Women of ABC Professional Career Day 2019
9.1% of the construction industry is made up of women. In high school, it is very unlikely for female students to be exposed to the construction world. Often, they are not made aware of the opportunities in the field and they stereotype it as a male dominated industry.
WABC is looking to change that. Associated Builders and Contractors is a national organization. The Baltimore Chapter has a women’s committee, which has been putting on a career day for high school females for the past five years. Southway has been lucky enough to host the event at a job site and participate almost every year. This year we hosted the girls at our John Ruhrah Elementary School job site where we are renovating the school and building an addition as a Joint Venture project with MCN Build.
Various women from the committee and on the job site spoke about being a female in the field. From HR professionals to women who created their own construction business from the ground up, the high school ladies were able to see every facet of the industry and learn about the opportunities they have. They also got a lesson on budget analysis, got to work a 360 camera and see a drone fly around the building.
For the girls, seeing so many women who are successful in the industry was absolutely empowering, especially Stacey Lioreisis who is a project engineer at the John Ruhrah site.
One of the main points of the day is to make the girls aware of ABC’s apprenticeship program. There, men and women are able to shadow professionals in the industry to learn the practical and theoretical sides of various trades with on-the-job training and related classroom instruction. For more information on ABC Baltimore and their apprenticeship program, visit https://www.abcbaltimore.org/apprenticeship/.
We truly hope that through this experience many of these high school girls will consider entering an industry they might not have without exposure through events like this. Thank you to ABC, WABC, the job site team and all of the speakers/presenters for making the day so special for so many women.
