With women comprising only 10 percent of people working in construction, it may seem difficult for young, female professionals entering the construction field to find their voice.
That’s why Kathryn Hart, a 2016 alumna from the Myers-Lawson School of Construction, a joint venture between the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and the College of Engineering, created Space to Build, an online community for women in construction to network, share, and grow with each other.
Space to Build brings its community together through various platforms including an active Instagram page of nearly 1,000 followers. It also features a podcast that has been downloaded and streamed in 22 different countries and features weekly interviews and casual discussions with women in the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction.
“Women on construction sites can easily feel isolated and miss having another woman to go to for advice or support,” Hart said. “That is not to say we don’t appreciate our male co-workers who have supported and mentored us because we do. There are just situations where having another female’s perspective makes more sense.”
Space to Build provides resources for young female professionals in construction. They learn from other professionals who share their experience with difficult or unexpected situations in the field. The community also celebrates each other’s victories and accomplishments like earning internships and developing female-positive curriculums about construction for parents to share with their children.
Growing and maintaining her community has not been easy as Hart juggles Space to Build along with her full-time job as a superintendent for a general contractor in Northern Virginia and as the Northeast Region Professional Development and Education Chair for the National Association of Women in Construction. However, she finds the spark of motivation to keep moving forward as she receives an influx of touching success stories from young women in the community who feel like they have been given permission to pursue the things that they’re interested in in the construction industry. Hart has always known the importance of peer support in construction ever since she was a student at Virginia Tech.
Much of Hart’s success is from the building construction program’s focus on collaboration. Projects and presentations from students are often reviewed by outside industry professionals, and underclassmen are encouraged to provide feedback on senior projects as well.
Hart parallels this collaborative attitude with how the construction field operates. Along with the abundant networking opportunities, Hart believes that this is what sets Virginia Tech’s construction program apart.
Hart’s bold ideas continue in Space to Build as she plans to expand and innovate in the near future with hopes of migrating her social media community to a new platform that will provide chat functionality and other opportunities for people to directly connect with each other. Expanding on the podcast, Hart is working to collaborate with other podcasters to produce a construction miniseries. Hart is also looking to host webinars and events with special guest speakers and panel discussions.
— Written by Jared Cole
