Conference looks to build up girls’ interest in construction
Karla Cedillo walked into Thursday’s She Builds Houston construction conference expecting to hear mostly from men, a reasonable assumption given that men are about 90 percent of the industry’s workforce.
Instead, Cedillo, a senior at Aldine Senior High School, found dozens of women employed by some of the city’s leading construction companies, who implored her and about 1,000 other girls to consider careers in the fast-growing and well-paying industry. Donning a yellow vest and sticker-dotted hard hat, Cedillo learned about opportunities in the industry from female professionals before grabbing a DeWalt screw gun and getting tips on hanging drywall.
“That was a moment, a time in my life, when I thought girls can do anything,” said Cedillo, who aspires to become an architect or interior designer. “They have inspired me to actually follow my dreams, to do what I want to do, that the sky is the limit.”
As the construction industry seeks to replace an aging workforce and diversify its mostly male ranks, dozens of local employers met with Aldine ISD middle and high school girls at the region’s first She Builds Houston conference, aiming to inspire the next generation of construction employees.
Armed with power tools and stories of accomplishment, women from across the construction industry received a rare opportunity to interact with girls who typically shy away from the trades. After hearing from four female
leaders in the field, students outfitted in construction gear ventured to the M.O. Campbell Education Center parking lot to hammer nails into 2-by-4s, pose in the driver’s seat of a skid-steer loader and watch a laser-cutter trim wood.
The event, hosted by the Construction Career Collaborative and the National Association of Women in Construction, is believed to be the region’s largest all-female gathering of students and prospective employers in the industry.
“For construction, this is a first in the city of this magnitude,” said Angela Robbins, the collaborative’s associate director. “The field is so ripe for this.”
While industries across the country have fostered greater gender equity in recent decades, careers in construction remain dominated by men. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 1.1 million women work in the construction industry, compared with 10.1 million men.
For many women in construction, shrinking the wide gulf entails educating young girls about the growing opportunities in the industry — from sales to management to laborer — and the possibility of family-sustaining wages. Construction employees earn a median salary of roughly $46,000, with the number of available jobs expected to increase by 10 percent over the next decade, according to federal data.
“There’s diverse opportunities within construction. It’s not just being out on the job site,” said Crystal Seiler, a professional services team manager for TDIndustries, a 2,700-employee company with offices in Arizona and Texas. “For a lot of us that are in the construction industry, we were exposed to it at some point in our lives. For many of these girls, that’s not the case, so it’s nice to show them there are options.”
In recent years, Texas legislators have enacted laws and allocated money designed to prepare more students for careers after high school, even if they are not college-bound. The Texas Education Agency rewards districts and schools under the state academic accountability system for each student who receives an industry certification or completes courses aligned with a certification. In addition, lawmakers voted this spring to give more funds to districts that successfully prepare students for college, a career or the military.
Aldine, one of the region’s highest-poverty districts, has taken advantage of that framework. Nearly 20 percent of its Class of 2018 graduates finished classes aligned with a certification, a key reason why the district’s academic accountability rating jumped from a C grade to B this year.
Robert Thomas, a career and technical education program director for Aldine, said events such as She Builds Houston help the district expand students’ horizons, particularly for middle school students. He noted that construction rarely is on the minds of Aldine’s girls in eighth grade, when the district’s students start formally plotting out career pathways ahead of high school.
“I just hope they get a spark, they get a chance to witness something and say, ‘I didn’t know a young lady could do that,’ ” Thomas said.
Robbins said construction companies face challenges in reframing ideas about the industry, shifting away from the image of men laboring under hot, dirty conditions. As a result, employers and industry advocates are engaging in more outreach to school-age girls, Robbins said.
“Getting women involved and excited has to happen early,” said Robbins, who plans to expand the conference to additional districts next year. “We have to convince them it’s a great opportunity, we need to convince their parents, and we need to get them enrolled in the programs so they’re ready and prepared for us.”
Like many girls at Thursday’s conference, Jocelyn Zarazua, a senior at Aldine’s Blanson CTE High School, has a family lineage of construction: Her father is a manager for a small foundation company. On trips to job sites, Zarazua said, she has seen a woman working only once — a trend she hopes to break.
“I want to, right away, get a job in this career and then also be in a university,” said Zarazua, who plans to specialize in machining. “It brings me joy to be here. I feel better about myself. I see opportunities for me.”