Kabri
Lehrman-Schmid
Kabri worked hard to earn respect on construction job sites. Now she uses her influence to make building jobs better for everybody.
Kabri went to school for engineering, but before long she realized she had misunderstood what engineers actually did – a lot of their work happened on a computer, not out in the field where she wanted to be!
Working at a coffee shop between college classes, Kabri often saw workers from a construction site across the way when they came in to buy their coffee. One day, Kabri asked if she could get an internship working with them for a summer.
It worked! That summer, she worked with the company on renovations at the Pentagon. Kabri loved it. She loved the pride people took in their work, the way they earned respect through hard-won knowledge and expertise, and the way they turned their own energy into a fully finished product by the end of a job. She asked a superintendent on that job if she could have an internship the following summer.
Because she didn’t have a construction background, Kabri had to listen carefully, ask questions, and forge relationships with people who were willing to teach her the ropes.
She found people often assumed she didn’t know anything because she was small and a young woman, but she also found that if she showed that she was ready to work hard and do her job well she got the respect she deserved.
Kabri found that because there weren’t many female project superintendents, many people started asking her how she got her job, and what advice could share. Kabri has used the attention she got to talk about important issues in construction. She acted as a co-chair of a task force on mental health in construction and suicide prevention, and was able to help create a course that shows managers to recognize and help with mental health struggles in their workers. She has also spread awareness and networks for LGBTQ construction workers.
Kabri wanted to help people see how much she loved working in construction, so they could consider working in the industry too!
“Having information, sharing information, and making connections is the best part of what I do!”
Kabri Lehrman-Schmid
