OAKLAND — Bruce Cox, an Oakland native who dedicated his life to training ex-offenders and youth in the construction trades, has died at the age of 64. Cox died of congestive heart failure at Kaiser Hospital on Dec. 22, his wife, Rita Cox, said.

He was a father of four and a father figure to hundreds of East and West Oakland young men, many who because of criminal records or tough upbringings could not find stable work. From his West Oakland warehouse, he showed them how to properly put a hammer to a nail, use power tools and read blueprints. But his tool belt was also stuffed with life lessons, friends and family recall.

“You could tell him just about anything, you could confide in him,” said Hodari Wilson, 38, who took construction training classes from Cox. “He would always say something positive.”

Rita Cox recalled her husband reading a newspaper article one day about the high number of minority men in the prison system and him thinking, “there’s got to be a way” to help. As a contractor, Cox had the skills of a profession which does not discriminate against people with criminal records and he soon began job training at a church in San Francisco’s Fillmore District.

In the mid-2000s, he opened a construction job training program at the Alliance for West Oakland Development on Fifth Street. He posted fliers around the neighborhood and approached young men on street corners as part of his effort to get locals jobs helping build the massive Central Station residential development of 1,500 residences on Wood Street.

He was known to show up at job sites to make sure developers hired Oaklanders, and would drive his trainees to jobs in Pleasanton, Tracy and other places out of reach for them. “Some days I run like you can’t believe,” he told this newspaper at the time. At night, he’d take calls from trainees in trouble. “I know I’ve helped keep the crime rate down,” he said. “Sometimes I’ve had to go pick them up at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes they just need to vent.”

Wilson, a Richmond native, had not worked in a while and saw one of Cox’s ads in the newspaper. “He taught me how to use a tape measure,” said Wilson, who now is an electrician. “He would vouch for me.”

At Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland, Cox taught classes at the Men of Valor program and at Oakland continuation schools after realizing, according to his wife, that he wanted to help students avoid making poor choices that could put them in jail.

Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel remembers his friend as a “no nonsense guy” who demanded a lot from his students and trainees.

“He was a man’s man but had a heart to give back,” said Jackson, who credited Cox with helping open the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce. “Most have a greedy spirit but Bruce was always trying to help.”

Everyone from developers to politicians such as Mayor Libby Schaaf would “not shake his hand,” Cox’s wife recalled, “because they had to give him a hug. He was that kind of person.”

He “was an absolute Oakland treasure,” Schaaf said. “He had a soft voice and a loud heart.”

Milton Bruce Cox was born on Oct. 16, 1954, the sixth of eleven children. He was captain of the wrestling team at Oakland Technical High School, where he graduated in 1972. He earned a degree in carpentry from Laney College and a certificate in construction codes from Chabot College in Hayward. In 1980, he opened MBC Construction and ran it for 35 years. He also served as the president of the National Association for Minority Contractors.

In his home life, which he shared with his wife Rita for more than 40 years, Cox was a man who took care of his mother when she was sick, instilled independence in his four children — but would also help pay a bill if needed. He’d often tell his children, “the best way to solve a problem is before it happens,” a quote passed down from his own father.

“He wasn’t an ordinary man, he was like a fountain, and we drank from his wisdom, knowledge, love and kindness,” his daughter Candice Cox said. “He was the best dad that any of us could have asked for, and no one will ever fill his shoes.”

His legacy may be less in what he built but who he taught to build. For all he inspired, it is now Cox who is in need of some handymen at 319 Chester Street, his final project. Once a West Oakland mini park, Cox was working with youth to turn the property into mixed housing in a city that needs it now more than ever.

Rita Cox said her husband fought for seven years to get it funded and grew ill by the time the money was approved. It’s 75 percent done, she said. “That was his dream,” Rita said, “to finish that project.”

He is preceded in death by his father, Mitchell Cox, and survived by his wife Rita; his mother Irene; his four children, Mia, Candice, Jaciento and Amber; 10 siblings and four grandchildren.

A celebration of life will be held Jan. 9 at 11 a.m. at Acts Full Gospel Church, 1034 66th Ave in Oakland.