Chrissie Davis

I found out through a high school career day session that I wanted to be a civil engineer, which got me on the path pretty early on. I got a civil engineering degree from Loyola Marymount University, and right after, I spent one year in AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. It was probably one of the best things I've done with my life. Growing up in Southern California in an upper middle class family, I was protected, and this allowed me to live in a whole other part of the U.S. and really burst that bubble I was in. It forced me to see how other parts of the world is having to live. We did community service projects like cleaning up trails after hurricanes, helping inner-city schools in DC with after-school programs, building cabins, planting trees, and shoveling snow for the elderly. It really forces you to be humble and just focus on other people, which I think at that age is just unmatched. After AmeriCorps, I went to Stanford for a master's in construction engineering management, which brought me to the Bay Area. I was blessed to be under the wing of David Neal at Core Builders. He took a shot on me when I was in my 30s and surrounded me with people like Brett Mosier, my executive coach. We grew that company together from about $30 million a year to about $100 million a year.

The best career advice I ever received came from reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. There was a passage in the book where she was recalling a commencement speech she gave, and in that speech, she said something to the effect of, 'Okay, women, I'm talking to you. Yes, you. You need to rise to the top of your career, because other women are counting on you.' It hit me like a ton of bricks. I started crying and realized that I had to do this. That's what pushed me to leave my previous company where I had hit a glass ceiling and wasn't part of the succession planning, and to start my own general contracting firm. I realized I had to rise to the top not just for myself, but because other women are counting on me to show them what's possible.

The first thing I do is make sure this person has a good level of confidence, because the industry still is rough. It's still rough around the edges, and you have to have a good amount of grit to be able to work through things. Usually if someone's coming at me saying they're interested in construction, they have that kind of grit or confidence about them, otherwise they aren't necessarily interested in tackling a male-dominated industry. When they check that box, I usually recommend the book Lean In, because it's talking about being female in a male-dominated industry and the benefits and the pitfalls that come with that. From there, I try to gauge what they would enjoy, whether they're interested more in the office side or the field side, or the design side. I help them think through avenues on how they could get the best of both worlds. It's understanding where they're coming from, what they're actually truly passionate about, and if they don't know, then it's helping them find a path where they can find that path, whether it's through journaling or just chatting more with other industry professionals.

The biggest challenge for me is actually self-imposed. Self-doubt creeps in often. Men in general are so good at leading with confidence, whether they know things or not, they're really good at just portraying confidence. Women are not so good at that, and myself included. Just by nature of our job as general contractors, we don't self-perform anything, so we aren't the ones swinging the hammer or connecting the wires or picking up a paintbrush. Our job is to manage the project as a whole and to bring voices together so that we can problem solve and troubleshoot collectively. Because of it, there are elements that I don't know, and it happens weekly, if not daily. Even the most seasoned people who have been doing this for 40 years will have those instances where they don't know what that topic is. I think often women want to information gather and research and get studied so that they feel they have a strong base to stand on. The biggest challenge for me is that at times I question whether I know as much as my male counterpart, because they just naturally portray confidence so much easier than I do. I think women will always battle that to some extent.

I purposefully put the principles of integrity and collaboration on the forefront when I started my company. I feel the construction industry is definitely focused on budgets and schedules, but integrity and collaboration often fall by the wayside, so I'm purposefully putting those forward. It's helped determine who we've hired, who we are working with, what subcontractors we bring in, and what products we're building. The nonprofit world will always have a place in my heart because I spent so much time doing community service. I will always be involved in all kinds of different philanthropic ventures and will always align myself with nonprofits that are trying to make a difference. The fact that we're building affordable housing, I feel fits in that category. It's something I really, truly value and want to bring to the market. I admittedly have a bit of a bleeding heart. I love those mission-driven, purposeful projects, and it's cool to be able to help in my profession. Not only am I getting my kids involved in things like backpack drives and trying to help those that need it the most, I'm able to leverage what I'm doing in our profession and get a win-win, where we're able to construct buildings that are needed for all these different causes.