closely with the owner of the company. I learned and grew a lot through that job but as was par for the course, I ended up leaving.
My next adventure was working for Local 242 as a union laborer. As a laborer I was knocking down walls, moving materials, and doing physically demanding work. Although I was happier doing jobs that kept me active, this job really pushed me to my physical limits. Unfortunately, during my second week as a laborer, I broke my leg moving material with a wheelbarrow.
You’d think that I would have had ample time to let my leg heal but as a laborer, you get moved to support the workforce of companies needing your skills and my employer wanted to put me on light duty instead of letting me collect L&I. So, for a year I would commute for over an hour to pull staples and make copies in the office. Then I would commute over an hour back home to go to physical therapy to recover from breaking my leg. It was the bane of my existence. Every day I sat at my desk, I thought about what I was going to do after this job. I felt that my employer saw me as a burden and didn’t want me around, and after all the hard job experiences I had, I knew that I never wanted to work for anyone ever again. So, I planned my exit but I had to wait to leave when I had a leg to stand on, literally. The one thing I knew I had the skills to do was biohazard management, so I had my eyes set on running my own biohazard company.
Well, I wasn’t quite ready to be full-fledged entrepreneur, so I made a couple more career detours working at the Department of Licensing and then as a receptionist at the doctor’s office. Once again, I would sit at my desk thinking about building my business and during my breaks I would be working on business cards. When I left my job as a receptionist, I knew it was time to make the change to entrepreneurship! After a few obstacles with partnership and naming issues, I founded Pacific NW Bio WA in 2019!
Can you tell us more about your company, products/services you provide?
We are biohazard cleanup company doing residential, commercial, and expanding into construction cleanup! My employees have extensive certifications, so are capable of cleaning the most overwhelming and complicated messes one can think of. We do needle collection, dangerous waste transportation, encampment cleanups, rodent cleanup, asbestos sampling, demolition, post construction cleanup, just to name a few.
We’ve had a contract with the City of Tacoma for about six years doing encampment removals and maintenance. What that looks like is we go to homeless encampments and speak with the residents of the encampment, cordially and peacefully helping them clean their space. We don’t use law enforcement to escort us and have had a lot of success building a rapport with that community.
We’ll clean up encampments and even supply them with trash bags and gloves so they can pick up their own stuff. Then we maintain the site. We also clean the inside of squad cars for Tacoma Police Department. We’ve done that for the Renton and Seattle police departments as well. We do Seattle Clean City addressing the needle boxes from south Seattle to north Seattle weekly. We’ve done work with Seattle City Light, WSDOT, Seattle Parks & Rec, and others.
I’m from Washington state and I love it here but we have some unique issues that not all places have. At one point the Seattle-metro area was seen as Gotham. We live in a place that does struggle with homelessness, substance abuse, and depression. However, I’m thankful for what I do because in my job we have an opportunity to make some dark situations lighter. We meet many people at their worst and we help them literally clean up their lives.
My clients are those experiencing homelessness and living in encampments, hoarders living with depression and mental illness, families who’ve had their loved ones pass away, people battling with addiction, and people who had their homes damaged by an unforeseen mishap. Usually, my clients are in one of the worst seasons of their lives but being able to help in their times of despair is why I really care about the work I do. Despite what the job calls for, I’ve been blessed to have the best and hardest working employees one could ask for. I’ve hired people that I used to work with at my previous jobs and it reminds me that, although unconventional, my path has had no wasted experiences.
Port Opportunities
What projects have you worked on at the Port? What did it take to secure those projects?
We’ve been on three projects for the Port! Our first project was the Maritime Environmental Management & Compliance IDIQ contract in 2021 as a sub for DH Environmental Inc. Then DH Environmental won the Environment Support Services IDIQ contract in 2023 and we were a sub to them on that one as well. For both of those contracts, on about a monthly basis we would go out to the Port’s properties including the marinas checking all the hazardous drop-offs ensuring the contractors were complying with the disposal regulations. We’d check for trash and spills left on sites, and would contact the supervisors of each site giving them updates on how their contractors were doing with staying on top of that. I’m so thankful for DH Environmental and their President, David Hill, for giving us our first chance on a contract with the Port.
The last contract we were a part of was the 2024 Airfield Projects - Contract 1 as a subcontractor to Scarsella where we had to clean up a sewer loss. A sewer loss is when there is damage to a property from wastewater that doesn’t flow correctly and, in our case, there was a sewer pipe that burst.
If I’m being honest, God is the reason we got those contracts. We weren’t looking at any of those contracts but thankfully both DH Environmental and Scarsella knew about the work we did and reached out to us. When people say, “You never know who’s watching”, we’re a prime example of that. If we weren’t doing well on our contracts outside of the Port, there would be no reason for us to have been considered.
What are things you wished you would have known before you began government work?
My first government contract was with the City of Tacoma in 2020 and if I’m honest, working with them was starkly different than working on one of my residential contracts. On hoarder house in the neighborhood, you’re not waiting to go through insurance and payment is immediate. I love working with the City of Tacoma because I love Tacoma and supporting that community is what matters to me. Nevertheless, it’s far easier to work residential contracts.
Government contracts provide more consistent work but residential contracts are less complex; there’s a tradeoff. On government contracts, you will have to wait for your money to some extent. Also, you have to keep in mind that workers need to be paid prevailing wage on certain public works contracts which is much higher than their hourly wages so keeping cash reserves is a must or you have to ensure you’re having income to keep your workers paid as you wait to get your contract payout. I prefer doing both.
Advice for Business Owners
What advice do you have for other WMBE/small businesses when it comes to finding opportunities and bidding for Port projects?
Show up and let people know what you do! Go to the tradeshow events like Alliance Northwest, City of Seattle Reverse Vendor Trade Show, go to the networking events, and go to the Port Diversity in Contracting events! Sometimes all it takes is one connection at the right event that can change the trajectory of your business. Prime contractors go there to find qualified subcontractors and government agencies go there to tell people about contracts!
Even though my contracts kind of fell into my lap, I’ve had doors open for me because I was willing to put myself out there. For example, last year I finally spoke to Clark Construction and Atkinson Construction at a tradeshow event and because of that conversation, I was accepted into the Strategic Partnership Program (SPP) to build my business and I graduate from the program in May. If it wasn’t for this program, we probably wouldn’t be expanding our capabilities by getting into demolition and construction cleaning. But because I showed up and let them know what my business does and made a connection, my business will be more sustainable in the future.
What advice do you have for other WMBE/small businesses who have just secured their first Port project and are about to begin work?
There are several things to keep in mind! One is you need to have money saved because there will be delays in payment. Once again, if you’re used to working residential contracts, you’re used to having money come in quickly but that’s just not the case with government contracts. Also, just like for any job, you need to make sure your team represents the business well. The stakes are a bit higher when you’re on government property and you need to be on time and ready to work. Also, you need to have certified payroll. You don’t want to hold up payment because it impacts your employees and your relationship with the prime.
Women's History Month
What are some unique hurdles you’ve faced and feel other women business owners face in running their business? What advice would you give them?
A hurdle in this industry as a woman is that you are competing against men in a male dominated industry. Sometimes the construction culture doesn’t make space for women to insert their thoughts. I’m a very outspoken person but often on walkthroughs, I’ve sat back and stayed quiet because there were some people that didn’t allow space for collaboration. Even when working with male clients, I’ve gotten the sense that they didn’t think I knew what I was doing.
Despite that, I think being a woman in this industry is beneficial. We come with a lighter side of things and pay great attention to detail. We have decorum and are mindful of those in the space and give them room to speak. This work is stressful and has a lot of moving parts and the attributes of women makes us do the job well. So, to the women out there, do not change who you are to get by in this industry. Who you are is what got you to this point and what will make you successful in this industry.
Why is it important celebrate the innovation and resilience of women this month?
Women are incredible. It’s just that simple. We show up in the world as so many things for so many people and can do it gracefully. I’m a business owner, mother of two teenagers, and I can multitask with the best of them. As women we’re seen as impulsive, emotional, or out of control when we express ourselves. The things we go through you see is usually just the tip of the iceberg but if more people knew what we were up against daily, they too would marvel at women.
What impact does it make on the community and society when women businesses thrive?
I feel that many of us seek to pay it forward. We know what we’ve had to go through and most of us want to make it easier for the next person to climb the ladder. I work with a lot of youth through the King County JumpStart program. They’re an organization that teaches 18–23-year-olds in construction and they find companies like mine to work for and be trained by. Youth aren’t easy to work with, but I know what I was like when I was their age and I want to help.
We also have employed people who were being supported through the RISE Center in Tacoma. My experiences as a woman has also impacted the way I treat my employees. For instance, my office assistant just had a baby and sometimes she needs to bring her baby into the office (not around anything hazardous of course) and that is completely fine with me because I know the struggle of working while having kids. Our lived experiences make us leaders that want to see others empowered.
Our lived experiences make us leaders that want to see others empowered.
How did you celebrate Women’s History Month?
I spent the month celebrating my friends! I am blessed to have a network of women that are doctors, esteemed professionals, and are highly educated so we’ve been celebrating each other by building each other up. But that’s something we do daily and not just in the month of March. You might only be privy to it during Women’s History Month but the pick-me-ups and the support we offer one another truly is something we do daily. No one does community like us!
Nicole traversed a path unlike many others, but her path is what made her the thriving business owner she is. We are thankful for Nicole, the women who’ve helped make the Port what it is, and all the women who paved the way before them. For more insight on the incredible impact women are making at the Port, check out our Women in Construction and Celebrating “Herstories” blogs from March!
