‘Cool construction’ projects get girls looking at careers

Having a job in the construction industry can be a cool thing for girls. They just need to give it a try. That was the message from Stephanie Hintermeister of Bush Construction, who served as project coordinator of a special company event Saturday morning, March 8, in Davenport. That event – the Build Like A […]

Having a job in the construction industry can be a cool thing for girls. They just need to give it a try. That was the message from Stephanie Hintermeister of Bush Construction, who served as project coordinator of a special company event Saturday morning, March 8, in Davenport.

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That event – the Build Like A Girl workshop hosted by Bush Construction –  brought together 15 area Girl Scouts who were teamed up with volunteers from Bush to build birdhouses. This is the fifth year  Bush Construction, a design, development, and construction company headquartered at 5401 Victoria Ave., Davenport, has partnered to host the Build Like A Girl event. The event helped the scouts earn their woodworking badges and gave them some experience in reading blueprints and using tools, such as hammers, saws and drills. But the day’s main goal was to get the girls thinking about possible careers in construction with a tie-in to Women in Construction Week, which was observed from March 2-8. “I hope they get some confidence and see how cool construction is. I want them to see that they can do this on their own,” said Ms. Hintermeister. Currently, construction continues to be a male-dominated field. Women have about 14% of the construction jobs in the U.S. “Recent data show women’s employment in construction has seen a slight increase, indicating that possibilities, despite barriers, exist for women in the industry,” according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. On Saturday, though, the biggest barriers most of the girls were thinking about centered on taking a table filled with pieces of wood, blueprints and tools to create a small wooden birdhouse. (Those tables, tools, girls, parents and volunteers were all gathered at Bush Construction’s warehouse at 643 E. 59th St. in north Davenport.) “I’m here today to help out and volunteer. … I just want to get the Girl Scouts some help today,” said Duane Howell, a foreman at Bush and a first-time volunteer at the event. The build workshop began with Ms. Hintermeister giving the girls a pep talk to help get them in the mood for some birdhouse construction. “You have us to help you, but you are going to do all the work. … There’s lots of knowledge in this room this morning,” she told the young girls. After that initial talk, the scouts were each paired up with a volunteer as they started sawing, drilling, hammering and gluing pieces of wood together.  Many of the parents attending said they liked the event and agreed that it might help point the girls to careers in the construction field. “We like the girls to try new things, to get involved,” said Dawn Bos of Geneseo, Illinois, a leader with Troop 2448, and the mother of one of the Girl Scouts. (Her daughter, Allison, 13, was one of the first girls to finish her birdhouse Saturday.) Ms. Bos added that a few years ago, she took another daughter to the Build Like A Girl event. The event turned out to be very helpful to her because she gained the confidence to do other woodworking projects. Later on, that girl built a small lending library structure, Ms. Bos said. Allison said she enjoyed the birdhouse project because she has experience with building other structures. “I’ve built bat houses and duck houses before. … I’ve helped my dad and grandpa at home with projects. Today went pretty good,” she added. Kaelyn Ash, 13, of Geneseo, Illinois, was the first girl to finish her birdhouse. After getting the house built, she headed to the last table to put the finishing touches on the little house. (After building their birdhouses, the scouts could head to a paint table and put many colors of paint on the structures or to a table filled with small blowtorches for putting a burnt finish on the houses.) Kaelyn headed to the blowtorch table and gave her house a black and brown finish. “I liked it here today. …  I haven’t done this before, but I’ve done things like this,” she said. Ms. Hintermeister said she hopes the birdhouses will help guide the girls to many bigger things – like careers in construction.