Women in Construction Week 2024
This year’s Women in Construction Week theme – ‘Keys to the Future’ – celebrates the strength and knowledge of women and the vital role they play in shaping the future of the construction industry. Our owner, Cassie Carter, shares her thoughts on women’s roles and opportunities in the construction industry.
Owner, Cassie Carter, at Site Development Project in Temple, Texas
Do you think of women when you think of construction?
As the daughter of a sole-proprietor who owned and operated a dump truck business as a young man, hauling dirt and base materials for a living; and the granddaughter of a man who helped lead and design the construction of my hometown’s public infrastructure – seeing women in construction was not something I experienced, but was also never excluded from.
As a young girl I was welcomed and encouraged in both the City Hall office building and the dump truck cab – (Where on one instance I crawled up into the truck alone as a toddler, the truck started rolling and my dad had to chase us down and jump in to stop us!). Entrepreneurship, service, and handling any situation in a labor field or business situation was the work happening around me as the only daughter on both sides of our family.
My professional career began far from the construction site, but rather in a call center where I gained sales and finance experience as a loan officer. From there, I learned the marketing and business development sides of the real estate and construction industries through management roles with a national homebuilder and a well-known property developer in southeast Texas. Little did I know, these jobs were preparing me for a future in construction.
Considering my own experience and others around me, I see women in construction entering our teams through unique routes. Coming into construction management from the ‘ground up’ or as a ‘laborer’ is a worthy and admirable path. It is not the only way.
Women enter construction teams with experience in accounting, sales, customer service, office and administrative roles, creative backgrounds and beyond. This brings a specialized and professional perspective that is healthy for our teams and clients to experience. Our company in particular finds success and differentiates ourselves because of the breadth of knowledge and attention to detail our women bring to the table.
After a decade gaining experience in business development and management, starting a family and being an owner on the sidelines, I joined our AO SERVICES’ Executive team at the beginning of 2022. Since then, we have professionalized, hired upper management, evolved from a 2-man operation into a full-service construction firm of 39 team members, hit bold revenue targets and adapted when we didn’t, maneuvered a successful company-wide restructure and rebrand, and earned a reputation of being a dedicated construction partner in Central Texas. All due to the combined efforts of a team committed to winning together, and a partner in my husband that is not built to quit.
I believe that women and men contribute in complementary ways, not competing. We do not hire a woman or allow her to lead because she is female, or because it will make us appear diverse – We value our women because they have earned their place and contributed increasingly and uniquely. It would be an insult to celebrate otherwise.
When I think of Women in Construction, I do not see it as a novelty or a requirement to be checked. Women in construction are a necessity.
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This conversation will be continued with two notable areas for opportunities of improvement:
1) Gender-assumptions: As a ‘Woman in Construction’ I have been assumed to be the “Office Secretary” (not my term but theirs) on several occasions, as well as “office help” or “organizer of the books” – each of these roles vital yet assumed to one gender.
2) Women Owned Business (WBE) status approvals: Our company and myself have been denied by the City of Austin as a “Women Business Enterprise.” Although I take on the full risk and expense of owning our business as well as exercising control over the firm’s operations, hiring and management - The government would take my house if I did not pay our business taxes, but they have not provided our firm a WBE status. Neither my husband nor I yield a shovel in the field, yet because I do not, I am assumed to “rely on my husband” to get our work done; therefore, our team made of up a majority of minorities, do not reap the benefit of jobs earned from a WBE status.
In closing, my hope is for more women to experience the encouragement and propping-up that the men in my life have provided. In a week of celebrating the women, I tip my hardhat to both the men and women that have labored alongside me.
