Though she still has an accent, Laura Bush considers herself a New Yorker.
Currently director of the New York region for Consigli Construction Co., Bush came to the U.S. from the U.K. 23 years ago. She entered the industry at age 18 as an undergraduate trainee with Australia-headquartered Lendlease’s office in Manchester, where she obtained a lot of site experience.
This summer, Bush partnered with the New York City Department of Education to provide two students with the same experience she had: an early start in the trades, sponsored by an industry leader. Amari Young and Abner Rodriguez, students at the Bronx Design & Construction Academy, worked on two separate Consigli projects in the city as they built on their classroom skills including carpentry and pre-engineering.
Consigli was the only general contractor to participate in the NYCDOE’s Industry Scholar Program, according to a news release. The program provides high school internship opportunities to career and technical education students in the Big Apple’s public schools.
Here, Bush talks with Construction Dive about the program, her own experience and how to ensure that all parties get the most out of an internship.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: How did this internship program come to be?
LAURA BUSH: I’m on the board of the New York Building Congress Foundation, and the DOE came to present this Industry Scholars Program at one of our meetings. It really piqued my interest because I never really heard of anything similar that was being organized by anyone else.
Laura Bush
Permission granted by Consigli
And after my own experience, I just said, “We have to do this.” We’re all about training young people, getting young people involved in the industry, making them aware of the opportunities available to them. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be with a construction manager, it can be in the trades as well. The ISP program isn’t necessarily limited to construction or trade careers, but we thought we could really give some people the opportunity to get that hands-on experience on our jobsites like I did all those years ago.
So, we were really glad that we had Amari and Abner with us. They were on our projects at 4650 Broadway, which is a residential project, and some student housing for Columbia University on 112th Street. We were really excited to have them integrated as part of our teams on those respective projects.
One of the big things I always say about these experiences is it’s not just us teaching them. We always learn from any student intern, anybody who comes to our jobs, even a peer who comes to give a different perspective. So we always enjoy having our eyes opened up with some of the younger people especially, and anything creative that they can bring to the table as well.
Was the mindset around this internship for Consigli focused on talent development, recruitment or that fresh, new perspective the interns brought?
I think there’s many things that you can get as a value outcome from a program like this. For me, it’s also creating awareness with not just those two individuals, but creating awareness for their peers.
Maybe one of them has a conversation with someone at school about their experience, or maybe they share it with a family member. It’s creating that awareness that I think we’re all obligated in the industry to keep doing right. We want to make sure that we have the next generation of industry leaders here, and we want that to be a diverse group.
It’s obviously very important to me as a female leader and because my husband is mixed-race. So lots of different reasons why that should be happening.
Like I said, it’s about the people who work at Consigli and our projects, having them exposed to that different and diverse workforce as well, continuously training up the future leaders of the business. I think it’s important for our teams to be dynamic and responsive and to accommodate new people on the team and the next generation, and be able to share their skills and learn from them as well.
How do you encourage the sharing of new ideas?
I think it’s making sure that an intern understands that they have an integrated role in this project, and they add value, right? Everybody adds value. Anyone can come up with that one idea.
Construction’s all about resolving problems. I call it people and problems. So, I think it’s encouraging the communication, having that dialogue and making sure people feel supported. The industry has to be nimble and responsive to the next generation.
If you look back to 2001, when I first came to New York City, it’s so different now than it was then. I was just talking about this last week with a couple of other female industry leaders, like even in the last three to five years, just the advancements with safety, with technology, the industry is evolving.
How do you make sure you’re keeping the students engaged?
We have an open-door policy. So if there’s an issue or you’re not being challenged, come in, speak up. And what we do early on in the internships is we do an introduction with myself, with the leader and the business, to encourage them to challenge themselves.
And also, at the end of the internship, we get feedback from the interns, they do a presentation of their experiences. And we certainly take that and carry that forward for the program in the future.
What advice would you give to someone looking to improve their internship program?
I think for us, we’ve invested in it. We have a dedicated intern team that is accustomed to speaking with that generation. You know, jobsites are hectic. Things are crazy sometimes. But bringing the high school kids, the interns into the mix can really kind of bring a different perspective, like I mentioned.
It also helps develop our own people within. Having someone shadow them, having them teach, get asked questions, mentoring, those are all skills that we need as a business, as we develop and grow. There’s a lot of benefit to our employees as well.