I hear from the women I work with who have been around in the field for about 20 years, and they say that things are changing, from their experience, on the job site. Where they used to be alone in the field as women, they are now seeing three or four women, maybe more. It depends. Some projects have more women than others, but certainly things are changing.
I think they could certainly change a lot more. I think the initial interest, for a lot of them, came from a family member who was already doing the trade. Now we're seeing some movement when we go in and do these presentations and go and talk to kids in schools. They do hands-on at the career fairs. You can see the light going on in their eyes when they see these women talking about their experiences in the trade. They're going, “Oh, that's cool. You can do that? Girls can do that? That's really cool.”
They don't know that there are all these different types of trades in construction. They have no idea. Just making sure that they're aware of all the opportunities and options for them is really helpful.