{"id":8482,"date":"2022-03-02T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T23:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/?p=8482"},"modified":"2022-03-02T15:01:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T23:01:00","slug":"rudolph-sletten-project-exec-says-women-in-construction-can-pave-their-own-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/rudolph-sletten-project-exec-says-women-in-construction-can-pave-their-own-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Rudolph & Sletten project exec says women in construction can ‘pave their own way’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is one in a series of conversations with women leaders in the construction industry.\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0for past conversations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kelli Quinn, senior project executive at Rudolph & Sletten, has worked in construction for nearly 30 years. She currently leads many high-profile commercial projects in the San Francisco Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here, Quinn talks with Construction Dive about her career choices, her favorite projects and the importance of finding a mentor.<\/p>\n

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: What do you do in your current job?<\/h4>\n

KELLI QUINN:<\/strong> My key role is overseeing project teams and providing leadership and mentorship. I provide leadership both internally and externally to support our clients\/owner, design teams, our subcontractors and project team end users.\u00a0I also assist with business development by maintaining a connection with business relationships I have developed.\u00a0I also support and lead teams through project pursuits. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What led you to choose construction for your career?<\/h4>\n

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and I watched the suburb build up (more like explode) around me.\u00a0I started Iowa State University in the Engineering College and spent my first two years undecided in what engineering degree I would focus on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Kelli Quinn
\nPermission granted by Rudolph & Sletten<\/p>\n

I am not one that doesn’t like having a lack of direction, so I spent those first two years in college using the career center, talking to various professors and attending career fairs to help me narrow down my focus.\u00a0It didn’t help that Iowa State had 16 engineering degrees to choose from.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

By the end of my sophomore year, I focused and narrowed my path to the Civil and Construction Engineering department.\u00a0I declared Construction Engineering with a building focus when I started my junior year in college. I knew I was really excited about construction when I went on my first tour of a high-rise building under construction in Des Moines.<\/p>\n

I do have a confession:\u00a0one of the reasons I was so late to declare my engineering focus was that my Dad was hoping I would go into computer engineering.\u00a0My Dad knew there were so many career opportunities in computers, but I didn’t find joy in coding or the computer field.\u00a0So I was hesitant to declare construction engineering as my major since construction wasn’t a traditional career for women in the early 90s.\u00a0I was blazing a new trail that I wasn’t sure my parents would support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My parents did support my decision, but they didn’t really understand my choice to pursue a career in construction until they visited my first project out of college.\u00a0It took a tour to my first project under construction for my parents to understand my passion for solving problems and how rewarding it was to see how our team’s efforts produced something tangible.\u00a0My first project out of college was to work on a new hospital project in Fremont, California.\u00a0It was very satisfying to build a project to bring new health services to a growing community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What are a few of the projects you’ve most enjoyed working on and why?<\/h4>\n

This is a tricky question to answer since I have enjoyed all of my projects for very different reasons.\u00a0Building healthcare projects has proven very rewarding personally.\u00a0I have worked on three hospital projects in my career, each very rewarding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there is one hospital project in particular I found to be my favorite:\u00a0Kaiser Santa Clara Hospital in Santa Clara, California. That hospital was built in two phases over five years.\u00a0I was the project manager responsible for both phases of construction.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Kaiser is a great client that really appreciated the work we were doing on site.\u00a0The entire project team had great work chemistry and worked well together to deliver a great building.\u00a0We really developed trust with the client, designers, subcontractors and built a great building for the community.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I visited the hospital recently. I loved a chance to see this hospital building being put thorough its paces so many years after we completed it, and see the building support the community.<\/p>\n

Another project that I really enjoyed working on was challenging for many different reasons.\u00a0The client was a large confidential high-tech company that wanted a trophy legacy building in the Silicon Valley.\u00a0I was never one in my career looking for that “next big project,” but the challenges this project presented did intrigue me.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Due to the project size and scale combined with the highest quality standards I\u2019ve ever encountered, this was by far the most challenging project of my career to date. As one of the project executives, I was responsible for the kitchens, cafeteria and dining area build-outs. It was more than 200,000 square feet.\u00a0My scopes were the first areas completed and set the tone for delivering a design that demanded perfection. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to young women considering construction as a career?<\/h4>\n

I would strongly encourage women to consider a career in construction.\u00a0Especially today, since the number of women in the construction industry has tripled since I started my career in 1993.\u00a0My advice to all women going into the construction industry is that you can pave your own way.\u00a0Don\u2019t feel like you have to be restrained and stay within a box.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Women are very respected are treated as equals in this industry.\u00a0But you do have to stand on your own and find your people. I spent the first 20 years of my career where my mentors and role models were men because that is what I had available to me as I grew my career.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I love now that there are so many women in the industry as strong women role models, especially in the mid-level and senior-level leadership ranks.\u00a0When I say “find your people,”\u00a0I would advise reaching out beyond your company and developing professional relationships with other women in this community.\u00a0These relationships will help to create a strong community of women in the construction industry and provide that mentorship we don\u2019t always know we needed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This item was originally posted here: Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is one in a series of conversations with women leaders in the construction industry.\u00a0Click here\u00a0for past conversations. Kelli … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1066,457],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-posts","category-construction-dive","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}