Tina Cullors, MGT

I attribute my success to my family and my passion for the love of my work, along with my family's support. I remember my son had to write something about his mom, and he wrote that his mom is really smart because she wears a suit every day. It struck me as funny, but it brings me joy that my kids know what I do and they light up when they tell people what I do for a living. My twin sons are linemen and they're 30, and they tell their lineman buddies about me, which just cracks me up. It makes my heart happy to hear them proud of me, especially knowing that they actually listen when I'm working and they get it.

The best career advice I've ever received is finding your path and your passion. I started as an administrative secretary in 1984, and it wasn't until I got into the facilities planning and construction department that I found my passion. Then I started planning, went into management and directorship, and now consulting. It was probably around 2004 when I realized that educational planning and construction was my niche. I always liked the work, but I didn't know I was passionate about it until I actually started a project from the ground up, being in charge of the project and completing it through construction. That's when I realized I was doing what God put me in place to do.

Don't settle. Follow your heart. If you want to be in the field and in the dirt, you don't care about how you might look one day because you can go to work really clean, and next thing you know, you've got your work boots on, a hard hat on, and you just don't care. You just gotta have that rolling off your back kind of attitude, that every day you can't be glamorous. Follow your passion. Be passionate about what you're doing. Just don't settle because someone told you so. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. These young gals in today's market, I don't think they really know what they're getting into. If they think they're getting a cushy office job, that's not what project management is all about, or what a school facilities construction person does. It's not always in the office. You gotta be prepared to be in the field as well.

In the beginning, the biggest challenge was just being a woman and being an exception into the man's world. You show up on a job in a skirt and they give you a different attitude until you hike that skirt up and you climb a ladder to get on a roof. Then they decide, oh, I guess she's not all prissy. But now when I go to conferences, I think the women outweigh the men in our industry anymore. We've blazed the path for these young gals that are gonna start and take control over what we've taught them. The industry has become much more inclusive over the years. We were sponges and we were hands-on, not textbook like a lot of the men in our industry who relied on the women behind them to blaze the path for them to succeed.

The values most important to me are being loyal to yourself and to where you're involved. Making the future brighter is essential. Not letting your bad days get in front of your good days, because it's just one bad day. Just being positive. I try to stay focused on the impact I can make in communities and not let the challenges of the day bring me down, because at the end of the day, we're creating spaces that will touch the lives of so many students and families.