A Non-Linear Path to Construction: About Carolina Albano
With Tim Seims & Carolina Albano,
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk about Carolina’s history.
Carolina’s Beginnings
Carolina’s first exposure to the construction industry was through her mother, who started as a civil engineer and then gained her general contractor’s license. Her mother helped rebuild Miami after it was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew.
While earning a 4.0 at her local community college, a friend told Carolina she should pursue a mechanical engineering degree, due to her love for cars and mechanics. So she did. Carolina went first to Georgia Tech and then Florida State University and got her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. She quickly followed that up with her Master’s degree focusing on materials.
She spent a few years working in logistics and distribution after college, before deciding to stay home with her children for six years. When she re-entered the workforce, she got a referral from a friend that a job was open at Nichiha that she might be interested in. A few months later, she joined Nichiha as a trainer for installers, which was her first foray into the construction industry.
Costs and Income
While Carolina was lucky to be able to go to community college for free thanks to a local program that let you attend at no cost if you had a certain GPA, she did have to pay for her junior and senior years at Georgia Tech.
However, times have changed since Carolina went to college and it is not always necessary to get a degree to work in the construction industry. Unless you are working in a job that affects the safety of others, such as architects and designers, there’s plenty of trades that do not require a college degree.
If you aren’t sure what you want to do, try going to community college first, to make sure you know what you want to do before you are saddled with $100,000 to $200,000 worth of loans.
When she first joined the workforce in the distribution industry, Carolina earned around $45-50,000 in the early 2000s (that’s about $59,000 today, adjusting for inflation).
Immigration
Carolina is a naturalized citizen, born in Valencia, Venezuela. Her parents moved to the United States in 1987 when things started to become bad in their home country, in order to keep themselves and, more importantly to them, Carolina safe.
This move forced Carolina to work hard to learn a new language and a new culture. And it’s important for her to show immigrant girls and women who feel like it’s hopeless to adjust and thrive in a new country that it’s absolutely possible. With hard work and dedication, you can absolutely succeed. Carolina makes sure to spend time talking to immigrant girls at her kid’s school to help show them that they can succeed and to give them advice on how to thrive.
What Does Build Perspectives Mean to Carolina?
To Carolina, it implies that you’re always doing it right; you’re always building perspective and focusing on continuous improvement. Always learning, always building on your previous perspective. Build doesn’t just refer to the construction industry, but it refers to increasing perspectives and building on each other.
To Tim, it goes back to the multitude of opportunities in the building industry. Perspective is personal and important, and you can keep learning and continuously improve your perspective. Tim thinks ‘build perspectives’ allows him and Carolina to be broad in what they talk about, who they get to interview and how they encourage and motivate listeners. Yet they can still be specific about things in the industry, such as facades and building envelopes and cladding.
Advice for People in a Different Industry or New to the Industry
If you’re in a different industry, or even new to the industry, you’ll come in with different values and different things to offer. For those how are interested in construction and design and have been around for a long time, Carolina would ask: what do you love about it and what sounds interesting? What makes you curious? Her advice would be to start there and look into the area you are most curious about. Talk to people in those roles and segments of the industry. Join groups when possible. It’s never too late to make a career change or find an interesting point between what you’ve done all your life and what you are interested in now. Never be afraid to pivot. Carolina herself went from engineering to sales because she loves talking to people and being outside and helping troubleshoot. It was the right move for her. Trust your gut and listen to the call.
For those who are new to the industry, Carolina would say: we need you. We need new talent that is tech-savvy and has fresh ideas. People who care about the planet and care about improving working conditions. Some of the older people in the industry are used to the status quo, so they can provide you with the mentorship needed to prevent obstacles or get through handling tough conversations — the things you need life experience for. But we need new, young people to give fresh ideas.
Carolina’s Recommended Reading
Mark Mitchell’s book Building Materials Channel Marketing is a great industry book that talks about who the players in the industry are and how they interact with each other.
Another book Carolina recommends is The Fifth Discipline. Carolina even made a summary of the book. It talks about management, learning, manufacturing cycle time reduction, understanding cycles and understanding delays within cycles.
A book Carolina used to give away at lunch and learns is Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton. It talks about why architecture is needed and is a great book for those who are not architects but work with them to make their vision a reality.
Recommended Productivity Tools
Carolina also shared a few of her favorite productivity tools, which are a mix of digital and analog. She uses Evernote to organize her thoughts and documents (she has over 20,000 notes in it!). However, she manages her calendar analog, through a paper planner Inner Guide Planner that she got on Amazon. She can use it with the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology in it. She’s able to plan her events and do a weekly, monthly and quarterly review to ensure she’s on track for her work and goals.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.