Once in a Lifetime

Three women are main construction principals at Fontana Library project site

By Joe Florkowski

Forget about men in yellow hardhats hollering at women passing by the jobsite at a $40 million library project in Fontana.

The three main principals on the project - the architect, construction manager and project manager for the general contractor - are women, and they say they appreciate their unique situation.

"It might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Joanna Heinrich, senior project manager for San Diego-based Barnhart inc., the general contractor.

Anet Willingham, who is serving as construction manager for JCM/HEERY International from its Los Angeles office, agreed: "I've never been involved in an all-female team," she added.

Heinrich and Willingham will work with architect Kate Diamond, FAIA, design principal with Los Angeles-based RNL, to oversee construction on the library.

While it was coincidence that brought three women together for this building, their backgrounds spurred their companies to select them for the job.

Willingham, for instance, served as construction manager for 19 libraries in Florida before taking this assignment.

And Heinrich has worked in the construction industry since 1983, working her way from secretarial work to becoming a project manager. But the climb was tough, she said.

"It took me 15 years to get where some men it would take three or four years maximum," Heinrich said.

Barnhart is a company that more easily recognizes the contributions of women and employs many female project engineers, she said.

"There is a lot of opportunity at Barnhart, but not in this industry," Heinrich said.

The experience these women bring will be necessary on the Fontana library.

Meant to replace an existing, outdated library, the new library is a 93,000-sq.-ft., two-story building with a parking garage. Begun in February, the library is expected to be finished in spring 2008. When complete, it will feature a great hall, rotunda and a Spanish mission design.

The project is complicated because of the multistories and the space, Heinrich said.

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"It's a difficult project in that it is a small site," she added. "The building will take up most of the site."

Willingham said it's not easy coordinating the electrical, mechanical and telecommunications systems in the library. With the Florida libraries, the technology changed as the libraries were built - and that's no different with this project, Willingham said.

"The technology is changing so we have to make modifications as we go," she said.

The building was designed to earn LEED certification and to last, Diamond said.

"When you build a building, you don't build it for today," she said. "You build it for 40 years."

To that end, the library is being constructed with local materials and will use energy-efficient lighting and concrete walls to reduce heat gain, Diamond said.

"I want this to be better than any of my memories of a library as a kid," she added.

Working with women may bring some advantages than working with male project managers, Willingham said.

"Female architects tend to be detail oriented," she added. "They are more organized, more fastidious."

Heinrich agreed. Women can multitask easier than men and are often more organized, she said.

And the skills some women possess can make the jobs easier, Heinrich said. When she was starting in the construction business, she combined her secretarial skills with construction know-how. She would take the construction spec book home with her at night and study it for some projects, she said.

And when it came to communicate about the project or write a letter about its progress, Heinrich would volunteer for the job.

"I knew I wanted to move up," she said.