Women Taking Charge- Bring a Hard Hat!
Oct
11
Written by:
10/11/2010 11:32 AM
It’s pretty rare to see a woman on a construction site. The real estate and construction industries are heavily populated by males, which at times can prevent women from developing significant business relationships. According to the National Association of Women in Construction, women only make up about 10 percent of the overall construction industry work force. After attending a women’s luncheon in May, Lisa Ricciardi, a partner at Armao, Costa and Ricciardi, and her colleague Sheri Best of Pier Head Associates, wanted to attend additional networking events where they could meet other leading women in the industries they service, but couldn’t find such events. After speaking to many women in the industry, they realized there was a general sense of frustration at the lack of networking opportunities with their peers, especially in today’s challenging times. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics., employment in construction is expected to increase 19 percent through the year 2018, which means an increase in jobs for women in construction as well. Additionally, with the economy making its way out of this recession, there will be a greater demand for real estate specialists. This drove Lisa and Sheri to create a dynamic event to keep women in the industry empowered to lead and succeed in their fields, with the main goal of providing a comfortable environment to promote business development for women in these industries. Connecting successful women with one another will help them to gain invaluable business relationships, allowing them to advance in their fields and continually gain experience and confidence in their business development efforts.
Lisa and Sheri connected with NEW - Nontraditional Employment for Women. NEW offers a free six-week program which prepares women for high-paying union careers in the construction, transportation, facilities maintenance, green and energy industries.
Word of this unique event quickly spread, and the First Lady of New York State, Michelle Paige Patterson, recently signed up to attend and agreed to open the event with a few remarks. Proceeds from the event will be donated to NEW to help keep the program going. The program will take place on October 19th at the Haworth NY showroom in Manhattan from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. For more information or to register, contact April DelliFranci at adellifranci@acrcpa.com.