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2019 WIC Week: Women building innovation through education

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Raven Wiley, pictured here on the roof of Kilgore College’s B.E. Masters Gymnasium.

For this year’s Women in Construction Week (WIC Week), we’re exploring the many ways in which women build innovation at McKinstry. For Raven Wiley (pictured above), education has been key to developing her career. Raven is currently a commissioning intern in our Dallas office through McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Internship Program, and she’s studying Instrumentation & Electrical Technology at Kilgore College while also working on McKinstry’s energy efficiency project at the very same college.

We recently spoke to Raven about her internship, what drew her to McKinstry, what it’s like to be a woman in construction, and much more. Here are excerpts from that interview:

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My journey from intern to employee

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mills_andreaHello! My name is Andrea Mills and I’m a recent college graduate from Gonzaga University. I came to McKinstry for an internship with the Enterprise Sales and Marketing team. I wanted to gain more experience and learn about the built environment. I’d always had an interest in buildings and the people who build them, but I never really knew where to start.

Thankfully, my internship helped me decide where to go and how to get there. In fact, I was promoted at the end of my internship—I’m now a business operations coordinator for our Seattle-based Energy team.

Over the course of my internship, I developed my marketing skills and began to wrap my head around the construction industry. I tackled many different kinds of projects: Polishing employee resumes, creating marketing materials and even conducting marketing research on solar power. I found the B.L.U.E. Program to be the best kind of trial and error—it was helpful to figure out my strengths and weaknesses and find out what I’m passionate about as an intern. Now I can apply and act on that knowledge as an employee.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Griffin Small (Seattle)

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Hello! My name is Griffin Small and I spent the summer of 2018 working as a construction project engineer intern at McKinstry’s Seattle headquarters. Primarily, I’ve been working on the Central Kitsap High School/Middle School jobsite.

Griffin Small.

Griffin Small.

Learning was my biggest takeaway from this summer—lots and lots of learning. Before I dive into that, though, I’ll introduce myself a little. I was born and raised in Edmonds, Wash. and am currently attending Saint Martin’s University in Olympia, Wash. I’m a rising senior majoring in mechanical engineering. I’m also a soccer player and a goalkeeper (any other goalkeepers should feel free to reach out, we’re a dying breed)!

As you can probably tell from my photo, I’m also a full-on ginger (red hair and freckles, if you were unfamiliar with the term), so other gingers please feel free to reach out as well—we’re also a dying breed. Being an athlete and an engineering student simultaneously has been a tremendous challenge. Learning to manage my time playing soccer and traveling while also keeping with my studies has been tough, but I think it will help me in real-life situations as I get older.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Tessa Weiss (Golden, Colo.)

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Hello! My name is Tessa Weiss and I’m a rising junior studying Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This summer, I’ve had the opportunity to intern as an energy engineer with McKinstry’s Colorado team.

Tessa Weiss.

Tessa Weiss.

I’ve always been interested in sustainability and energy, and McKinstry intrigued me because the company sees many of its projects through its entire life-cycle—from development to design to construction to commissioning and measurement and verification. As an energy engineer, knowing that my work is actually helping to make an impact at increasing the energy efficiency of buildings is a powerful feeling.

One of the first words I think of when I think of McKinstry is implementation; this is in part because of their ability to design, construct and verify the project all under the same roof. McKinstry doesn’t just sit around and hypothetically talk about how to increase the efficiency of buildings—they actually design, construct and verify a more efficient built environment.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Sara Berry-Maraist (Spokane)

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Hello! My name is Sara Berry-Maraist, and spending my summer as a project design engineer intern in McKinstry’s Spokane, Wash. office has been a wonderful experience. I graduated from Gonzaga University (also located in Spokane) in the spring of 2018, and interning at McKinstry has made for a smooth life transition.

Sara Berry-Maraist.

Sara Berry-Maraist.

Everyone has been so welcoming and—even when I ask questions multiple times—I always get nothing but positive responses. I’ve wanted to work at McKinstry since I toured the office in 2017 and working here has exceeded my already-high expectations. Even as an intern, I’ve felt like an important part of the company—doing real work and not stereotypical tasks like getting coffee and making copies.

This summer, I’ve worked on a variety of projects from smaller Seattle projects to significantly helping design the zero energy Catalyst Building in Spokane. Recently, I’ve done a lot of load calculations and duct static pressure calculations. I think my favorite activity, though, is designing in Revit—a building information modeling software. The only modeling software I learned in college was a different one called SolidWorks, so learning Revit and expanding my skillset was important for me.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Rachel May (Seattle)

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Growing up near Seattle, and attending school in the city, I’m well-acquainted with the “Seattle Freeze,” and I’m regretfully complicit in perpetuating it most of the time. However, being part of the B.L.U.E. Program at McKinstry this summer has opened my eyes to the company’s unique people-first orientation. Everyone here smiles, waves and is almost always eager to start a conversation. McKinstry might be the friendliest company I’ve ever worked at.

Rachel May.

Rachel May.

This summer, I worked with the Brand Services/Communications team at McKinstry to create both internal and external communications. While I’ve been designing as a freelancer for people I know for quite a while now, this was my first taste of being a part of an in-house design process. Having an established process to request graphics and a whole team to support me ensured I stayed organized and hit all my deadlines to keep clients happy.

Starting at a new company is kind of like walking into a class that’s already in-session. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by not knowing the material and the culture of the room. However, having the resources and structure of the B.L.U.E. Program made transitioning into McKinstry feel more like walking into the classroom after just a summer away. All of the interns are in the same boat, which helped us become friends, grow as a team and build a central pool of knowledge.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Haley Hansen (Seattle)

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Haley Hansen.

Hello! I’m Haley Hansen and I’m a safety engineer intern at McKinstry through the B.L.U.E. Program this summer in Seattle. I’m originally from Bellevue, Wash. and was raised in Great Falls, Mont. I’m a rising senior studying Occupational Safety and Health at Montana Tech in Butte, Mont. and I also have an associate’s degree in Accounting Technology and Human Resources from Montana Tech.

I chose to work in Safety because of three reasons:

  1. The People. My passion in life is to be a support system for individuals and to work with others. Safety inspires me to make a difference, positively impact my community and provide a helping hand for those in need.
  2. The Company. Being a part of a company and its community drives me to help develop both the company and the employees around me every day. It also gives me an opportunity to influence the future of a company.
  3. Myself. I’m passionate about becoming a better person and serving others as well as I can.

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My B.L.U.E. Summer: Mac Cliff (Portland)

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Before I jump into what I’ve learned, what I’ve been working on and what my internship experience has been like thus far at McKinstry, I’d like to take a couple minutes to introduce myself. My name is Ivan Cliff, but most everyone knows me as Mac. My parents named me Ivan to keep the name in the family. I was born and raised in a little town called San Anselmo outside of San Francisco. Ever since I could walk, I’ve been riding a bike—at first around the local school yard and eventually out into the mountains.

Mac Cliff.

Mac Cliff.

I continued to race bikes through high school and the beginning of college, until I decided to ride as a hobby, not a sport. Throughout high school, I worked in a bike shop as a mechanic and that—combined with a passion for speed—is where I discovered my engineering intuition. Fast-forward to today and I’m entering my final year of the mechanical engineering program at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash.

I first heard about McKinstry from a friend who toured the Spokane office two years ago. I attended an open house at the Spokane office in the fall of 2017, and that boosted my interest in joining the McKinstry team. On May 15 of this year, I was thrilled to start work as a design project engineering intern in McKinstry’s Portland, Oregon office through the B.L.U.E. Program.

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A day in the life of a talent acquisition intern

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Georgia Riffle.

Hello! My name is Georgia Riffle and I’m the current talent acquisition intern here at McKinstry’s Seattle headquarters. I am a rising senior at The University of Washington, Tacoma studying Business Management and also working towards a Spanish Languages & Culture minor. Recently, I’ve been interested in Human Resource Management, specifically the acquiring of talent and employee development. Because of that, this internship has been a great learning experience that’s positioned me for helpful career exploration.

My passion is people—what motivates them, helping them find their purpose and finding their “why.” So while I’d like to explore a career in business, my true aspiration would be to someday be in a position of influence to drive a more effective, efficient and purposeful business. After all, what is a business without the people behind it?

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Year Two of B.L.U.E. at McKinstry

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Editor’s Note: B.L.U.E.—or Build, Learn, Understand and Enrich—represents the core tenets of McKinstry’s internship program: the B.L.U.E. Program. As a part of the program, we have asked our interns to share their backgrounds, their passions, their work, their lessons learned and their ideas for the future on the “B.L.U.E. Blog.” We launched the B.L.U.E. Blog on Spark in 2017, so Logan’s post about his second year of interning at McKinstry kicks off the second year of the blog’s existence.

Logan Bock.

Logan Bock.

In my second summer of being an intern at the McKinstry office in Golden, Colo., I have joined the construction team to further expand my knowledge and skillset. I have a “never say no” attitude about work, which has lead me to taking on many kinds of projects here at McKinstry. I have found myself outside of my comfort zone, which has pushed me to expand my skills.

For example, I have been challenged to develop my AutoCAD skills working on a project for the L.A. County School District. I have been using AutoCAD software to update project “as-builts” for three different schools. While I learned this program in school, the type of tasks I have had to complete with the software have been different than what I learned in the classroom, which helps expand my skillset.

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