Women in Construction 🚧 This week is Women in Construction Week , and I am loving the support I’m seeing. Co-workers. Colleagues. Contractors. Even strangers. During a time when skilled tradesworkers are in high demand, women have an incredible opportunity to step into careers that are not only meaningful but also lucrative. Careers where the pay rate is nearly equal. Careers where advancement is absolutely possible. Careers where you can build something real, every single

Small Town Buildings As I travel across Texas evaluating and consulting on historic buildings, I see the same thing over and over: many towns have a self-esteem problem. Not on a personal level, but as a town. How a community sees itself can make or break its economic development—and in some cases, its ability to survive. Telling business owners to fill vacant buildings or creating yet another “development plan” doesn’t do much more than telling someone with low self-esteem t

In the trades, the crew you work with can make or break your experience. A good crew feels like family. A toxic crew feels like a hazard—physically, mentally, and professionally. And too many tradeswomen learn the hard way that some jobs should’ve been passed on from the start. These are the red flags you should watch for before you ever set foot on the jobsite.

He (and sometimes she) shows up on the jobsite, in your inbox, or even in your comment section with one goal: to make you look and feel inferior. He’ll try to paint you as the “crazy emotional woman” who doesn’t belong on the crew. He’ll try to drag you into arguments online so he can twist your words and make you look like the problem. You’re not alone — and you’re not powerless. The key is learning how to recognize a narcissist’s tricks and quietly pop that ego bubble witho

As a woman in the trades for over 30 years and a mentor to other women in male-dominated industries, I understand that most of these groups