For Construction Manager Laurie Bryan, paving her own way in the industry has always been a career priority. Bryan was introduced to life the construction industry at an early age. Both her father and uncle worked at Allan Myers for decades, and often shared with Bryan their experience and lessons learned on the jobsite.
During her time visiting the Allan Myers offices with her father, Bryan recognized the construction industry might be the right fit for her. “I’ve always liked building things. Growing up, my sisters played with Barbies, and I made Lego bridges and structures for the Barbies,” said Bryan.
In high school, Bryan found she had more interest in her math and science courses and decided the path to take was engineering. Bryan, who at 16 also worked at Allan Myers filing papers and doing clerical work, had set out to take an elective construction course.
“The teacher called my parents and said, ‘I need your permission to allow her in this course, because she’s going to be the only woman,’” said Bryan.
“And normally the women take home economics. They don’t take this home building course.”
A guidance counselor also discouraged Bryan from her interest in an engineering career track, citing the lack of success rates for women who pursue this path. Despite the negative feedback from high school educators, Bryan was steadfast in her decision.
With this, she and her father agreed she would not only enroll in the construction course, but also continue to pursue her engineering career as planned.
“I remember I was the only girl in that course,” said Bryan. Having learned most of the course material and construction basics from her father in her early years, Bryan recalls being somewhat bored with the coursework. “I wish there was more to it. I felt like, ‘Wait, I already know all this,’” said Bryan.
Bryan soon graduated high school and attended college at Virginia Tech, from which she graduated with a civil engineering degree. Upon graduating, Bryan spent some time interning for a couple of larger contractors, but ultimately decided to return to her roots at Allan Myers.
“I’ve been here for 17 years,” said Bryan. “I started out on a crew — I was finishing concrete and drove a little excavator, and I was really excited. I got to do my field rotation and get treated like everyone else — I was on the crew.”
However, Bryan could see opportunity ahead and went after it, pursuing a role as project engineer, then working her way up to project manager, and mostly recently construction manager.
Project Experience
Bryan has worked within a broad number of disciplines throughout her career, including, airport, railway, highway/transportation and water/wastewater projects. “I describe my career as ‘planes, trains and automobiles,’” said Bryan. “I’ve been lucky enough to do a number of really cool projects,” whose project territory cover the Northern Virginia area, from Baltimore to D.C., and even more south these days.
“My career now is focused on the heavy-civil portion of the work. Water, wastewater transportation, infrastructure. We do private site work, too, for the huge data center market in Northern Virginia. I’m very much involved with our alternative delivery construction — really big on design-build and progressive design-build CMR-type projects,” said Bryan. “That’s one of the things that I specialize in at this point.”
“One of the things I love most about my work is that actually I can see it,” says Bryan. “It helps the communities that that I live in. It’s a tangible thing that is physically being built, so it’s a very fulfilling career in that way.”
Never mind solving the difficult jobsite challenges, or facing the stressful, time-consuming environment that comes with every construction project, says Bryan. “At the end of the day, when you build a successful project, the most exciting part is saying, ‘Hey, I built that. I had a part in that.’”
Bryan brings a sense of eagerness and excitement to all of her projects, but there are a few standout opportunities.
For a number of years on the infrastructure side, Bryan worked on the I-66 Express Lanes project, a public-private partnership (P3) that improved the I-66 corridor in Virginia. As the largest P3 project happening in the country at the time, Bryan was central to the success of the $2.1 billion project, which was delivered on time — a point of pride for both Bryan and the Allan Myers team.
Today, Bryan is spending much of her time working with projects for DC Water, including improvement projects at its Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of the largest advanced wastewater treatments plants in the world.
Bryan is also helping DC Water with its stormwater systems, guided by a goal to make the Potomac River swimmable by 2030. “They’ve bored a number of tunnels underneath the Potomac River and the Anacostia River to hold their combined storm water system,” said Bryan. “Now, they need the stormwater pump stations to actually pump the water to those tunnels, so that when big storms happen, this the sewage isn’t dumped out into the waterways.”
Another area of work for Byran is with private clients on data centers. “We have some large projects with some large site packages that include walls and number of other things and Data Center Alley,” said Bryan, referring to Data Center Alley is a nickname for the area in Northern Virginia that’s home to a large number of data centers.
Just added to Bryan’s roster is Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) first progressive design-build contract, the I-95 and Route 123 interchange project, which is now beginning the construction phase.
“Construction is in my blood,” said Bryan, who often calls back to the advice her father gave her, to “do it right the first time.” This intense focus on quality runs not only throughout her work on-site, but also in her commitment to improve the future of the industry. “He instilled this in me, and fortunately, it’s part of me now,” she said.
Major Milestones
Recently, Bryan’s leadership and success were recognized with a promotion to the role of construction manager — the first for a female in Allan Myers’ rich 86-year history. Bryan stepped up to claim this title in 2024. Bryan says this was always the career for her, even in her early days as a young engineer. “I set a goal to be project manager, and then a construction manager, which took a lot of hard work and determination to get there,” said Bryan, who made a point to share her intentions with Allan Myers President Rich Dungan. Bryan says she may also be aiming for a role as vice president or perhaps even president down the road.
In her day to day, Bryan enjoys interacting with the many different types of people on the job and figuring out how everyone might work together toward the common goal.
This is not only a focus of her work, but also in fostering the incoming workforce.
“I love seeing people throughout their careers doing well, but especially now, mentoring and coaching and watching people that I have brought into the industry succeed is very exciting,” said Bryan.
Bryan’s stance on mentorship is something that drives her daily. Not only does she mentor both male and female engineers, but she has also committed to growing the company’s female engineer leadership and is making a difference in that area.
According to Bryan, “It’s just something I’ve always had a passion for. When I started out [in construction], I was the only female on my jobsites.”
For Bryan, bringing more women into the industry became yet another goal to achieve. “It’s a three-phase process,” said Bryan, “recruitment, retaining and engaging.”
Starting with recruitment, Bryan realized that many people in general — but certainly females — simply don’t realize that construction is a path that can exist for them.
“Just showing people that this is a viable career option for them can help bring them in,” said Bryan, who notes that it’s just as important to support them once they’re on the path, much in the way her father supported her interest in joining the industry.
Bryan says one step on the path to accomplishing this is through simple representation. “It really works wonders,” according to Bryan. “It’s been surprising to see the difference it has made over the years.”
Bryan, a member of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), notes that the simple choice to include a female presence at recruitment events can shows other females this is something they can consider pursuing themselves.
While after 17 years in the industry, Bryan sometimes still must remind people where she ranks, because the immediate assumption is that women are not in charge.
“Just because I don’t have a beard doesn’t mean I’m not the boss around here,” said Bryan, who says she is often overlooked for the opinion of the younger male figure nearby.
Regardless of these stereotypes and Bryan’s dedication to breaking them, it’s important to note that the balance may be shifting.
“In the Northern Virginia region, our entry level engineers at Allan Myers are 43% women,” said Bryan. “That’s above industry average. And we’re not there yet — we’re not as far as we want to be, but we’ve made a lot of really awesome strides, and I’m very proud of that.”
One thing we can all agree on is the industry as a whole is short on skilled labor. According to Bryan, one opportunity we may have to improve upon the problem is recruiting from unconventional sources.
“If we want to continue to be successful and build things, we have to figure out how to fix this labor shortage,” said Bryan. “One way we can do it is by finding people who aren’t in our typical workforce pool to pull from — that means women.”
One specific way Bryan is helping to lead the charge is through co-founding the company’s Women at Allan Myers (W@AM) resource group aimed at recognizing the women in the industry and providing some unique support to them. The group is regionally based, much like the company’s business units, and will have a lead in each region.
Some of W@AM’s goals include community service, and recruitment, retention and engagement, leadership training, and building out a mentorship program within the company.
According to Bryan, though making her mark as the company’s first female construction manager and helping to found W@AM are among her greatest achievements, she says these are just a starting point.
“I always feel there’s more work to be done,” said Bryan, “and I’m not done yet.”
