Women in AEC: Wine After Work

Barb Allen spent 20 years on commercial job sites, starting as a carpenter apprentice in 1997 and working her way up to superintendent. She was the first woman her company had ever hired out of college for that track. She left the built environment in 2022 after a meeting where leadership told her she was "difficult to work with," then admitted nobody could say how. That meeting became a book. In OneLadder to Leadership, Barb names four gender specific challenges as rungs on an unsafe ladder: missing, broken, sticky, and slippery. In this conversation she breaks down all four, tells the story of the day she stood up to a guy on her crew and changed how the whole site treated her, and explains why "are you the safety girl?" stopped making her blood boil once she figured out what to do with it. This one is for AEC leaders trying to understand why the women they hire don't stay, and for women in the industry who have been handed feedback that sounded like a suggestion and only later found out it was a requirement. About Barb Allen Barb Allen is a keynote speaker, author, and 20 year construction veteran who climbed from carpenter to project executive and operations director on projects including $100MM+ high rise towers. She holds a bachelor's degree in construction management and spent most of her career as a commercial job site superintendent before leaving the field in 2022 to speak and write full time. She is the author of OneLadder to Leadership and hosts the Constructive Behaviors podcast. She is most active on LinkedIn, and yes, she has opinions about golf. Website: https://constructionbarb.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/constructionbarb/ Book: https://www.amazon.com/ONE-LADDER-LEADERSHIP-everyone-ladder/dp/B0GT7MBTGS What We Cover Introduction and how Barb found construction management two majors and one near dropout into college Day one as a carpenter apprentice in January 1997, and the tool bags nobody told her to buy Why the hazing started three months in, not on day one The G.I. Jane moment with Don, and what changed on that site afterward Backstage support and why an apology after the meeting is not the same as backup during it The missing rung: why women get feedback that sounds like a suggestion Whether women leaders are as direct as men, and Barb admitting she was harder on the women who worked for her The broken rung: golf, hunting trips, and where sponsorship actually gets formed The sticky rung: how the industry misreads confidence, and the case for humility, curiosity, and collaboration The slippery rung: unconscious bias, "are you the safety girl?", and the response that actually lands The conversation that ended Barb's 20 years in the built environment Three types of firms when it comes to women, and what each one is getting wrong What Barb would tell a young woman walking onto her first job site Where to find Barb and closing thoughts Key Takeaways If your feedback to a woman on your team sounds like "maybe you could think about doing this differently," you have not given feedback. Direct and actionable, or it goes to the bottom of her list with everything else that is optional. Stop evaluating confidence by who speaks first and asks the fewest questions. Barb's reframe: humility, curiosity, and collaboration. The person willing to say "I don't understand that acronym" in a room of twenty is demonstrating leadership, not doubt. Backstage support is not support. If you apologize to her in the hallway after the meeting instead of speaking up in the meeting, you were part of it. Look at your leadership page. If you are hiring good women and none of them are on it, the problem is not your pipeline, it is how you are evaluating leadership. When someone assumes you are the safety girl, the win is not the comeback. It is leaving them aware enough to ask the next woman on site what she does instead of guessing. Resources + Links Barb's website: https://constructionbarb.com Barb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/constructionbarb/ OneLadder to Leadership on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ONE-LADDER-LEADERSHIP-everyone-ladder/dp/B0GT7MBTGS Constructive Behaviors podcast (Barb's show): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/constructive-behaviors/id1685754635 Mentioned in the episode: the movie G.I. Jane (1997)

Architecture is usually discussed as a service. A client has a need, a firm delivers a building, everyone moves on to the next project. Dr. Marwa Al-Sabouni makes a harder argument. She says the built environment is one of the strongest forces shaping whether people in a place trust each other, and that the consequences of getting it wrong can take generations to show up. She would know. Marwa is an architect based in Homs, Syria, who stayed through the war and wrote about what she was watching in real time. In this episode she and Bryce talk about how decades of zoning and redevelopment separated communities that had lived together, what she believes reconstruction actually requires, why identity and beauty are structural concerns rather than decorative ones, and what it means to keep practicing architecture in a place where the profession's stakes are impossible to ignore. This one is for architects, engineers, and firm leaders who want a bigger frame on what their work does after the ribbon is cut. It's also for anyone in AEC who has started to wonder whether the profession they trained for still means what they thought it meant. About Dr. Marwa Al-Sabouni Dr. Marwa Al-Sabouni is an architect, urban thinker, author, and international speaker based in Syria. She holds a PhD in architectural design and Islamic architecture, and her work brings together sociology, contextual and psychological analysis, and aesthetics to make the case for architecture as a society-making tool. She is the author of The Battle for Home (2016), Building for Hope (2020), and Mosque (2026), published internationally by Thames & Hudson, and a chapter-author in the Getty publication Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities (2022). Her writing has appeared in RIBA Journal, Architectural Review, Standpoint Magazine, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the ICRC Journal, Renovatio, Middle East Eye, and others. She received the Prince Claus Award in 2018, was named to the BBC 100 Women list in 2019, and won the World Monuments Fund Watch Award in 2023. The Battle for Home was named one of the Guardian's best architecture books of 2016, Prospect Magazine named her one of the top 50 thinkers in the world, and Architectural Digest listed her among the top contenders for the 2018 Pritzker Prize. Her TED talk has been viewed over a million times. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marwaalsabouni/?hl=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marwa-al-sabouni-44a07b21/ What We Cover Introduction and Marwa's background as an architect in Homs How the built environment shapes trust between neighbors What happened to Homs before the war, and what the design decisions had to do with it Writing The Battle for Home from inside the conflict Why identity, beauty, and belonging are structural concerns and not decorative ones What real reconstruction requires, and how most rebuilding efforts get it wrong Mosque (2026) and what a single building type reveals about a whole society Practicing architecture when the stakes are impossible to ignore Advice for architects and engineers who want their work to matter more Where to find Marwa and closing thoughts Key Takeaways The built environment is not a neutral backdrop to social life. Zoning, density, and material choices change how likely people are to know and trust the people around them. Beauty and identity are not budget line items to cut first. They are part of what makes people willing to stay somewhere and take care of it. Reconstruction that ignores what a place meant to the people who lived there rebuilds the buildings and loses the community. Architects have more influence over social outcomes than the typical scope of work suggests, and that influence operates whether or not anyone claims it. A career in this industry gets more durable, not less, when you can name what your work is actually for.

You've optimized your schedule, pushed through the late nights, and kept delivering — but you still feel like you're running on empty. What if the missing link isn't mindset or time management... it's nutrition? Valerie Hawkins is a nutritionist and self-concept coach who left engineering to help women tackle anxiety, burnout, and brain fog through the power of what they eat. In this episode, she shares the science behind the nutrition-mental health connection and her Self-Concept Method for making lasting, practical changes. You'll learn: How your diet is directly affecting your anxiety, mood, and energy — especially under pressure The link between nutrition and conditions like ADHD, migraines, and burnout What easy and effective nutrition changes actually look like for busy professional women How addressing root causes leads to sustainable weight loss AND better mental health Connect with Valerie: valerieHawkinsnutrition.com | LinkedIn: Valerie Hawkins

Architects have been losing ground for years, and the industry keeps explaining it away with fee pressure, schedule pressure, and software. Beau [Last Name] has a less comfortable answer. He says the profession's own craft has declined, and that decline is exactly why architects keep getting moved further from the decisions that matter. His case runs like this. When drawings are incomplete and coordination is loose, somebody has to fill that gap, and lately that somebody is the builder. The builder absorbs the risk, then reasonably takes the authority that comes with it. Beau and Bryce get into what caused that slide, why architectural education has to become craft centric to reverse it, how AI either accelerates the decline or becomes the thing that reverses it depending entirely on how firms use it, and what he means by the "Super-Architect" and the three characteristics that define one. They also talk about the fracture inside the profession itself and why a national focus on craft may be the only thing that closes it. This one is for principals and firm leaders watching their scope shrink, for emerging professionals who were never actually taught to draw a building, and for anyone in AEC who wants the architect back at the table where the real decisions get made. About Beau Beau Dromiack is Principal of [Firm Name], a practice focused on mission critical architecture delivered with quality, efficiency, and craft. He has integrated design expertise across Design-Bid-Build, CMaR, Design-Build, and Integrated Design delivery, and is a member of AIA, DBIA, SCUP, and NCARB. He holds a Master of Architecture from Arizona State University, serves on the ASU faculty teaching graduate architecture, and mentors emerging professionals. He also volunteers teaching design to design-build teams at Northern Arizona University's School of Construction and teaches STEM based architecture and engineering principles to elementary students, including teaching tools he developed himself. He is the author of The Craft Advantage: Reviving Craft in Architecture to Build a Better Environment and Improve Influence and Super-Architect: The Future of Architecture, which is also available as an audiobook on Audible, Apple, and Amazon in five countries. Beau has been married 34 years, has four adult kids, and spends his free time backpacking, raising chickens in pursuit of the perfect egg, and baking in pursuit of the perfect cookie. What We Cover Introduction and Beau's background as a principal, professor, and author What craft actually means in architecture, and what it does not mean How the decline in craft eroded professional respect The craft gap, and why builders are filling it How poor documentation shifts risk to the contractor and authority away from the architect Why architectural education needs to be craft centric The three characteristics of the "Super-Architect" Using AI proactively to build AI optimized practices and new business models Why a fractured profession is a fragile one What a national focus on craft could actually reunify Where to find Beau and his books, plus closing thoughts Key Takeaways Influence follows responsibility. Every gap in a drawing set that a builder has to close is a piece of authority the architect gave away, whether or not anyone named it that way. Craft is not perfectionism and it is not slowness. Beau's case is that higher craft is what makes speed and integration possible instead of dangerous. Craft cannot be recruited. It gets built through mentorship, documentation standards, and leaders who actually teach, which makes it a firm systems problem rather than a hiring problem. AI will either widen the craft gap or close it, and the deciding factor is whether a firm defines its use proactively or lets AI define the firm. A profession that can't agree on what it is worth is easy to move off the table. Shared standards are a growth strategy, not nostalgia. Resources + Links Beau's website: https://dromiackinvention.com/about Beau Dromiack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beau-dromiack-aia-dbia-ncarb-scup-310747124/ The Craft Advantage: Reviving Craft in Architecture to Build a Better Environment and Improve Influence Super-Architect: The Future of Architecture (also on Audible, Apple, and Amazon as an audiobook) Career Collective: https://www.mycareercollective.com Bryce Batts Consulting: www.brycebatts.co If this one landed, rate and review Wine After Work wherever you listen. It's the fastest way to get these conversations in front of more people in the industry.

If you've ever felt stuck, scared to take the next step, or unsure of where you're headed — this episode is for you. Career and vision coach Carey Conley has spent 21+ years helping entrepreneurs and AEC professionals ditch fear-driven thinking and build a life with intention and purpose. In this conversation, Carey breaks down why so many high-achieving women in technical fields stay trapped in survival mode — and exactly how a bold, defined vision becomes the catalyst for everything else. In this episode: Why high achievers are often the most vision-deficient (and what to do about it) How to write a vision that actually changes your behavior and decisions The fear of success vs. fear of failure — and how to stop letting either one run your life Practical steps to align your goals with a purpose-driven vision Connect with Carey at careyconley.com | Instagram & Facebook: @Carey.Conley3 | LinkedIn: CareyConleyINC