ENR Article: Construction Women Reach Beyond New Diversity Barriers

Full Title: Construction Women Reach Beyond New Diversity Barriers as Needed Leaders

By Jennifer Seward, Debra K. Rubin, Annemarie Mannion, Alisa Zevin, Scott Blair, Editor-in-Chief, Emell D. Adolphus

Excerpt:

Construction AI innovator Sarah Buchner, founder and CEO of startup Trunk Tools, and Kelly Benedict, vice president of Gilbane Building Co., and a company innovation leader, shared how their respective expertise and personal chemistry is helping to foster use of the tech firm’s platform as a major cost and time saver across the contracting giant’s U.S. projects.

Noting that a large project can generate millions of pages of documents, Buchner said data discrepancies can be costly and “lead you to stop your construction site.” The Trunk Tools platform can “turn all of your messy data into an Excel spreadsheet,” she said. AI “was built for construction, because it was literally made to solve our data problem,” said Buchner, who has led Trunk Tools fundraising to more than $30 million.

Need for a technology solution in recent years created “almost a Wild West” environment at Gilbane, said Benedict, with vendor pressure and fears of data misinterpretation and financial risk. “We had to get some sobriety,” she said. The AI platform was pilot-tested at a large convention center project with strong support from Gilbane lead field superintendent Andrew Roy who championed its use to company skeptics, said Benedict.

Buchner noted that two of Trunk Tools’ top three current industry contracts were negotiated with women executives on the client side. “That’s … real innovation,” she said. The execs urged attendees to replicate their experience. “If people [on a project] are happier because they’re using their brains actually doing what they went to school to do, instead of searching and looking for data, that’s a win,” said Benedict.