A Mexican American and the daughter of immigrants, Lorena Carrillo always looked up to her parents—admiring their work ethic and striving to make them proud in everything she did. But she didn’t know exactly what it was she wanted to do.
Today she is a senior project engineer at Skanska, but growing up in Long Beach, California, Carrillo was a regular high-school student trying to find her way. When it was time to graduate and attend college, she says, “I initially thought I wanted to do healthcare.” But first impressions aren’t always correct. When Carrillo sought out a way to help pay her tuition expenses, it was actually her mother who opened the door for her into the construction industry when she helped Carrillo secure a position as a receptionist at a small general contracting firm. After just two weeks, the director invited her to assist on a project “and I fell in love with it,” says Carrillo. “So, I just stopped healthcare and shifted my career goals over to construction.”
“Construction’s not an easy job, but I love a challenge,” says Carrillo, who dove headfirst into her new role with the construction firm. She helped coordinate communications between vendors, contractors and subcontractors regarding projects her company had out to bid and led document-control efforts. “I was, at the time, a very shy person,” she says. “I was scared to get on a phone call and just ask them for their time. It was a big challenge for me to get out of my shell.” Despite initial intimidation while working amongst mainly male colleagues, she grew more comfortable with her role in construction and wanted to further her newfound skills.
QUARTER-LIFE QUESTIONS
When she was 25, Carrillo decided to venture out into the field—on the jobsite that is. “I wanted to see what it was like at another, smaller company that focuses on one trade,” she says. “So, I experimented with the subcontractor side and discovered I liked it. I liked the volume of work. I liked the networking, I liked working with the superintendents, but I still wasn’t getting the field exposure—that’s where my curiosity hit.”
Curiosity and fate collided, because at that same time, Carrillo was contacted by a recruiter for Skanska. “Out of the blue they called me,” she says. After a preliminary interview, Carrillo could feel how supportive and in alignment Skanska was with her goals. They would help her through school for construction management, expose her to the field and eventually guide her to her dream of becoming a project manager. “I was extremely blessed,” she says.
Despite how blessed Carrillo felt, she still faced challenges—one of the toughest being the doubt placed upon her as a woman in the industry.
“It was a lot of doubt that I would get from contractors and subcontractors when I would call and ask them a question or give them an order,” she says. “They’d ask to speak with my boss, who was a man. So, that was a challenging part, but as I’ve grown in the industry, I’m glad to say that’s changed. On my first project with Skanska, the trailer was full of women. I’m starting to see women as executives. We can talk about how proud we are of how far we’ve came and no longer have to worry about making a statement.”
In addition to the importance of shrinking the gender gap is work-life balance and, so, in addition to being a powerful woman in trades, Carrillo has also been a bodybuilder in her free time for nearly a decade.
BEAUTY IN STRENGTH
Having proven herself with Skanska for three years now, Carrillo has settled comfortably into her role, but she is still seeking out new ways to challenge herself. Applying the work ethic taught by her parents, combined with the support from her company and coworkers, she took to the stage last year for her first ever bodybuilding competition.
“I had the courage finally this year to step on stage,” she says. “It’s such a time-consuming hobby, and Skanska gave me the ability to create a work-life balance. They understood that this was something that I wanted to take on and they accepted it and supported me.”
Carrillo’s parents also acknowledge their daughter’s hard work over the years, cheering her on at competitions and bragging to their friends about her career in construction.
“Just having that,” she says, “knowing that they’re proud of me being here, it gives me so much motivation and it shows me that I can do it as long as I put all my effort into it.”
Although doubted by others on her career journey, never once did Carrillo doubt herself because of her being a woman. Because of that belief, combined with the inspiration of her parents and the support of her company, she has conquered every challenge and accomplished every goal she set out to so far.
Looking ahead, Carrillo is eager to continue her work in the field and in the gym. She hopes she can be an inspiration to other women coming up not only in the construction industry but in broader society.
“The message that I would like to get across is don’t give up regardless of how intimidating anything seems,” she says, “whether it’s construction or not, any other industry, bodybuilding or not, whatever it is that you come across. As long as we know that we are capable and we have a support system that motivates you and pushes you and allows you to experiment with the goals that you have, you can hit whatever it is that you’re aiming for.”
But looking back, she has some advice for little Lorena:
“To be patient and not to feel like I need to hurry up and figure my life out. I was really hard on myself because I had friends graduating from college, I had friends who had their career. But I am glad that I got to experiment with what I love to do before I committed a hundred percent. The fact that I decided to go down this route and be patient with my choices, I feel like that’s what little Lorena should know is just be patient.”
SEE ALSO: HOW TO SUCCEED IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: A PERSPECTIVE FROM A FEMALE GENERAL CONTRACTOR
