Women In Construction – We will get there together

BY:  BARBARA J. REYNOLDS, CCM

CMAA NCC, VICE PRESIDENT

We have made it to Two Thousand Twenty-One! It is an amazing time and I hope that I have gotten to the point where I have made my father proud. He passed away in 1980, but he was an ironworker and I always thought that what he did was so amazing. I was interested in how things worked, how they were built and what it took to get them built. But when I went to school I was guided toward a more ‘office-type’ industry and ended up with a degree in Interior Design.

Today I'm very glad to have my degree in Interior Design but when I first started on my career after graduating college, I found out very quickly that design was not going to be my path. I enjoyed the process of design and appreciated the need for good design but wanted to be a ‘do-er’. This need to roll my sleeves up and actually participate didn't really match up with sitting at a CAD station designing space. So, I left my design career behind after only five years, got a job as an Assistant Project Manager at a general contracting company and never looked back. I learned about proposals, subcontracts, submittals, requests for information. I tried to learn as much as I could, the tricks of the trade and I did pretty well but was told that unless I brought in millions of dollars of projects, I'd be stuck being an Assistant Project Manager for most of my career.

CMAA defines Construction Management as “a professional management practice applied to the planning, design, and construction of projects from project inception to completion for the purpose of controlling time, cost, scope and quality”. I was lucky enough to move on to this profession that would allow me to work in all phases of some of the most exciting, strange, wonderful, complicated and difficult construction projects in the country. It was as if all the education and experience I had accumulated were made to fit Construction Management. I continued to advance and gain experience to sit for the Certified Construction Manager examination. I have been a CCM for nine years.

The construction industry is critical to the global economy and I am proud to be part of it. Since March is Women’s History Month, to include Women In Construction Week, I see the opportunity for growth in our industry. Sadly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of all the people working in construction, women comprise only 10.3 percent. Even smaller is the number of women on the front lines of a job site—only one for every 100 employees in the field. Considering that women make up 47 percent of all employed individuals, this means that the construction industry is only benefitting from about 1.25 percent of women in the workforce.[1]

There certainly are more women in the industry than when I first entered, but we need to do better. No longer am I referred to as ‘honey’, ‘sweetie’ or ‘babe’ on a job site. I am credited as the leader and not as the note taker. And I hope I am setting an example for others to follow.

The data is there, it points to the increase in earnings and profits for companies, in every industry, when they have diversity in their workforce, including the C-Suite. Companies are slowly, but surely launching Inclusion and Diversity programs, policies and procedures to take advantage of the expanded success that can be achieved.

Food for thought:

• Is your company actively improving their way of doing business as it relates to Inclusion and Diversity?
• Are the number of women evenly distributed in all levels of the company or only at the entry level?
• Are women considered equally for advancement to senior positions?

CMAA has also launched the C.O.D.E. - Creating Opportunities for Diversity and Equality initiative ( https://www.cmaanet.org/about-us/diversity-equity-inclusion) at a national level. At the local level, CMAA chapter committees are focused on the following goals:

• Recruit and retain minority owned, women owned, and small business owned firms to CMAA
• Make recommendations to CMAA leadership regarding ‘up and coming’ minority, women, and small business owned leaders
• Create a mentoring network for minorities, women, and small business owners, including CCM mentoring
• Jointly sponsor events focusing on minorities, women, and small business owners in leadership positions
• Recognize minority, women, and small business owners in the industry and their achievements

Joining organizations like CMAA creates opportunities to discuss these common topics and work toward advancing the profession for everyone. We have come through tough times in the past twelve months and there are surely more ahead, but we will get through them TOGETHER.

  [1] Women in Construction: The State of the Industry in 2021, January 19, 2021 by Lior Zitzman