Her Story
About Miriam
After earning her Civil Engineering degree from Temple University, Miriam began her career at EDA Contractors in 2010, where she learned that the foundation of great construction isn't concrete or steel, but trust: with your team, your clients, and the communities whose buildings you are responsible for. Through a subsequent acquisition, she joined Bregenzer Brothers where she was tasked with something far more complex than managing projects: structuring a project management team, transforming a century-old, family-owned company into a modern operation without losing the quality and integrity that had defined it for generations. She built the systems for onboarding, training, and evaluation. Her financial reporting and forecasting frameworks earned recognition across leadership for their accuracy, applied across a diverse client portfolio: higher education, healthcare, government, transportation, and corporate, all in occupied, high-stakes conditions where disruption was never an option.
What makes her story remarkable is not only what she built, but the conditions under which she built it. As a woman who immigrated from Peru into one of the most male-dominated industries in the United States, she navigated cultural adaptation and professional credibility simultaneously, learning early that patience, persistence, and a genuine ability to find common ground are not soft skills, but survival tools that ultimately became her greatest leadership strengths. She managed through supply chain crises, company restructuring, and the daily complexity of overseeing multi-trade portfolios across key construction disciplines, maintaining financial discipline, delivering results, and never losing sight of the specialized workforce whose livelihoods depended on strong, steady leadership. Her philosophy is simple and hard-earned: the decisions that shape your career must be made for yourself, driven by your own sense of purpose, not external validation. That conviction is what kept her grounded through every challenge, and it is the most important thing she passes on to the people she mentors.
Today, she brings nearly 16 years of experience, an engineer's precision, and a leader's heart into her next chapter, open to opportunities where financial sophistication, multi-discipline coordination, and leadership that genuinely transforms teams are the standard.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Miriam
01What do you attribute your success to?
Three things have helped me throughout my career: process, persistence, and the listening.
I am deeply process-driven. When I face a challenge, I approach it the way I approach a complex project: assess where you are, build a plan, evaluate your progress, and make decisions. Problems are inevitable, what matters is having a framework for moving through them, not around them.
But process alone is not enough without persistence. I learned from a young age that you have to work hard to achieve your goals; that effort and self-reliance are non-negotiable. Being a first-generation immigrant puts that lesson in very sharp perspective. At the same time, I have been fortunate to cross paths with people who believed in me and supported my growth, and I never take that lightly. I do not let barriers stop me; I let them redirect me. When something is in my way, my instinct is to work through it, because staying focused on the goal is what eventually gets you there.
And the third thing is listening. I have never believed I am the smartest person in the room, and I never want to be. Every person I have worked with, regardless of role or background, has taught me something. When you genuinely listen, you earn trust — and trust is the foundation everything else is built on.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was to trust myself, that my knowledge, preparation, and judgment are worth standing behind. That lesson became the foundation of how I lead and how I train others.
Because what I have come to believe, and what I tell everyone I mentor, is that confidence and self-belief are not things you are born with. They are things you build, and they grow when you do what makes you happy and stay true to your own path. When you genuinely enjoy what you do, it shows in your work and in how you show up for your team.
When I train people, I try to give them the big picture, not just the steps, but the purpose behind them, so they understand why each piece matters. I also make a point of letting people know their contribution is seen and valued. Validation matters. When people feel appreciated and trusted, they bring their best, and that is when real growth happens.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Stay true to yourself and never stop learning. Invest in work that fulfills you, because when your career aligns with your values, your best work follows naturally. Trust what you bring to the table, even when the environment around you makes that feel difficult.
Seek out people who believe in you and are willing to share their knowledge, and when you find them, listen. Every person you work with, regardless of their role or background, has something to teach you. And when you reach the point where others are looking to you for guidance, remember how it felt to be new, be the person who makes them feel seen, valued, and capable. That is how we move the industry forward, one person at a time.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The most important are trust, honesty, and ethics. They are the foundation of how I work and how I lead. Beyond that, I deeply value collaboration and inclusivity. The best outcomes come from teams where every voice is heard and every contribution is appreciated. People bring different backgrounds, perspectives, and strengths to the table, and recognizing that is not just good leadership, it is good practice. I believe in keeping teams motivated, validated, and working in harmony. When people feel respected and valued, they deliver their best work. And underpinning all of it is a commitment to process, professionalism, and respect. Structure and integrity are what turn good intentions into consistent results.
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