A few years ago, I recorded a short video for Transportation and Construction GIRL. I was a BI Developer at MCG Civil, which is now HEI Civil, trying to explain what business intelligence meant to people who had never heard the term. I talked about data. About collaboration. About how it was okay not to know everything. About how I ended up in construction not because I planned it but because I wanted to help people and the work kept growing. I was not a Director yet. I did not have a framework. I had never spoken at a conference.
Today, I'm the Data and Automation Director at HEI Civil. That role has generated over $1M in annual cost avoidance and eliminated 19,000+ manual hours a year. I designed an AI governance framework that's now scaling across the company. And none of that happened because I had it all figured out.
It happened because I focused on impact instead of titles.
Three Things I Tell Women Entering This Field
1. Engage Actively
Listen. Ask questions. Contribute. Different thinking solves problems that uniform thinking cannot. Your perspective matters-not despite your inexperience, but often because of it. You're not burdened by "the way things have always been done."
2. Embrace Learning
Competence comes from curiosity and willingness to work, not prior knowledge. Admit what you don't know. Find the answer. That matters more than any certification. The people who scale fastest aren't the ones who know everything. They're the ones willing to learn anything.
3. Trust the Journey
Your career reveals itself through attention to meaningful work and impact. Not through predetermined planning. I didn't wake up knowing I wanted to be a Director. I woke up wanting to help. The rest followed.
The Thing No One Tells You
Technical excellence alone doesn't scale organizations. You need to design for adoption. You need to understand change management as a discipline, not an afterthought. The most brilliant solution fails if people don't believe in it or understand why it matters.
I learned this the hard way. But learning it early made everything after it possible.
Community Over Credentials
The people who helped me weren't always the most experienced. They were the ones who trusted me when I doubted myself. Who answered questions instead of making me feel small for asking. Who showed me that collaboration and mentorship accelerate growth exponentially.
Find those people. Become those people.
The Bottom Line
You don't have to have it figured out. You just have to start.
And then show up, ask questions, focus on impact, and let the trajectory reveal itself.
More women need to be in construction technology. More women need to believe that their thinking matters in spaces that haven't always made room for it. If you're reading this and thinking "I'm not ready yet"-good. You're not supposed to be. Nobody is. Start anyway.
