Influential Woman · Construction

Lorena Brinson

Accountant

Contract Administrator, Grava, LLC

Houston, TX

Certifications · Degrees · Memberships

Degree Accounting degree Degree Management Concepts courses in compliance and bidding opportunities Cert Accountant

Her Story

About Lorena

My background is mostly in healthcare management. In Venezuela, I worked for 14 years in a big hospital handling all their imaging units including x-rays, MRI, CAT scans, and even nuclear isotopes testing. I started as an assistant and walked my way through up until I was handling 6 different imaging units in this hospital. After coming to live in America 9 years ago, I tried working in the medical field doing billing services for insurance companies and patients. After about a year of that, it wasn't going so well for me in regards of what I was expecting from payment. A friend that owns a construction company, which I knew nothing about, offered me a position as the contract administrator for the company, and I've been doing that for the last 6 years. As of today, my main area of expertise is contract administration and contract management. I also work with claims, so everything related to claims management goes through me. My biggest professional achievement was when the company had issues with keeping up with the compliance portion of the contract, and I was able to put all of that back in track and get all of the contracts back in compliance. It took about a year to do all that, but after it was done, I've kept that on track and we are good with our agencies and clients, which are public agencies like the City of Houston.

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Lorena

01What do you attribute your success to?

I would say my thrive to do things well. A perfectionist is sometimes not a virtue, I know that, but I try to make things go well, to go the best way they can go, to have the best outcome and the best resolution. So, even if I don't have all the information that I need for that to happen, I research, I make phone calls, and at the end of the day, I'm gonna make things happen one way or the other. So, I think that's it for me, is to thrive to do things well and always see my best.

02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

I would say that if you put your heart to it, and do the work, it's gonna be fine. You're gonna make it. Because, as I said, I did not know anything about construction, and here I am, 6 years later. I think the company has so much confidence in what I do that they let me handle quite everything that goes on in the department, and they don't even question it, so I think I've earned their trust. I would just say, do the work. If you don't know how to do it, just do some research, some courses, get accurately trained, and you'll be okay.

03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?

The whole situation that's happening in the Middle East is a big challenge because prices are going up, and it's a challenge for us because we sign contracts with some prices set. These are long-term contracts that would take quite some years for us to get them done. So, we signed the contracts, say, 2024, and those prices are set in 2024, but prices are going up, so that's a struggle for us. It's challenging. But we try to make it work. We work with our clients, we try to have change orders approved to change prices. That's the biggest challenge we're going through right now. The biggest challenge we went through was COVID, but right now it's this.

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