All-Female Construction Team Behind National Park

AN ALL-FEMALE construction team is behind one of San Francisco’s largest new land projects.

The Presidio Tunnel Tops project contains 5.6 hectares of new national parkland with views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco.

The park will contain overlooks, gardens, and a welcome plaza with both food stations and visitor services as well as dedicated areas for campfires and picnics.

The construction crew for the park has ended up being all women.

“There were no mandates for us to have an all-female team, it just kind of evolved, really,” design manager Noreen Murphy Hughes told the Bold Italic.

“All of us play off each other very well, and it’s a true collaboration — no one feels like they can’t ask questions, bounce off ideas, or feel at all intimidated if they need to get information from someone else on the team.”

The number of women in the construction industry has actually reached a twenty-year high this year.

“It was pretty rare for a woman to be working on the estimation sides of construction in the 1980s, but that’s changing,” notes Paula Cabot, the senior project manager for the Presidio Tunnel Tops.

While the number of women entering the field is encouraging, if we continue at the current rate the women won’t be equal to men in construction until 2194.

This week is “Women in Construction Week”, meant to celebrate and encourage women joining the industry.

“I think it would be wrong of me to say it isn’t a male dominated industry, and there will probably always be a gender imbalance due to the nature of it. But that shouldn’t dissuade anyone from taking on the challenge,” Hayley Chilton, a senior site manager, told Stourbridge News.

The UK construction industry currently has a massive shortage of skilled workers. 182,000 engineers alone are needed every year to fill the gap.

Encouraging women into the field is not only good for equality, but sorely needed for the economy.

Until then, happy coincidences like the all-female team behind Presidio Tunnel Tops should be celebrated.