I Went From Broadcasting to a Job Site. Here's What Nobody Tells You About Construction.

I had a career that made sense. Good salary, good title, good future. Then I walked onto a job site and blew the whole thing up.

My Journey from Communications to Construction

I started in a world where words were the product: PR, broadcasting, and communications for government agencies. My days revolved around talking points, press releases, and making complex public projects understandable to everyday people. I understood how institutions think, how decisions move through a chain of command, and what it takes to capture the public's attention for more than ten seconds. On paper, it looked stable and smart. My parents understood it. My colleagues respected it. It fit.

But the longer I worked around big public projects, the more I felt an itch I couldn’t explain. I was always asking, “What actually happens after this press conference? What’s going on behind that construction fence?” I’d see a rendering on an easel and think, someone has to turn that picture into an actual building, down to the last bolt and change order. I was telling the story of the work, but I wasn’t anywhere near the work itself. And that started to bother me.

So when the opportunity came to move into construction, I said yes in a way that sounded reckless to almost everyone around me. Not yes to a comfortable “communications director” role in a construction firm. Not yes to staying in my safe lane. I went in as an estimator. No microphone, no podium, no talking points. Just plans, specs, quantities, and numbers that had to be right.

The Transition to Estimating

I assumed I’d be able to translate what I knew about government, public agencies, and big projects into something useful. That part was true. What I didn’t understand was how much of myself I’d have to shed the minute I walked onto a site.

The first time I walked a real job, the noise hit me before the reality did. The air smelled like cut concrete, hot metal, and that specific mix of dust and diesel that clings to your clothes long after you go home. Radios crackled. Someone yelled measurements across the slab. A skid steer beeped in reverse while an inspector walked the perimeter with a clipboard. Everyone seemed to know exactly where to stand and where not to stand. I did not.

Being the only woman in the trailer or on the slab wasn’t a talking point about diversity. It was: you walk in, and every head turns for half a second. Not in an angry way. Just in a “you’re not what we expected” way. You learn quickly how to carry yourself so you don’t shrink and you don’t overcompensate. You let your questions be sharp and your answers sharper. You don’t make being a woman the whole story, but you also don’t pretend it isn’t part of the story. You get very good at taking up exactly the amount of space you need and no less.

Estimating changed how my brain works. When you sit with a set of drawings and a spec book thick enough to bruise someone, you start to see projects differently. Every line on that plan is money. Every material choice, every detail in a wall section, every note in the margins carries cost, risk, and time. You stop thinking in slogans and start thinking in assemblies. You learn to ask: What’s missing? What’s unclear? Where is this going to blow up if we don’t catch it right now?

And you realize that a “number” is not just math. It’s a story about how a job will actually go. Is this owner realistic? Is this schedule even remotely tied to the laws of physics? Is the design team aligned or still fighting it out in RFIs? Estimating sits at the intersection of all of that. You’re not just pricing concrete and steel; you’re reading people, process, and politics in the margins of a set of plans.

Estimating taught me that every line on a drawing is a decision, and every decision has a cost - financial, human, and political.

Moving into Project Management

From estimating, I moved into project management. Suddenly, the things I’d seen as abstract lines on paper were showing up in real time, in real weather, with real people who had kids to pick up after their shift. RFIs became conversations in muddy boots. Change orders became tense meetings where everyone had something to lose. When a pour got delayed or an inspection failed, it wasn’t a line item on a spreadsheet; it was men and women standing around waiting, burning daylight and dollars.

What surprised me most was how much my communications background came roaring back in a hard hat. Construction is, at its core, a communication business. Drawings communicate design intent. Specs communicate expectations. Emails and meeting minutes communicate decisions and risk. If those messages are fuzzy, late, or incomplete, you feel it in busted budgets and blown schedules.

Having lived in both worlds gave me an angle I didn’t see coming. I understand how agencies write RFPs and what they’re really asking for between the lines. I know how to talk to owners in their language, not just in contractor shorthand. I can stand in a trailer, listen to a superintendent, and translate that reality into something an executive across town or a city councilmember can actually understand. That combination—communications fluency plus operations experience—is rare. And once I had it, I knew I couldn’t go back to just telling the story of someone else’s work. I needed to be in the middle of it.

A Defining Moment

There was a moment, standing on a site near the end of a long week, when I knew I’d made the right decision. We’d had weather delays, a supplier issue, and a last-minute design tweak that should have derailed the schedule. Instead of spiraling, the team rallied. Subs stepped up, the inspector worked with us, and the client stayed informed and calm because we were communicating clearly the whole time. I remember looking around that site, at the partially finished structure, at the people solving a dozen problems at once and thinking, this is it. This is where I’m supposed to be. Not in the audience. Not in the press box. Right here in the mess, helping build something that will outlast all of us.

Building My Brand

Today, that crossover is the backbone of everything I do with SoSheBuilds and in my speaking and consulting work. I can sit with a contractor who wants to win government work and talk through pricing strategies and risk the way an estimator does, then help them craft a proposal or a presentation that actually lands with an agency. I can stand on a stage in front of people who have never set foot on a job site and make them feel what it’s like to be there. And I can talk to women who are thinking about stepping into non-traditional roles and tell them the truth: it will be uncomfortable, you will be underestimated, and you will also discover parts of yourself that would never show up in a comfortable career that “makes sense.”

If you’re reading this and you feel like an outsider in your own industry, or you’re a woman looking at a job that doesn’t match what people expect from you, I want you to know this: you don’t have to wait for your path to make sense to other people before you walk it. The best decisions I’ve made didn’t come with applause at the beginning. They came with raised eyebrows and a lot of quiet, stubborn conviction.

This is the first post in what I am building here. If you want the real version of what it takes to work in AEC, win government contracts, and build something in an industry that was not built for you, stick around.

If you are an AEC contractor ready to win government contracts or you want to book me to speak at your next event, the link is in my bio and at karlatalisse.com.