During Women in Construction Week 2023, Kahua has saluted several amazing females on our social media channels. They are all doing great work in a challenging industry, and we are proud to be doing business with them.
Today, we are highlighting Kahua’s very own senior solutions consultant Amy Glowczynski. She’s on the front line of so many of our customer conversations, and she has a stellar knack of demonstrating how our construction project management information system works and how it can quickly provide unrivaled value to projects.
Amy – who has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (construction engineering and management) from Purdue University and an MBA from Oakland University) – has worked in this field for more than 20 years for a builder and other PMIS providers. She said she discovered her passion for the technology side of the business about five years into her career when she began overseeing the project controls process and systems implementations.
In her role at Kahua, she advises current and prospective clients in all verticals of the construction industry. It’s not initially what she thought she’d be doing.
“I was always attracted to the physical nature of the work,” she said. “When deciding what engineering to choose, I knew I would be most happy out in the field, being able to see the actual progress of the work being done through the teamwork of everyone involved in the project.”
But then the fascinating aspect of how technology can impact the success of a project won her over.
“I always enjoyed the K-12 school projects I worked on,” she said. “Although they may not be the flashiest projects, it was so rewarding to know the impact that the projects would have on the children of the community, many of whom had not had new or renovated educational facilities in over 50 years.”
Her career choice was a little more novel 20 years ago than it is today, and she said she was fortunate right out of college to have a few female peers in the same role as her … project engineer.
“It made it easier to assimilate and learn the job, to be able to share experiences with them,” she said. “Day to day, though, I was usually one of the only women on the jobsite or in the meeting room. In speaking with other women over the years, we all just got so accustomed to this.
“It was when there happened to be another woman in the room that we were pleasantly surprised. I do believe the last few years that all of us have become more aware and sensitive to other perspectives and how inclusivity is so important.”
Amy said she doesn’t see innate advantages or disadvantages to being a woman in the construction industry. Man or woman, she said, we are all individuals with our own set of skills and talents, and it’s how you apply them that matters.
“This being said, I do think as a woman I had to be more assertive and felt I had to prove myself more quickly to be taken seriously by others in room, at times,” she said. “I have been very lucky through my career to have had leaders, both male and female, that believed in me and supported me along the way.”
And what’s her advice to young women considering construction as a career? One easy thing to do is become involved in organizations such as the National Association of Women in Construction who can help them connect with peers from the very beginning.
“Don’t be afraid to take a risk and follow a path into a traditionally male-dominated field,” she said. “Be confident, find your passion and let it drive you. If you find that your passion changes along the way, don’t be afraid of change.”
“As you move through your career, support other women around you. We may be smaller in numbers, but there is a great community of women growing by the day that will support you as well. Construction is a very small world, and you will find others with much in common with you.”
