Her Story
About Julia
My background is in GIS, geographic information systems. I graduated with a geography degree, and my first job out of college was an internship with the NASA DEVELOP program, which was more GIS and development focused. Then I was hired to work with a municipality doing GIS in their asset management division, working with their stormwater groups, street groups, and solid waste groups to better use GIS and create maps. They were CityWorks users, so that was my first exposure to CityWorks, an asset management system. Having CityWorks on my resume flagged Timmons Group, who needed people to help implement CityWorks. I've been working with Timmons Group for 5 years now, still implementing CityWorks, which has since been bought by Trimble and rebranded in the Trimble ecosphere. When I started, there were only 3 women on our team out of maybe 12 to 15 people, and now there are 7 or 8 women. As I've grown in my role and become a mom, I feel like I've become more of a mentor, especially to women who are starting to grow their families and ask me how I balance work. I'm very Type A, so I tend to be very organized and detail-oriented, which has helped me in creating project deliverables, sticking to timelines, and staying on top of deadlines.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Julia
01What do you attribute your success to?
I'm very Type A, so I tend to be very organized and detail-oriented, and I feel like those skills have gotten me very far in creating project deliverables, sticking to a timeline, and staying on top of deadlines. Communication is also key - communicating with my teammates and with other project managers if there's an issue. I don't want to say self-discipline, but organization and discipline play a huge part. Just being motivated helps too. I want our clients to be happy, I want our projects to be successful, so I find that motivation goes a long way in trying to make sure that the output is quality.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think just being able to set boundaries is very critical. Obviously, first trimester's terrible, so just surviving is usually my advice - just get through that each day. But learning how to set boundaries and really understand what your limits are, and be communicative about your needs, because if you're not communicating about your needs, then nobody knows what you need.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think there are a lot of opportunities, especially leadership opportunities - taking initiative to standardize a document or forming a committee to implement a new best practice. As far as challenges go, as we move to more cloud-based infrastructure and AI is becoming a big word, those two things are obstacles in that we don't have a lot of control over the product anymore. Having to be the one that says no and saying we're not going to customize this is another challenge. A lot of our clients are all over the United States, and sometimes just the personalities don't vibe. Sometimes navigating that can be challenging, especially with societal gender norms - like when men are PIing a project but on our side a woman's PMing the project, and they don't really know how to communicate or navigate that. I know a lot of our Florida clients and clients in the South are very hard to work with for me, whereas Northeastern clients are very chill and easy to work with, and West Coast clients are also very relaxed.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think honesty and humility are important. Communication is key - communicating with my teammates and with other project managers. Accountability and respect are important to me. And of course, motherhood and family are very important.
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