Construction Monthly Magazine | Tampa 2024 Build Expo Show Edition

UNLOCKING
OPPORTUNITIES
Bridging the Gap for
Women in Construction
BY CHRISTINE FERRY
SUPERINTENDENT / CONSTRUCTION SERVICES INC. OF TAMPA
The Tampa Chapter of NAWIC, National Association
of Women in Construction, is happy to share some
interesting information on our organization and
construction industry trends.
NAWIC was originally founded in 1953 in Ft Worth, TX,
by women who wanted to support one another in a male
dominated construction industry. There is power when we
stand together and support one another! Our Tampa Chapter
began in 1960 and has been led by many prominent Tampa
Area women through the years.
Currently our Tampa Chapter is working on continuing our
outreach to potential new members, strategic partnerships
and community organizations. We also focus a lot of planning
and effort towards a week in March that we celebrate
Women In Construction, called WIC Week. The 2024 dates
are March 4 to March 8th, 2024.
What does NAWIC “really” do?
NAWIC provides support and means needed (for
women in the construction industry) to develop
leadership skills through:
• Professional Education & Personal Growth
• Becoming Involved with the Community
• Tremendous Networking Opportunities
We will be doing different activities throughout the week,
in the Tampa area. We will focus our events on Professional
Development, building a home with Habitat For Humanity of
Hillsborough County, becoming more familiar with hand &
power tools as well as connecting with the design community
in Tampa and increasing our heavy equipment knowledge!
Our web site is being updated and should have all the
information available in February for people wanting to join
us in celebrating Women In Construction!
Our Chapter was invited to attend a Professional day with
Hillsborough County Schools earlier this year. During the
presentation, I was able to interact with Instructors from local
schools that taught construction, design, plumbing, welding,
electrical classes, and other trades. The most discussed
topic was “Why aren’t more females taking their classes?”
At that point I could only speak to my personal experience
as I had no data to back up any of my perceptions. We
discussed several things like perhaps females felt it is a male
dominated area and they may not feel welcome or perhaps
they anticipated discrimination or harassment. The discussion
sparked an interest in me to search out answers to their
questions. They were very passionate about their trades,
very aware of the shortage of tradespeople and wanted to
encourage females to join the construction industry in Tampa.
My First NAWIC Annual Conference
Only a few weeks after the presentation I was able to attend
my first NAWIC Annual Conference being held that year in
Portland, OR. Wouldn’t you know one of the many excellent
classes being provided at the conference was “In Her Own
Words”, a research report done in May 2023 from the NCCER
(National Center for Construction Education and Research). I
was overjoyed to finally see a research study on the topic!
What I learned was the reasons women do enter the
construction industry is mainly to make money and that
usually there is a pre-existing family background in the
industry, which made perfect sense to me as my Father David
Lawson is an Architect and General Contractor and I learned
the industry from him starting at around age five when he
asked me hold the measuring tape at a project site he was
working on. My curiosity took flight from there!
According to the report, women perceived that there are
unlimited opportunities in the construction industry, there
were many training programs available and Site Leadership
was also possible. Many women felt they carried more
childcare responsibilities and the inflexible hours and the
physically demanding work impacted their choices.
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