Seattle-based construction and engineering firm McKinstry has launched a national initiative to expand programs geared to introduce girls and young women to the building trades.

There are two components of the Building Futures program, said Ashley Ruiz, vice president of social impact at McKinstry. One is philanthropic investment, and the other is targeted community service and engagement by McKinstry professionals.

“We’re kicking that off with a handful of investments to a number of different partners, including (Portland-based) Girls Build, who we are very excited to partner with,” Ruiz said.

The initial focus is on programs that reach girls in middle school or high school. The goal is to increase their awareness of career opportunities in the building industry early in their education. Women are significantly underrepresented in engineering and construction, said Laura Swapp, McKinstry’s social impact program director.

“The earlier you begin to see the possibilities, the more likely you are to move on that path,” she said.

Middle school is the ideal time to reach girls and build their confidence, Swapp said.

“A lot of young women have never seen a woman in construction and engineering,” she said. “This is an opportunity for us to show the next generation of girls that there is creative, fulfilling and satisfying careers in construction and engineering.”

The McKinstry Charitable Foundation will donate $1 million by 2030 to nonprofit partners that provide hands-on, industry-relevant learning experiences in skilled trade and applied STEM careers. This year, a total of $200,000 will go to seven entities:

• Girls Build, for construction summer camps for girls ages 8-15 in Oregon and Washington,
• buildHER, for two construction summer camps for girls in grades 7-10 in Seattle,
• Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, for support of first-year students pursuing skilled trade and applied STEM careers,
• Washington Women in Trades, for a skilled trades summer camp for girls ages 11-14,
• Girl Up USA, for virtual and in-person STEAM programming nationwide,
• SheBuilds Futures, for expansion of construction design programs across Texas, and
• STEMblazers, for applied STEM pathway programming in Denver-area high schools.

“We really wanted to focus on these direct, hands-on experiences as being somewhat of our underlying theory of change in this particular initiative,” Ruiz said.

In addition to skills, the girls also learn what it means to be part of a team and how to gain confidence in something they have never done before, Swapp said.

Girls Build, led by Executive Director Katie Hughes, aims to serve girls ages 8-15 — primarily those in the foster care system. This year, summer camps will take place in Portland, Grants Pass, Talent, Sheridan, Tillamook, Warrenton and Morton, Washington. Most of the five-day, outdoor camps (including all three in Portland) have already sold out.

Programming for the summer camps is varied but includes carpentry, sheet metal, concrete, plumbing, solar, blacksmithing, and more.

Hughes said that through the program, she sees girls gain confidence (including socially), an interest in trying new things, and higher academic scores.

When girls are introduced to the trades at high school ages, it is a reach for them because they do not have knowledge or familiarity, Hughes said. That is why Girls Build starts working with girls as young as age 8.

Part of the Building Futures initiative is integrating a hands-on approach within McKinstry’s Building Good program, which is focused on community service and corporate volunteerism. A big part of that, Ruiz said, will be McKinstry professionals mentoring young people in either one-on-one or group settings. There will also be career exploration, jobsite or worksite tours, classroom visits and hands-on learning experiences, such as STEM challenges.

While 30 to 50 percent of graduating high school students are not interested in attending college, about half a million jobs in the construction and engineering industries sit unfilled, Swapp said.

“This is a match made in heaven where there are well-paid, fulfilling jobs,” she said. “There are many young people that don’t know these are available to them as a path.”

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Girls Build is a week-long summer camp founded in 2016 by Portland carpenter Katie Hughes. The camp offers girls between the ages of eight and 14 the opportunity to learn trade skills hands-on, from wiring solar panels to shutting off a broken water main. With the support of the local building industry, the popular camp has expanded to include sessions in southern Oregon, Astoria, and Seattle.

Read more about the program in the 91��Ƶ’s Fall 2018 Women of Vision magazine at wovmagazine.com.

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A Portland woman who mentors girls in the trades was honored with a laudatory video profile and a surprise gift from TV personality Mike Rowe.

Katie Hughes, founder of the Girls Build summer camp, is the subject of an of Rowe’s new online show for Facebook, “Returning the Favor.”

Rowe is perhaps best known for his Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs,” which showcased unique and untidy blue collar positions. In his new program, Rowe profiles “do-gooders,” or people who are, per the show’s voiceover narration, “slightly better than us, doing nice things for their community in a completely selfless way.”

“We find ’em, we meet ’em and then we surprise ’em,” Rowe says.

In Hughes’ case, Rowe and his crew surprised her at the end of the episode with an 8-foot-wide, 20-foot-long trailer tricked-out so Hughes can bring Girls Build programs to children outside the area. Rowe’s crew had the trailer customized by Ryan Donato and Jeremy Killian of tiny house manufacturer Tiny Innovations. They gave it Husky cabinets, workbenches, saw tables and an extension cord reel, along with 50 kid-size tool belts and other features.

Hughes said she’d been asked by a producer to fill out a list of materials the camp needed. Not taking it seriously, she drew up a “dream list,” containing almost everything she could think to ask for. And almost everything was in the trailer, she said.

“It was surreal,” she told the 91��Ƶ. “To have someone pick us out and say, we value what you’re doing and we want to help you succeed. It was pretty special.”

The show’s producers arranged for 10 of Hughes’ family members to join in the surprise, and had a plaque made commemorating her late father, James, to be added to one of the trailer workbenches. Rowe’s foundation, mikeroweWORKS, even donated $10,000.

“Oh, stop it,” a tearful Hughes said as she was surprised by Rowe with a huge check.

Earlier in the video, Hughes describes how her father died shortly before her birth in 1980, leaving her and her two sisters with a shed full of tools, but a huge hole in their lives. She credits the loss with giving them the drive to be self-sufficient, and her mother with raising her to tackle life’s challenges with exuberance.

“I’m not afraid to open things up,” she said.

The summer camps Hughes holds in Portland and Southern Oregon give day-campers an overview of 10 skilled trades over the course of two weeks on a picturesque green at the University of Portland. It’s grown fast in only a few years, to seven paid staff members today.

Hughes has mentored kids in the building trades at Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. and the ACE Academy trades-focused charter school. She still teaches for OTI once per week and hopes to soon teach building courses for young women in correctional facilities.

If Hughes seems cool in the show in the presence of a celebrity like Rowe, it was natural. She admits not knowing who he was until about four hours into the interview.

She wasn’t sure why others were acting strange around him, but was relieved that he turned out to be “very relaxed and a good interviewer.”

“I thought he was a very kind man,” she said.

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Portland’s Girls Build summer camp will be extended this summer due to heavy popularity.

Camp session will be held from July 17 to Aug. 4 at the University of Portland. The camp is intended to introduce girls to the construction trades and is taught entirely by female instructors.

Camp director Katie Hughes said offerings were expanded this year because so many campers were interested in returning for a second time, plus many newcomers wanted to attend.

A Southern Oregon camp has also been added. It will be held June 26-30 in Grants Pass.

Girls Build is open to girls ages 8 to 14. It costs $350, though scholarships are available. Only spots on the waiting list are left; the camps have already filled.

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