When Sonia Telusnord first partnered with her husband in construction 16 years ago, she considered changing her last name in email signatures to squash any speculation around her skillset. “So people wouldn’t think I got here because of my husband, you know what I mean?” says Telusnord, co-founder and chief operations officer of Naples-based Vite Walls.

By developing Vite Walls with her partner, she used her background in nonprofits to help people, leave a legacy for her family and “shape a whole community,” she says. Still, the pressure to prove herself in a historically male-dominated industry was palpable.

“There was, in the beginning, a lack of respect,” Telusnord recalls. “But as soon as I opened my mouth and they knew I knew what I was talking about, we were on the same page.”

Nearly two decades later, Telusnord has noticed a shrinking gender gap in trades such as hers. “I am seeing a lot more women coming into this industry. Women are starting to realize there is more to construction than the labor and physical part of it. There’s a variety of industries you can land in construction and make a career out of it.”

The observation tracks. Florida has a higher count of women working in construction than other states, at 14.5%, according to a Fixr study. Overall, the industry has seen an increase in the number of women for the last 11 years, research shows.

And construction is not alone — according to women working locally in engineering and transportation, those are among the traditionally male trades that are becoming more appealing possibilities to women. These exemplars of an evolving workforce also discussed what factors are contributing to the change, and what’s needed to support a continued shift to focus on general capabilities rather than gender stereotypes.

Meeting Labor Market Needs

Baby boomers, who make up more than a third of the workforce, according to Pew Research, are heading toward retirement fast, so recruitment efforts may have expanded to meet the need for new workers.

Scotlynn USA, a transportation and logistics company based in Fort Myers, targets not just college students studying business or supply-chain logistics but also women’s and men’s athletic teams. According to a Catalyst report, the number of women employed in transportation was 24.6% of the 2022 total.

“Years ago, I think you’d see companies only go talk to the men’s teams about career opportunities. We don’t do that,” says Ryan Carter, Scotlynn USA president. “We’re more conscious of who we’re recruiting.”

While Carter said the company never targets gender specifically, he’s noticed more women have joined the company as a result of word-of-mouth marketing around what types of roles were possible.

“I think once we got some women here working for us and in the industry, word kind of gets out,” Carter says. “We’re seeing a lot more women interested in the field.”

That sentiment is echoed across other industries. For example, Suffolk, a national construction company with an office in Estero, educates women about its diverse positions. The company is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Million Women in Construction Community Pledge to attract more women to the field.

“It’s not just limited to being a project manager or a superintendent. There are really a lot of other opportunities available within our company, so it’s really creating that awareness,” says Diane Toll, director of people and culture at Suffolk.

That’s a keyword Telusnord also uses.

“We need more awareness,” she says. “Letting women know why we need women in these areas and how it’s beneficial to them and that they are able to do these jobs.”

Part of the process means making these jobs seem accessible to youth.

Suffolk starts early in introducing the next generation of women to roles within construction through a few avenues: teaming up with groups for mentoring, such as The Immokalee Foundation and Girl Scouts; and creating the Building Together construction and STEM-centered coloring and activity book for girls.

Elsewhere in Southwest Florida, efforts to entice growing minds into science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields are available. The Florida Gulf Coast University STEM Academy aims to expose students to opportunities in these careers. Then there is the Scientists’ Society of Southwest Florida, which provides support for programs such as Lee County STEM camps; and The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools Inc., which partners with several big-name businesses such as Arthrex, Lee Health and Southwest Florida International Airport for educational STEM initiatives.

These avenues reflect a greater trend. The number of women working in STEM grew at a faster rate than men from 2011 to 2021 — by 31% from 9.4 million to 12.3 million, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The rate of men working in STEM grew by 15%, from 19.7 million employed in that sector to 22.6 million.

However, Telusnord said she’d like to see more external training programs available to prepare people for trades and create a bigger pool of talent.

“Recruiting for skilled labor is very, very hard. I can’t put out an ad on these websites and say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for skilled people’ — they just do not come,” says Telusnord. “Unfortunately, there aren’t any training programs for skilled people.”

As a result, the business must “pay more for skilled people, or we pay less and we have to take the time to train them, which takes a while,” she adds.

Playing for Keeps

Suffolk has a professional skills development workshop to further uplift women within the company and provide paths to career advancement.

“This is one of the few companies out here that focuses so highly on their people,” says Gabriella DeLuca, assistant project manager at Suffolk. “You want to advance yourself in any which way? You go to your managers and higher-ups, and they’re going to help you. It is a huge initiative.”

That method worked for Tonya Gerard, Lee County Electric Cooperative supervisor of reliability/power quality. Passionate about technical work within the electrical engineering industry, she called upon her director for opportunities to mentor others, and ended up with the recommendation to move toward management.

“I went to who I thought could establish that path, which was my director. That person was very receptive to it and helped facilitate and encourage me, and now I’m being an encourager, which is what I wanted to do,” she says.

It’s integral for any industry to make opportunities for advancement well-known, as the job-hopping trend — leaving one job for another for better benefits and wage gains — continues throughout the U.S. About 4 million workers switched jobs each month from January to March 2022, according to Pew Research.

It’s a bonus when women can see people who look like them in power.

“Humans are inherently social beings with a need for belonging, and we can feel physical or emotional stress when we’re on the outside of what we call a dominant group,” says Amy Mulholland, licensed psychologist and co-director at Associates in Family Psychology. “When we’re in a like-minded group that shares core values or aspects of our identity, then we’re going to decrease anxiety and increase feelings of safety and well-being.”

For Gerard, who holds a master’s degree in math and leadership administration, becoming a leader in her field “meant proving I knew my stuff,” she says.

“I would never describe myself as being fearful, but there is a certain level of anxiety. I have that anxiety because I don’t want to have a misstep. Unfortunately for some demographics, [when you make a mistake], it might be amplified.” Gerard says. She also shared that women of color, such as her, only comprise 5.6% of engineering jobs.

For Lisa Branch, Suffolk project manager, having other women at work to chat with — whether it’s through the company’s women-centered events and resource groups or dedicated Microsoft Teams channel — has been a great benefit.

“I have a nice network that I call ‘a pod of ladies’ here that I can lean on and ask for advice. It definitely helps,” Branch says. “We all are at different life stages and cycles. We all have a different viewpoint on things, so when we’re having issues, whether it’s work-related or not, having that different way of seeing something and being able to relate to it is just a whole other level. It’s really nice to have that, especially in this industry.”

The better a business’ support for issues women may face in particular, the more secure women employees may feel about staying at that company or within male-dominated fields, where 28% of surveyed women said they experienced sexual harassment, according to MyPerfectResume.

Carter said Scotlynn offers care and training for women who may encounter a sexist service provider who is not directly employed by the company.

“We have some additional training on how to de-escalate some situations. Some of the truck drivers can get pretty unruly, and they treat women differently, for sure, and not in a good way,” he says. “I think we’ve done a good job of kind of setting expectations for the industry and how to handle these folks. And we are always here for support. We make sure we keep note of it for the future, because we don’t want to work with people like that.”

As the possibilities for women to enter and stay in traditionally male industries grow, so may mentorship efforts, a possibility for supporting others that excites several women joining these fields.

“My biggest goal in life is to be the best possible leader somebody can talk to,” DeLuca says. “I love helping people be the best version of themselves.”

Gerard’s pursuits paint a similar picture.

“I am passionate about sharing and encouraging,” she says. “My success is emboldened by those around me. The more successful we are as a unit, the more we can benefit from that.”