The first meeting of Women in Deep Foundation
What happens when several women in a male dominated construction industry get together… the possibilities are endless. And when Karen Armfield of AECOM, Sayantani Ghosh of Langan, and Lucky Nagarajan from Skyline Steel met at the Women in Deep Foundations (WiDF) reception at the June SuperPile ‘18 Conference, some great ideas were born.
Karen, Sayantani, and Lucky realized that while WiDF was a great way to get women in the industry together, there were no local groups set out to do so, and so, they did just that.
The first meeting of the Metro NYC group of WiDF held its inaugural get together on Monday, July 30th at the AECOM headquarters in lower Manhattan. Because of the size of the room, the reception was open to the first 50 women and men who advocate for women in the industry, to register.
With only four days’ time to organize and plan the event, Lucky and Gisele Passalacqua from AECOM were very busy, but they pulled it off, with almost full attendance.
There were 45 people who registered to attend, and of those, thirty-seven women and three men in the design, construction, and engineering foundations industries came together for the first time and discussed the general reasons for having such a gathering. They shared appetizers and drinks and had a great time. An ice-breaker helped everyone open up and get more comfortable with each other. We learned of many talents, some hidden, some not, within the group. One of the members sings in the UN Choir, one trained to be an Air Force pilot, and one has visited 46 out of the 50 United States, to name a few.
Theresa Rappaport, Executive Director of DFI Educational Trust joined the meeting to show support for the group and interact with all the participants. The meeting was a complete success and it was decided that meetings would be held every three months, with the next three already in planning mode.
Many thanks to all those who took the time to attend, but especially to the people at AECOM, DFI, and Skyline Steel who made it happen.
The next meeting will be held in October, at the NYC location of WSP USA, on the 2nd floor of One Penn Plaza. Discussion topics for the October meeting are currently under consideration.