NEW YORK CITY-After chief engineer John Augustus Roebling developed decompression sickness in 1872, it was his wife Emily who stepped in to oversee day-to-day construction on the Brooklyn Bridge until its completion in 1883. Notwithstanding that example, when Lenore Janis entered the construction business nearly a century later she found that women were not even allowed on the job site.

“When my father said to me, ‘this business is not for girls,’ he knew what he was talking about at that time,” Janis tells GlobeSt.com. Janis got into the construction industry only because her mother, who had inherited the family business from her late husband, insisted that Janis’ two brothers bring their sister in, threatening to sell the business if they refused.

Janis would go on to found her own firm, Era Steel Construction and, in 1980, an industry association known as Professional Women in Construction. Thirty years later, it has branched out from its New York metro base into six regional chapters with a total membership of 1,100. Aside from New York, they also include Connecticut; New Jersey; Washington, DC; South Florida; and northeastern Pennsylvania.

More such chapters are likely to follow; Janis says she’s gotten inquiries from Chicago; San Diego; and Tampa, FL; among other cities. “The expansion happened on its own,” she says. “We did not go out and recruit. The calls to establish the six chapters we now have came from outside, from women who appeared to be desperate for some kind of organization that would meet their needs.”

PWC’s aim is not solely to offer encouragement and support for women and minorities in the architecture/engineering/construction sector, although that’s certainly one of its purposes. It also provides a venue for its members to network with owners and developers as well as leading construction industry firms—and for those constituencies to seek out PWC members. “What good is having your own business if you’re not a party to all the interaction and connection that’s going on?” Janis asks.

In the early days of Era, named for the Equal Rights Amendment, the cause of Janis and other women was aided somewhat by then-President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 executive order establishing programs and goals for minority- and women-owned companies. “Did the contractors like seeing me there? No,” Janis recalls. “They took every opportunity to tell me that they didn’t want me, that the government was forcing them. I could only come back with ‘you’re getting your job done on time and under budget. What do you want from me?’” Some of Janis’ colleagues felt an organization was needed to exchange information, and so PWC was born.

Five years later, “we realized that we had done enough crying on each others’ shoulders and the great need was to integrate the women into what is still a male-dominated field,” Janis says. “In order to do that, we took a vote to allow men to join on an equal basis.”

The first man to join PWC was an attorney, says Janis. “He had foresight. Then the major companies began to join.”

Today, each PWC chapter also has at least one or two men on its board. “We think this is one of the reasons that we’re moving so quickly ahead,” Janis says, adding that “a great deal of support” for the organization has come from business-owning men with daughters “Their concern was that they might not be able to leave their businesses intact to their daughters.” In former years, she adds, “if a wife inherited a construction business, she found out very quickly that the banks pulled all their loans, the suppliers pulled their credit and she was selling the business for five cents on the dollar.”

Janis cites the great strides women have made in what was formerly an all-male enclave, yet she’d like to see further progress. More women in the upper echelons of the major firms is a goal, and having more become engineers would be a plus.

“I know that women are greatly encouraged to go into architecture and now more than ever, women making a career change are encouraged to go into project or construction management,” she says. PWC funds a scholarship for a master’s degree in construction management, and Janis says it’s gotten a number of takers.

In gratitude for the example set by the “chief surrogate engineer” who saw through the Brooklyn Bridge project to its conclusion, PWC initiated the Emily Roebling Leadership Award some years ago. But Janis notes, “It’s amazing that so many people are only now learning about her achievement. It seems to have been a well-kept secret.”

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30 Years of Inroads into an All-Male Enclave

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