Ameera Salah

I would attribute my success to my mom, Bahia. She was a single mother for my brother and me our entire lives growing up, and she pretty much just gave us everything. I saw that it was a struggle, and now that I reflect, I see even more how much of a struggle she was going through, even though I didn't know it at that time. I think that just kind of puts the fire in me to do the best I can every single day, and create a life that gives me the flexibility to live how I want to, but even more so, gives my family the means to enjoy it with me.

The best career advice I've ever received is: do not stress things that you cannot control. I function with a lot of emotion and passion, and I used to take everything to heart when things wouldn't go my way. One of my bosses that I really enjoyed working for noticed that I wasn't leaving work at work, and my life had become work. I was in the door at 7am and leaving at 7pm when it's dark outside. He looked at me one day and said, 'Listen, you're 26, you shouldn't be doing this to yourself. You're aging yourself based on things that are wildly out of your control.' That last statement he ended with was simply: you cannot stress things that are out of your control. It's stuck with me since then and helped me ease up on myself because I can't control construction. There's a lot of movement.

I would say, be bold. Don't let somebody else dwindle your light just because you're a female or you appear a certain way. Do what you want to do, look how you want to do it, and do it with confidence and resilience.

The biggest challenges I've faced in my field are being young and being a female. I know that sounds cliche, but being who I am, walking into a room - I'm actually very small in stature, I'm 5'1", 120 pounds - people don't look at me and think, oh, she knows what she's talking about, or oh, she's intimidating. I've been judged a lot by my appearance, being a pretty girl in construction. The guys always demean you a little bit, so it's difficult at the beginning to gain their respect. A lot of the older guys that came from the field and now work in office don't tend to trust your word as easily as they do some other people, and they make it pretty obvious. It's made me have to dot my T's and cross my I's on every single thing I do. I can never walk into a meeting and not know every single detail, because if you're not prepared, then it's like, oh, she's terrible at her job. In terms of opportunities, I'm working toward growing into a senior project manager, and I'm not far off from that. I'm also looking to get my PMP certification so I can have that under my belt simultaneously with my promotion. The fortunate part is that my company is willing to fund continuous learning and growth, so I can get the tools I need to be successful.

I would say, function with good ethics and morals. Always look out and always do things in a way that you want the best outcome for everybody involved, and take accountability, whether it's a failure or a success. That's kind of what I live by.