Lisa Frisbie said she was a bit naive about the gender gap in construction before she joined the industry. She noticed the disparity immediately.
“I'd go to a golf tournament, there'd be 200 men and three women,” said Frisbie, vice president of member services for the Associated General Contractors of Massachusetts.
But the thing that most surprised Frisbie, then the director of marketing and communications, was discovering women in construction didn’t feel like they had support from each other.
“For me, that just hit home. How can this be? How is this possible?” Frisbie said.
In response, she gathered women with varying experience levels to form the chapter’s Building Women in Construction Committee to better figure out how to support them. After a decade of offering education, outreach and resources to women in construction, the group recently formed a mentorship program.
Guiding through mentorships
The Build Her Mentorship program, running from September to next June, paired 30 women, grouped by shared experiences such as being women of color or members of the LGBTQ+ community, Frisbie said.
From there, program organizers encouraged the mentors and mentees to meet separately before the committee held an event to coach and guide them for the coming months.
“We conducted a workshop for both the mentees and the mentors. And we've created this framework for them to follow. So they have the tools and resources they need to conduct a very organized, a very thoughtful program throughout the year,” Frisbie said.
With check-ins in January and in the spring, the committee will seek to ensure that participants continue to get the most out of their experience.
Kimberly Joyce, a senior project manager for Holliston, Massachusetts-based contractor Colantonio, said she joined the program as a mentor when she received an email and thought “Why not?”
A 36-year veteran of the industry, Joyce said the treatment of women in construction is “radically different” from when she started.
“It doesn't phase most supers now that their PM is a woman. Back in the day nobody listened to anything I said,” Joyce told Construction Dive. “Initially it didn't phase me because I didn't really think about it, and then all of a sudden I was like, ‘Huh, I get it now.’ But it's definitely much more inclusive, much more inviting.”
Rita Donayre Iturri, founder and president of Boston engineering services firm General Profesional Services, as well as Joyce’s mentee, said she joined the Build Her Mentorship program because she needed someone with more experience to turn to for advice professionally and personally.
“I have learned so far that I can add significant value in the construction industry with the union of different cultures and different methods that I learned in my professional experience in Peru, Spain and the U.S., and with the guidance of my mentor we are working to improve some methods in the industry,” Donayre Iturri said.
Although the mentorship program is still nascent, Joyce said she hopes it will help the mentees grow to be more comfortable and to know they have support.
“I think that if these younger people feel comfortable and confident, then it will just naturally pass on to other people and it will get passed down to younger people,” Joyce said.
