Philly apprentices get inside look at Bellwether District, meet ‘Girl Concrete’ CEO on the job

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North Philadelphia native Sharifa Brown once thought she would become a certified nursing assistant and work in hospice care.

But when the 40-year-old started doing construction repair jobs at home, she realized that learning a skilled trade could be valuable on its own.

“I like to do a lot of things around the house and I want to do them correctly,” Brown said.

And she stuck with it because she sees those skills as a way to give back.

“I can help my community rebuild some things that need to be done,” she said.

And that meant overcoming challenges with her math skills.

“I think you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, you’ve got to believe in yourself,” she said.

Now an apprentice, Brown joined the Women in Nontraditional Careers Project in partnership with the Finishing Trades Institute of the Mid-Atlantic Apprenticeship Program. She hasn’t yet decided whether to become a carpenter or electrician.

Brown had seen construction sites before, but had never met a woman-owned business that was working inside one before she met the managing partner of Girl Concrete inside The Bellwether District in late July.

“I’m loving it, there’s a lot of women that you don’t think are involved are in control of these projects,” she said.

And that’s the point, so women know what’s possible, said managing partner of Girl Concrete Lynette Sutton.

Sutton also fell into construction work after buying a home in West Philly that was a fixer-upper. Now, she’s laying the concrete foundation of a new industrial park.

Over the next decade, Hilco Redevelopment Partners wants to transform 1,300 acres of industrial land known as The Bellwether District into something new, and they need skilled trades professionals to do it.

The developer estimates the $4 billion project will help create 19,000 permanent jobs and nearly 28,000 construction jobs over the next decade.

Hilco Redevelopment Partners envisions a 250-acre innovation campus, plus a 750-acre industrial and logistics complex, on the sprawling 1,300 acre site. It will rise on the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery site that closed after a huge fire several years ago.

But it won’t be easy. There’s already a talent shortage in the construction industry that’s expected to worsen in the coming years as workers retire. The National Center for Construction Education and Research estimates about 41% of U.S. construction workers will retire by 2031.

About 1.9 million crafts people are needed nationwide to meet construction industry demand by 2025, according to the same center.

Beyond the southwest Philadelphia industrial site, there’s federal infrastructure projects that will need workers over the next decade, too.

There has already been a surge of women entering the construction industry – an increase from 802,000 to 1.2 million nationwide between 2012 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census estimates.

But that only accounts for 11% of the total construction industry workforce and it includes administrative work in offices, where women are overrepresented.

In 2022, there was a record number of women working in the skilled trades — about 300,000 — but that is only 4% of total construction trades workers. If the industry wants to keep up with demand, there’s room to grow if women can be convinced it’s a fruitful career option, said Sutton.

“I think it’s critical to inspire, motivate and attract women into the industry,” she said.

Hilco Redevelopment Partners has already committed to help bridge that gap and has set aside $850,000 for workforce development. The company has an ambitious “economic opportunity plan,” with a 50% minority workforce goal.

Hilco wants to hire at least half of its workforce from the local community, and award between 5% and 8% of Hilco’s costs to redevelop the site to women-owned businesses. The goal is to contract with minority, women-owned and disabled-owned businesses for contracts worth at least $100,000 or more, like deals with general contractor Perryman Construction, which subcontracted with Girl Concrete.

The visiting apprentices met Girl Concrete tradeswomen on the job site who had different levels of experience themselves.

“That allows the less-experienced field team to work side-by-side with seasoned contractors who can help shape their skill level with hands-on, experiential training that simply cannot be acquired in the classroom,” Sutton said.

For 38-year-old pre-apprentice Elohim Smith, training as a carpenter is just another skill she’s eager to learn through the Women in Nontraditional Careers Project.

The Mt. Airy native has been a gym teacher, boxer, commercial truck driver and SEPTA operator.  Seeing a sweeping industrial construction site was a first for Smith, who likened it to art.

“Creating from the first, the bottom-up of a building, it feels like an aggressive art form,” she said. “Breaking up the ground, putting it together using your hands. I like that.”

Both Sutton and a top executive at Perryman Construction offered insight that could help to not only attract women to the field, but also help them succeed so they stay in the industry.

Perryman Construction’s vice president of administration, Angelina Perryman, advised the apprentices to pitch their skills to every potential employer and not undersell the quality of their work.

“I think especially tradeswomen downplay the work that they’ve done,” Perryman said. “You didn’t just pour a [concrete] sidewalk.”

Instead, she recommended mentioning anything notable about the project, like its size, scope, cost and the skill required to get the job done — and to describe the job passionately to the potential employer, because it’s the first impression.

“They don’t know [what you’ve done], just because you work with your hands you have to work even more with your voice,” she said.