Creating and Implementing an Industry Mentorship Program Within the Women in Construction Club

The construction industry has made great strides in terms of catching the attention of and accepting more women. The industry has historically been dominated by men and, for the most part, that is still true today. But there are more and more women expressing interest in construction and construction management related career paths. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) continued that trend when the Women in Construction club was formed. The goal is to help women realize that they can participate in the industry and then encourage them to do so. A previous senior project was done to determine if there was an interest in having a mentorship program that would connect club members to industry professionals. The responses from that research indicated that there was in fact an interest. This paper details the steps taken to create and implement a mentor-matching program between Women in Construction club members and people from industry, as well as preliminary thoughts on the program. The responses from industry outnumbered club members which is a good sign for getting the program started. Mentors were chosen about two weeks ago, so the program is still very young, but so far the feedback has been very positive