Contractors Help Build Careers : Women Make Pitch to Third-Graders to Consider a Future in Construction

Toting a couple dozen bags of Legos, some coarse brown twine, tin foil and a few rocks, Suzy Halper and June Rawson trudged into Arroyo West School in Moorpark on Wednesday intent on changing some child’s future.

The single mothers are contractors and members of the National Assn. of Women in Construction.

They were at Arroyo West as part of a national construction contest called “Block Kids,” which aims to get children--especially girls--to consider careers in construction.

At the very least, Halper and Rawson were able to keep the third-graders interested in their projects as they snapped together everything from a mock-up of an ancient Egyptian kingdom to a rendering of the city of Boston.

“We want them to know that anybody can go into the industry,” said Halper, who builds commercial and residential projects in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

“We want them to know that there are a lot of women in the field working as contractors, building inspectors, engineers and geologists,” she said. “They can do it too.”

The students appeared taken aback when told that they could build anything they wanted in the contest, but soon let their imaginations run wild.

Christa Gehricke, 9, put together what was meant to be the gate of a castle. The daughter of an architect, Christa spent her time constructing the arch that would lead to her imaginary castle.

“I don’t want it falling down on anything,” she said, explaining her careful efforts.

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Others in her class put together spindly towers or monster robot-like shapes.

Kevin Cabriales, 8, used his blocks and his imagination to lay out the city of Boston.

“There’s a bridge,” he said explaining the scene. “And these small ones are buildings.”

Kevin is the son of an airline pilot who also serves on the school board. His most elaborate construction was an air-traffic control tower that was twice as large as the rest of his creations.

“They have to have a lot of light towers there for all the planes,” he said.

Rawson, who works as a general contractor in Oxnard, said the contest helps to remind children of career choices they might otherwise rule out. Rawson, who is a grandmother and the mother of two sons, said that as a young girl she was never presented those possibilities.

“My father was an auto mechanic and I spent a lot of time down in the grease pit with him,” she said. “If I had known it was possible I probably would have become a mechanic like him, but I was a girl.”

Instead she wound up working as a receptionist, because she said, “that’s what women were expected to do--not because I was any good at it.”

She became a contractor in 1986 after working for several years with her former husband running a plumbing business.

“I saw how it worked and gradually worked my way into the business,” she said. “I’m good at it.”

She said her two sons have followed in her footsteps and become general contractors.

“The money’s good and you work for yourself,” she said. “I like that.”

Rawson and Halper will pick first-, second- and third-place winners today after all Arroyo West’s 290 third-grade students complete the contest.

The first-place winner will go to a regional competition, and the winners of that contest will go to a national contest in April.