Mid-States Concrete Industries celebrates Women in Construction Week (March 6 – 12) by highlighting women on our team making their mark in the construction industry.
Today we feature Senior Project Designer Kristen Heiser, who has been with Mid-States Concrete for 15 years.
“In high school, I kept rearranging my room and I wanted to rearrange the living room, but my dad wouldn’t let me,” Kristen said. “High school had a board drafting class and that was that. And then it became a computer course, AutoCad 1, and I liked it, so I went for my major in CAD work.”
In her role as Senior Project Designer, Kristen takes contract drawings and then creates shop drawings for our team, which include all the pertinent information they need to appropriately manufacture and install the precast components.
“No two jobs are the same,” Kristen said. “It’s always different. Even similar jobs are not similar… They all have different requirements.”
What Kristen enjoys about precast is that it is always evolving. The buildings are getting bigger, and more complicated. It’s not just straight beams anymore. This is also one of the biggest challenges of her job.
When Kristen reflects back on all the buildings she’s worked on – two stick out. The first is the very first project she ever did for Mid-States. It was a two-story golf clubhouse at a country club and there were no straight lines, everything was angled. And while Kristen worked off of dimensions that were taken in the field by her fellow Mid-States team members, when the pieces got to the site, they didn’t fit. This resulted in tons of section cuts, but in the end the project turned out just fine. Luckily, Kristen’s following projects didn’t have the same issue.
The other project that stands out is St. James Church in Belvidere, because she and her son attend that church. She knew the project was one Mid-States would work on and started asking around, inquiring whether she could serve as the designer on the project. She ended up getting the drawings from the sales team on Ash Wednesday. The project was unique as a formliner was used on the wall panels to match the stone of the then 104-year-old church. It was also one of Mid-States Concrete’s first jobs that used C-GRID, and had the added complexity of the openings for the stained glass windows.
Kristen has grown used to working in a male-dominated field as even early on she was often one of the only women in her classes, but she thrived.
“The guys knew I knew what I was doing and they’d come ask me for help,” she said.
In terms of advice for other women looking to get in to the field: just go for it. If that’s what you like to do, there’s no reason you can’t do it.