Over Kara Rene Arenas’ 20 years in construction, she has demonstrated a love and devotion to the apprenticeship trades and safety in the industry. As vice president of the Associated Builders and Contractors’ Nevada chapter since 2019, Arenas is responsible for the apprenticeship programs in southern and northern Nevada.

Since starting at ABC, she restructured the chapter’s apprenticeship program and created a new curriculum, and as of 2022, the thriving program has 330 students. Many others have graduated, not only in the state but nationwide. 

According to her nominator, Arenas’ management style is “open door,” and she jumps to help her staff and apprentices grow and have rewarding careers. Arenas is active in community outreach and is a role model for many young people looking to break into the trades.

She actively recruits students and speaks about opportunities in construction at educational institutions, starting at the grade school level. Arenas is also a member of several industry organizations including the National Center for Construction Education and Research, and is a proud mother of two sons.

Laila Audelo’s nominator describes her as a rising leader who is committed to mentoring, educating and fueling inspiration to develop the next generation of construction pros. Since she began her career in construction nearly seven years ago, Audelo has always been passionate about breaking down barriers in the industry to elevate and support underrepresented groups and individuals. 

During her first year at St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos., Audelo joined the McCarthy Partnership for Women, a national employee resource group providing support and a network for female employees to ensure success and career growth. Audelo was instrumental in leading McCarthy’s Northern Pacific region’s first Construction 101 event, which aimed to raise awareness of careers within the industry to K-12 girls. More than 100 students participated and learned directly from 40 industry experts like general contractors, engineers and architects. 

As an advocate for minority groups, Audelo speaks at industry events and is involved with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers at California State University, Fullerton, where she provides guidance and leads discussions for career paths in STEM and breaks down the stigma of blue-collar jobs.

Rose Boleen has played a key role on projects in San Francisco-based Swinerton’s recently launched mass timber division, Timberlab. 

Following her college internship and graduation, she worked on the Lincoln City, Oregon, Police Department project as her first full-time assignment. A 17,500-square-foot, two-story ground-up structure consisting of steel, concrete, and mass timber with cross-laminated timber shear walls and floors, the project presented a number of challenges, including a tight building footprint where there was only room for a single crawler crane, and the need to switch between a steel beam and a CLT wall panel. 

Despite a two-hour commute each way, Boleen’s eagerness to learn and her flexibility in being assigned out-of-town work helped to ensure the project’s success. She rounded out her early career with a rigorous six-month assignment coordinating the design completion and international procurement for the RNew residence halls project at the University of California Santa Cruz’s Kresge College campus, which will house 311 students when completed in 2025 and consists of four full floors of CLT construction including floors, shear walls, and interior columns.

U.K. native Laura Bush became interested in the construction industry when she was 16 years old while watching the construction of Ewood Park Football Stadium in Blackburn, England. The stadium is the home of the Blackburn Rovers F.C., and as Bush shadowed its construction, she realized that she wanted to make construction her career. 

She started her career in Lendlease’s London office, but moved to New York City in 2001 for a one-year assignment. However, her success kept her in the U.S., where she has since thrived. 

As Milford, Massachusetts-based Consigli Construction's director of operations in the New York City area, she oversees 27 active projects worth more than $1.6 billion. Bush is a founding co-chair of the Ambassador Council for Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), an organization formed to support women interested in entering the construction trades. 

“Mentorship of other women in the industry has long been a focus of Ms. Bush’s professional and personal efforts, and she has been a staunch advocate for female growth and development in the industry,” her nominator wrote.

Judaline Cassidy describes herself as a feminist plumber, tradeswomen activist and public speaker. A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Cassidy was among the first three women selected to learn plumbing at the John Donaldson Technical Institute of Trinidad, now the University of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Over her 20-year-long career, she has worked extensively as a plumber and says she loves every bit of her craft. She serves on the board of Monumental Women, a nonprofit organization that championed the placement of the first statue honoring women’s history in New York City’s Central Park. 

Cassidy isn't satisfied winning battles just for herself. After decades of working as a plumber for the New York City Housing Authority, she lamented the lack of women on jobsites. Knowing that steady trade work is the key to economic stability, she created Tools and Tiaras, a nonprofit summer camp dedicated to introducing young girls to the trades. According to her nominator, she takes the mantra, "If you can see it, you can be it," to a whole new level.  Having started the camp out of the back of her car, she now runs sessions across New York City.

As manager of business development for Edmonton, Alberta–based PCL Construction, Priscilla Chavez manages relationships with clients and stakeholders in the Los Angeles area while overseeing government relations, workforce development, labor relations and small business development. In her prior role as manager of diversity and inclusion, she managed outreach to potential workers and small businesses in Southern California looking to establish themselves in the construction industry. 

Chavez has actively fought to increase opportunities for women in construction, and her personal touch and openness to share her life experiences make her a valuable resource. She has also worked with DIY Girls, an organization that increases exposure to STEAM education for female students in communities in Los Angeles County. 

Chavez previously served as president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction, where she significantly increased chapter membership. Chavez also serves as board member of the Women’s Business Enterprise Council, the Los Angeles Trade Technical College Foundation and other professional organizations and was recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a top woman in construction and design in 2019.

Stephanie Crepeau has always been a builder. From early Lego buildouts to a job in a cabinetry millwork shop in college, she gravitated to construction because it felt like a giant puzzle, and she wanted to put all the pieces together. Four years after graduating college, Crepeau has steadily risen through the ranks of Medford, Massachusetts-based BOND Building, advancing from field engineer to assistant superintendent, and most recently achieving superintendent status. 

At just 27 years old, she is one of the firm’s youngest and most accomplished superintendents. Her colleagues and clients point to her constant perseverance, methodical planning and attention to detail as reasons why she is such a valued professional. In partnership with the Massachusetts AGC, she hosted the Building Women in Construction podcast as a running feature of her on-air radio program, where she interviewed and engaged with many of the industry’s top female professionals. 

Crepeau is also a staunch supporter of career and technical education programs that provide training in specific skills for construction. She created a visiting program designed to expose high school students to careers in construction and the trades and also founded the Career Explorations Fund, aimed at providing financial resources and assistance for students seeking a profession in the construction industry.

Christy Crook heads one of the few woman-owned commercial masonry construction firms in the country in Thornton, Colorado, though she is dedicated to changing that. She mentors other women whenever the opportunity presents itself and urges them to not be afraid to speak up for what they want in their careers. She is a long-time board member of the nonprofit Transportation & Construction GIRL, which is dedicated to educating young women about financially sustainable careers in commercial construction. 

Crook’s tireless advocacy for recruiting more women into the industry included an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America. She is also a regular contributor to trade magazines and writes about solutions to pressing industry issues. Her nominator said she “consistently goes above and beyond to help others in the commercial construction industry, indicative of her belief that once you’ve climbed the ladder, you don’t pull it up behind you — you reach back down and help others do the same.” 

The Colorado Public Works Journal recently named Crook one of the “Top Women in Colorado Construction,” and in 2024, she will assume the leadership of the Rocky Mountain Masonry Institute, where she’ll become the organization’s first female leader in more than 50 years. Crook also serves on the board of the American Subcontractors Association and is an active member of several other trade groups.

Over her 23-plus-year career in construction safety at St. Louis-based Alberici Constructors, registered nurse Kathleen Dobson has been a mentor and a champion for those she works with. According to her nominator, Dobson is a great educator — whether the topic be a safety challenge, standards, PPE or how to build a welcoming, inclusive workplace — and she has developed educational programs for a wide range of organizations. She also leads industry efforts on mental health and suicide prevention and speaks on recruitment and retention of women and others who are underrepresented in construction. 

Dobson’s expertise and industry knowledge led her to the Michigan Construction Safety Standards Commission, where she served as chair and helped advance several state standards. In 2020, she was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, and she was recently reappointed to her second term as co-chair of the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Work Group. 

Dobson is active with the American Society of Safety Professionals and applies her deep knowledge of standards to its A10 Construction and Demolition Standards and Z359 Fall Protection committees. She has been involved with the Association of Union Constructors’ Environmental Health and Safety Committee for over 15 years and has served twice on the board of directors.

A project manager for Davie, Florida–based ANF Group, Stephanie Flores has contributed to growing the contractor from a $2 million to $225 million company. Flores collaborates with architects, engineers, vendors, suppliers and contractors, overseeing all phases of her projects’ timelines. 

Flores has worked on residential, commercial and healthcare projects, carefully planning ahead to reduce risk, minimize delays and improve safety. Currently, Flores is overseeing and managing a $90 million residential development in Delray Beach, Florida. The development, Parks at Delray, will consist of 693 apartments in several garden-style buildings and 54 townhomes — totalling 747 multifamily units. The 775,000 square feet of residential development is being built out in phases, with the first 382 apartments and 38 homes scheduled for completion in Q1 of 2025. 

Flores is seen as an advocate for her fellow women in construction, participating on boards, fundraisers and community trade events like career fairs to mentor young women and encourage them to join the industry. 

“Stephanie is an energetic and engaging individual who loves community involvement and giving back to the South Florida community in many ways,” her nominator wrote.

Principal at Atlas Evaluation & Inspection Services in South Plainfield, New Jersey, Puja Goel has put in the work through nearly 30 years of industry experience. She currently leads the financial, human resources and business development departments at the firm, which provides inspection and testing services in the New York City metro area.

Goel earned degrees in math and physics from a university in her homeland of India. Following her graduation, she joined her family’s non-destructive testing firm there, where she followed a line of accomplished builders — her father was involved in designing and building some of the largest dams in India, and her grandfather was an architect who built the first cement plant in the country. She and her husband, Nagesh, the other co-founder of AEIS, moved to the U.S. in 1998 and founded the company in 2008. 

Goel said that she’s always been fascinated by infrastructure and the way it’s built, with New York City’s in particular due to its uniqueness and iconic status. Some of the company’s high-profile projects include the Moynihan Train Hall; LaGuardia Airport; and the Throgs Neck, Queensboro, and George Washington bridges. The firm is a Minority and Women Business Enterprise and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise.

Jenny Herrera began her career at Des Moines, Iowa-based contractor The Weitz Co. as a project engineer and after seven years earned an assistant project manager role. Her “go-getter mentality” along with her perseverance for exceptional performance has made her an up-and-coming leader within Weitz and in the Des Moines community, her nominator said.

As an eager adopter of new technologies and initiatives, Herrera volunteered to spearhead a companywide program using drones for BIM and VDC coordination and also serves as her business unit's DEI champion, a role that empowers one individual within each business unit to lead and "champion" new diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Off the jobsite, Herrera participates in Iowa State University’s Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering program’s Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) program, which fosters career development, mentoring and collaborative relationships between staff, students and young professionals. Among other leadership roles, she has served as board secretary for the Central Iowa Trail Association and was co-chair of the Water Works Park Foundation Program Committee.

Herrera’s nominator summed up her diverse background and commitment to excellence this way: “Whenever there is a need to step up to volunteer, lead a committee, become involved or try a new technology, Jenny is the first in line.”

In her 25 years in the construction industry, Demi Knight Clark has gone from throwing a hammer in the field to running multimillion-dollar divisions for the largest publicly traded homebuilders and manufacturers. Her company, certified as a North Carolina Historically Underutilized Business and a Women’s Business Enterprise, is a fast-growing construction firm specializing in commercial paving, concrete and demolition projects.

In 2019, she founded She Built This City, a nonprofit organization that empowers women and girls in the trades to build pathways to lucrative careers. She insists there should be no stigmas for young people entering construction via the trades instead of a college degree. For example, through Spark Building Group, Clark puts together 10-week training programs to shorten the onboard ramps, particularly in welding.

Clark is constantly putting herself in the middle of difficult trade conversations, such as how to grow diversity and reshape the industry to show women and minorities the roadmap to success as business owners, her nominator says. Her next challenge is to help move the needle on the amount of women business owners in the construction industry.

Already one of the most influential women in robotics, Tessa Lau turned her focus to the construction industry in 2018. Lau is CEO and co-founder of Mountain View, California-based Dusty Robotics, which automates the BIM-to-field-layout process through a robotic FieldPrinter. The robot is designed to eliminate the costly, human errors in the layout process and therefore speed up construction scheduling. 

Contractors that have used Dusty’s products indicate it solves pervasive problems the industry faces when it comes to meeting project timelines and navigating a tight labor market with a smaller pool of trained workers. 

Before Dusty, Lau was co-founder and chief technology officer at Savioke Robotics, where she worked on automating hotel delivery and consumer-focused robots. She also was a frequent collaborator at Willow Garage, a Silicon Valley research lab responsible for creating an open-source robotics system still in use today.

At age 29, Mary Madden is already a leader across the country for Baltimore-based construction firm Whiting-Turner, her nominator said. Based out of Whiting-Turner’s Washington, D.C., office, Madden is heavily involved with the W.O.W. (Women of Whiting-Turner) initiative, actively recruits others into the field and leads the D.C. office in community service. 

Madden also is actively engaged in Whiting-Turner's mentor and advocate programs and has given numerous presentations at Whiting-Turner Foundations of Excellence Summits for new employees.

Madden has been a leader on some of Whiting-Turner's marquee jobsites, including MGM National Harbor, the 1701 Rhode Island Avenue office building and the City Ridge DC multifamily project. Madden’s nominator said she’s extremely detail oriented and well respected on jobsites for being a fair superintendent. She’s always looking to keep projects moving forward with a disciplined focus on scheduling and lean construction, while keeping her crews’ safety as a top priority.

“Mary takes great pride in her work and her jobsites,” said her nominator. “She is always actively looking out for workers on the jobsite and teaching them how to be safe.

As a project manager for Vermont-based PC Construction, Anne Minor’s project resume includes a $100 million office complex redevelopment, a $25 million resort guest room addition and a $74 million luxury condominium, which is currently under construction. Part of her management process is to always look forward, her nominator wrote, looking for innovative software or more efficient methodologies to gauge project success and company growth. 

She also incorporates lean tools to reduce waste. Innovative, productivity-boosting practices like daily huddles, pull planning and just-in-time approaches are common on Minor’s projects. Minor also brings enthusiasm for her job, energizes her teammates, and helps young women at PC find their niche and develop their own career path. 

“She is supportive, caring and incredibly smart,” wrote her nominator. “Her projects, our clients, and our company are better because of her.”

With more than 25 years of experience as a project manager and executive in the construction industry, Lauline Mitchell has a lot to offer as a role model. As Oakland, California–based BBI Construction’s director of preconstruction, Mitchell has proven her value as a mentor to young women in the field. 

Mitchell got her start from a teacher in a carpentry class who connected her with a local general contractor, propelling her into the field. She began working at BBI in 1997, where she was a project manager in the San Francisco area, eventually working her way up to her current role in 2022.

On top of her work as a contractor, Mitchell is also actively involved in mentorship. Her nominator said that Mitchell understands the barriers that exist in the traditionally male-dominated environment of construction. 

She is the current president of the National Association of Women in Construction, where she works to strengthen and amplify the role of women in construction on a national stage. The organization has grown to encompass 118 chapters across the country, with a goal of 10,000 new members, more than doubling the organization’s size.

When Nelly Morales, vice president of human resources and safety at Northern Colorado–based Naranjo Civil Contractors, realized her company needed to improve its safety record, she leapt into action. Morales, who is bilingual, visited jobsites and interacted with workers to diagnose and solve safety problems. In doing so, Morales got employees to engage more with safety and improved the company’s program within months. 

One strategy she employed as part of her goal included a rewards program: For complying and demonstrating smart safety practices, employees can earn safety tokens that can be redeemed for company merchandise. Though her efforts have already yielded results, Morales still makes weekly visits to company jobsites, where she continues to mentor and develop relationships with workers.

“It's rare to see women in this field, and even more rare that they are involved in safety positions where they have excelled,” wrote her nominator. “She’s intelligent … a compassionate leader, a constant seeker of knowledge and growth and someone I'm proud to work with.”

Over Libby Murphy’s 15 years in the construction industry, including nine at Boston-based Suffolk, she has managed complex and innovative projects in several sectors, notably healthcare and higher education. Most recently, Murphy co-led construction of the Boston College Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, which included a digital fabrication shop, rapid prototyping lab and intricate façade — one of the most complex projects of her career. She also helped lead the UMass Amherst John W. Olver Design Building project, the most technologically advanced academic contemporary wood structure in the country at the time it was built in 2017. 

Murphy is an advocate for women within her organization and beyond and has used her position to take measurable action toward a more equitable industry. Murphy is co-chair of the Women Who Build business resource group at Suffolk and in 2020, the group launched Rebuild the Ratio, Suffolk’s pledge to increase the number of women in its workforce by 10% in the next decade. 

From this pledge was born a partnership with Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, to be scaled nationally, which will bring 10% of scouts in the region through a new STEM curriculum over the next 10 years. Murphy is helping develop the curriculum, sits on Q&A panels about construction careers and mentors girls in the program.

Danielle O’Connell is a leader in construction technology, both at Skanska USA and broadly in the industry. As senior director of emerging technology for the Sweden-based developer and contractor’s American business, O’Connell is a thought leader on the applied use of vital tech like digital twins, laser scanning, drones, data capture, jobsite documentation and model management. 

O’Connell helps Skanska’s national leadership team make evaluations and investments about the technology they adopt and employ. In the meantime, O’Connell’s nominator said, she also has vital listening skills and a talent for developing relationships. Both help to ensure everyone, especially women, feel as though they have a seat at the table and a voice in meetings. 

“As she carves out a career path for herself, she is concurrently doing the same for women coming behind her,” her nominator wrote.

Project manager Rosni Pann’s nominator says that she has been a bright light for the Northern Pacific region of St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos. for nearly four years. She conducts outreach in the community to hire locally and served on the Education Committee for the Construction Management Association of America in Northern California. There, she led efforts to raise sustainability awareness in the industry, resulting in the CMAA’s creation of a dedicated Sustainability Group this year.

Additionally, Pann was a board member of the Sacramento Young Professionals group within the Design-Build Institute of America. Focused on supporting networking events and jobsite tours, Pann provided opportunities for young professionals and college students to connect with industry experts.

Pann also plays a critical role in the McCarthy Partnership for Women, an internal resource group within McCarthy, and is helping to lead the group’s upcoming mentorship workshop. A mentor for young women in the program, Pann uses her voice to educate colleagues and champion efforts to drive change in the industry around causes including diversity, sustainability and autism awareness.

A 30-year steamfitting veteran, Janet Powers-Pacella is also the first Steamfitters Local 638 woman elected business agent in the New York City union’s 138-year-old history. Not only can Powers-Pacella weld high-pressure steam pipe, lay out jobs and connect 18-inch-diameter pipe 15 feet in the air, but as business agent, she also fiercely represents Steamfitters' interests when collaborating with real estate developers and contractors. 

Powers-Pacella joined Local 638 in 1987 via the union’s five-year apprenticeship program and quickly climbed the ranks. The union’s 8,500 members design, install and maintain fire sprinklers, refrigeration systems, heating and cooling systems and steam and water piping in New York City’s commercial, residential and industrial buildings. She has worked on iconic buildings like the Bloomberg Tower, the John F. Kennedy International Airport Power Plant and the historic Penn South housing complex. 

Powers-Pacella was the first woman elected to Local 638’s Finance Committee and also served two terms on the union’s executive board. She continues a proud family tradition of steamfitting that includes her father, uncle, two brothers and several cousins, as well as her husband.

A Georgia Tech graduate, Nicole Prettyman began her career in 2016 on the technical engineering side of construction before embarking on the path of construction management. Since then, she’s been a tireless advocate for the industry, recruiting younger generations, creating inclusion programs and always striving to create successful outcomes for her clients. 

Serving on the executive board of the South Atlantic Chapter of the Construction Management Association of America, Prettyman has raised money to fund scholarships for students and tradespeople in construction. In 2021, she was appointed chapter president, the youngest in its history. Following through on her campaign to make the chapter more inclusive, she started a new sponsorship level for minority and women-owned firms and changed the dress code for the awards gala to business casual to reduce any undue financial burden caused by attending the event. 

While serving as a preconstruction manager and engineer at Atlanta-based New South Construction in 2019, Prettyman successfully advocated to expand maternity leave from three to 12 weeks with full pay, relieving the significant financial and mental stress women face during this critical time. At Atlanta’s Impact Development Management, Nicole is managing five hospitality projects, a nonprofit project and one project in a new market sector for the firm.

Currently DPR Construction’s Northwest regional leader, Jody Quinton is a fixture in the industry. Early in her career, Quinton spent two years as an assistant superintendent on a 28-story high rise in Los Angeles. She credits this experience for teaching her how to build, while also helping her develop her deep respect for the craftspeople who mentored her and shared their expertise. 

At DPR, Quinton has overseen the growth of the Northwest division, including opening the firm’s new Seattle office, in which she played a pivotal role. Revenue has also grown, as has the regional headcount, despite a battle for talent that extends beyond competing contractors. In 2022, Quinton was honored by her alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for her forward-thinking leadership around lean construction, virtual design and construction, sustainability, IPD and her impact on promoting women in the industry. 

Among other groups, Quinton is a founding member of California Women in Design + Construction and an active member of Chief, a new organization designed to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there.

Meloni Raney is the CEO of Dallas-based TEXO, one of the country’s largest regional construction association affiliated with both Associated Builders and Contractors and the Associated General Contractors of America. She has served in this role since 2015 and has led the organization’s charge to be the leading commercial construction association in the state, providing resources such as training, professional development, networking and legislative representation.

She began her career as a construction project engineer at The Beck Group, a Dallas-based contractor and design-builder, where she quickly worked her way into a leadership role. She then made the leap from construction projects to TEXO, working her way up again into the position of president and CEO.

In this role, Raney works with many construction companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one of the largest construction markets in the nation. She also leads efforts in providing resources such as training, professional development, networking and legislative representation for the association. Under her leadership, TEXO helped the industry navigate the disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic while adding more members over the past few years.

Raney is often referred to by her colleagues as the face of commercial construction in North and East Texas.

A 26-year industry veteran, Sonja Rheaume worked her way from the ground up to become president and co-owner of Portland, Oregon-based Christenson Electric. After graduating from Tulane University in New Orleans, she returned to Portland to work at her family company, Oregon Electric Group, moving forward from there. 

Rheaume has served on various regional and national committees, including as chair of the ELECTRI Council, where she led the organization’s study on the impact of COVID-19 on the electrical construction industry. She is also a National Electrical Contractors Association Academy of Electrical Contracting fellow and the former chair of Women in NECA and NECA Future Leaders groups

“Providing an extraordinary example of service and a lifetime commitment to the future of electrical construction, Sonja Rheaume has proven herself worthy of this nomination and of her industry’s acknowledgement and gratitude,” writes her nominator.

As a project executive with more than 12 years of construction experience on the mission critical technology team at HITT Contracting in Falls Church, Virginia, Triloka Shanbhag oversees complex multimillion-dollar data center projects and serves in leadership roles in the AEC industry. Shanbhag is responsible for the overall success of her projects, coordinating client satisfaction, ensuring team effectiveness and proper resource allocation and procuring subcontractors.

Off the jobsite, Shanbhag is chair of the Women of HITT Employee Resource Group, an internal organization that provides a space to encourage, advocate, educate and support women. She connects with more than 150 members in a variety of site operations, project management and corporate resources roles nationwide, helping them to improve and develop new skills and growing female construction leaders.

Outside of HITT, Shanbhag participates in a variety of industry groups, including as a member of the Steering Committee for Women in Mission Critical Operations at the 7x24 Exchange’s Washington, D.C., Chapter, where she volunteers as communications lead by supporting community outreach initiatives and driving educational events focused on supporting inclusivity, career development and STEM programs.

For the past 14 years, Dani Stauft has devoted her career to improving outcomes and productivity in the construction industry. 

As a regional trainer, Stauft is now putting her passions to work by crafting a new training program for San Jose, California-based Rosendin's field and office leadership teams in the Pacific Northwest. Stauft provides training, mentoring, coaching and process improvement support to all Rosendin employees throughout Oregon, Idaho, Arizona and Texas.

Since joining the company, Stauft has also worked with Rosendin's community outreach program on several volunteer projects. In 2019, she helped teach high school students about career opportunities in the building trades and provided instruction for hands-on activities. She also served as an architecture, construction and engineering mentor for middle and high school students and has mentored several interns.

Throughout her career, Stauft developed a true passion for welcoming people from diverse backgrounds into the industry while also helping train and mentor new employees. She believes any woman can thrive in electrical contracting and supports diversifying the industry by empowering new leadership voices to help companies grow, innovate and thrive.

Stefanski has been a groundbreaker in the construction field for 25 years, leading more than $1 billion in private- and public-sector infrastructure projects as the principal project owner and engineer. Through her achievements, she has risen to the highest rank in the Minnesota DOT’s Asset Management Project Office. In this role and in her preceding 13 years at the agency, she has been a key factor in leading MnDOT to national recognition for having one of the most advanced state asset management practices in the U.S.

Her work includes areas such as transportation asset management strategy, technology implementation, roadway plan development and construction inspection. Stefanski spearheaded strategic innovations to improve the performance and stewardship of built assets across their full life-cycle, including an organization-wide digital transformation culminating in MnDOT’s ability to develop and execute highly successful 10-year Transportation Asset Management plans.

She has led IT-related project implementations to modernize processes for asset inventory management, condition information, maintenance activities, project tracking, staff training and operational workflows in MnDOT’s Metro District. Stefanski also serves on two thought-leading committees of the Transportation Research Board and a joint subcommittee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

As vice president and director of economic development at Providence, Rhode Island–based Gilbane Building Co., Yvette Stevens puts her formidable 25 years of experience in the construction industry to good use. Stevens, a graduate of Morgan State University in Baltimore, held previous roles across a bevy of positions prior to joining Gilbane in 2017, including engineering, program and project management, quality assurance and contract administration. 

Now, with a dedicated enterprise department in her national role for the company, Stevens leads her team in developing and implementing tailored inclusionary business models by promoting and engaging with historically underutilized firms and subcontractors, such as minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses, as well as small and local businesses.

“Yvette’s commitment and passion for a more equitable future is palpable among those who know her,” her nominator wrote. “She leads by example and understands that committing to economic inclusion today means a more equitable, robust construction landscape tomorrow.”

Jackie Townsend not only works in the trades as a bricklayer, but she’s also an instructor who passes her skills onto a new generation of workers. At the Paul Simon Chicago Job Corps Center, Townsend works with students aged 16 to 24, many of whom are new to the trades. She is also certified in OSHA training and teaches classes about diversity, inclusion and anti-racism in the workplace. 

Nominators see Townsend as someone who goes above and beyond, ensuring that students get the education they need not only to perform their specific tasks for work but also to build their careers. A leader, motivator and mentor, she’s described as someone who knows when to inspire, give advice or just listen. Several nominators indicated they owed their career in the trades to her support, education, patience and mentorship. 

One nominator, who says Townsend encouraged her not to drop out of a pre-apprenticeship program, wrote: “I can honestly say that if I wouldn't have met Jackie Townsend, I don't know what my life would be right now.”