Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hello and welcome to the Skilled AF podcast, where we give diverse voices connected to the skilled trades a platform to share their story. I'm your host, Amanda Lucchetti, founder of The Skilled Project, an organization on a mission to inspire 1 million people to explore skilled trades and construction careers by 2028. You can learn more about the org at theskilledproject.com. Today's guest is Mariel Price, VP of Go-To-Market at Fieldwire, a construction tech company powered by Hilti. Mariel spent over seven years in traditional construction before making the switch to construction tech. She was one of Fieldwire's earliest employees and has helped grow the company to a global platform empowering job sites around the world. We talk about her transition into construction tech and why, the unexpected overlap she found between job sites and startups, chat AI and innovation and what she's seeing. the team she's built all pulling from the construction industry, and what it's going to take to get more women into these careers. Wherever you're at in the world, we hope you enjoy. Welcome, Marielle. I'm excited to hear your story, your journey, and really give people a glimpse into your career path.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

• Speaker #0

  Let's go ahead and start with what has been your path into construction and then construction tech. I would love to hear about your journey through schooling into the industry and we can go from there.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, for sure. So I studied civil engineering in college at Stanford and I kind of fell into construction after that with my master's program. I've always been interested in sustainability, like I know you are as well, and our built environment has such an incredible impact in the construction phase as well as operations of buildings. And so I started in civil engineering, was very interested in that space and decided to do a master's program called Sustainable Design and Construction. And I thought it was going to be architecture and sustainable design. And it turns out it was a lot more about construction. and it was fascinating. It really kind of opened my eyes to a... engineering discipline. I knew I wanted to help solve problems in the physical space. So it's a type of engineering where there's so much teamwork involved. It's just solving problems together in a group. And I fell in love with it as well as learning about, you know, the embodied carbon of materials and all that good stuff. But I kind of accidentally got to know construction as a really fascinating field. And then I joined Pankow Builders, a general contractor in the Bay Area, and was one of the original members of their sustainability group, and so got to help build four buildings in the Bay Area in Davis, and since then decided that I wanted to have an impact on the industry in a more broader sense, and I joined Fieldwire in 2015, 10 years ago, as an early employee, number six. and have seen the company go from six people around one table to a company part of Hilti, which is a 30,000 plus person organization. So it's been quite the journey.

• Speaker #0

  Wow. I mean, has anybody in your family been in the construction industry?

• Speaker #1

  I didn't have really any exposure, but it's funny, like during onboarding, and I get to talk to a lot of our newcomers. some people have construction industry and that's an important part of some of the roles that we look to bring into the company, but many people do not. But the fun thing about it is like, we all have some sort of interaction or understanding of construction, whether we think about it or not, because of our utilities or buildings that we're in. But I did not really think about it as a career opportunity until my, my master's program.

• Speaker #0

  Wow. And so then you started at. Pankow Builders and you were doing a project you mentioned in Davis, but like, what were those early roles for you? What was like your day-to-day on a job site? Like, what did that look like for you?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so I started out as a field engineer and made my way to an assistant project manager role over the course of those projects. And yeah, day to day, PANCO is a general contractor, but also a self-performed concrete, has a division of self-performed concrete. And so I got to help, you know, mock up what the formwork plans would be for pouring our slabs and foundations and got to manage trades out on site. one of my most influential projects for me was the San Francisco Public Safety Building, which is the police headquarters of SF and fire station as well. And I was managing, I think it was nine trades between electrical, mechanical, plumbing, fire suppression, elevators. And I just learned so much from my foreman and just being able to interact every day out on site, helping in my way, be part of the building of this, this incredible building.

• Speaker #0

  Cool. That's super exciting. Was there a trade you're like, oh, this is really not what I expected? Like anything that surprised you when interacting with them?

• Speaker #1

  I have to say, like, well, elevators, I find so complex. And there are a lot of checks in the process, rightly so. We definitely want our elevators to be safe. But I learned a lot about that trade. I also, like one of my foremen, Jesse, he's just so knowledgeable about the electrical space. And one thing that I liked about working for a general contractor is you get a little bit of exposure to a lot of different things, but my foremen were such experts in their field. And so I got to learn a ton from my electrical foreman and just all the complexity that goes into things. It's also a fun fact that that building can be completely isolated from city water, electricity, and be fully functioning for several days. And so those were my trades that were responsible for, you know, extra fire water and electricity and generators and all that. And so I got to go through all the testing that's required for that and learned a ton and ton in that space, as well as the importance of fire stopping.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, you were really thrown into a lot. Well, so I mean, you make the switch to construction tech, like what was the impetus of that? When was your like, oh, I want to go this direction?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so I love construction. I love seeing that physical building and manifestation of your hard work appear. And it is also an industry that has, you know, a lot of litigation that comes up and a lot of things that you have to do in order to prevent or cover your ass type work in terms of the liability of construction. And so I felt like a lot of extra work for... over communicating or sending out these emails every single day or week and copying 200 people on a distribution list to make sure that I had a paper trail of what I was doing. And that kind of overhead, I think, took away from me helping build my building. This isn't unique to my projects. I think this is pretty universal and also somewhat universal. in other countries, although U.S. is probably a bit more leaning this way. And I wanted to help build buildings. And so technology was really growing in our space. And I was using a few things that weren't quite working. And so I found Fieldwire. And there's a free version, you could just download and play with it. And so I did that. And my last project in elementary school in West Oakland, I used Fieldwire on the punch out of my project. And it was exactly what I was looking for. And I decided that I may be able to have a broader impact by working in a startup and helping influence thousands of projects, now millions of projects around the world, versus just my individual projects that I was working on.

• Speaker #0

  So then you came into Fieldwire. You were obviously, you used it, you liked it, it helps you a lot, right? And then. Did it get acquired by Hilti then? Is that what happened at some point within the last few years?

• Speaker #1

  So, yes, I joined when we were, it was two founders, three software engineers and me. And so between 2015 and 2021, we did have some interactions with Hilti and they actually did participate in one of our funding rounds. But when we went out for our next funding round, Hilti approached us and, you know, we decided that this would be. a really good partnership. And so Hilti acquired Fieldwire in 2021. So it's been, it's coming up on four years this fall where we've been officially part of the Hilti group.

• Speaker #0

  Cool. So then you're the VP of go-to-market. What does your role look like right now?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so we have a global team. Pre-acquisition, we had mainly, we were in the US, we had a small team in France. And now we have hundreds of people all across the globe. And so my role is helping take care of our customers and bringing on new customers, keeping our customers and growing our customers and the teams that help and facilitate that. And so my day-to-day is early calls with Europe and US throughout the day. And. making sure that our customers are getting a fantastic product, understanding the value, and that we're helping change the industry in our way.

• Speaker #0

  And you, I'm assuming you guys have a suite of products. Is there one specific product or you're like this problem that we're solving? I think just given your experience, I just think is so critical and important and you want more people to know about it from an innovation perspective.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I mean, I'll say for Fieldwire, We are really focused on delivering value today. There's so much issue that you're very well familiar with when it comes to labor, when it comes to material these days, deliveries and all that. There's so much in terms of actual coordination on the job site today that we're helping solve. I'll get to maybe the innovation parts in a moment. But the reason that I was originally drawn to Fieldwire, and that was when the product you know, was around for. the actual product was around for a year or so, was the planning and execution aspect of it, especially through tasks and communication. In my master's program and one of our founders, Eve, his master's program, we learned a lot about design and the, you know, making 4D modeling, 5D modeling, there's probably 6D modeling nowadays, but all of these different factors on making a really well-coordinated design between all these different entities for your project. But when it came to actually working in general contractor, there was a ton of tech and then it kind of dropped off and there wasn't much for the people actually out on site executing their work. There wasn't technology geared towards them and the perfect plan. isn't going to happen if people don't understand it or don't have access to it and can't actually implement it out on site. And we all know that like profits are made during the execution of a project, not on a perfect plan that's done in the office. And so the tasks and, you know, field or construction is really a bunch of tasks that you have to do and a bunch of problem solving, a bunch of rearranging of tasks. And so that was why Fieldwire was originally founded. and it's still a string throughout the product, you still will see that, but there's obviously a ton more functionality we've added. For me, I'm just most passionate about when somebody shows up on a job site, they know what they need to do, they know where it is, they know resources they need to accomplish that, so then they can put their phone away and just get to building, and they can communicate with their teams about progress or questions or all that. And that's really the fundamental core of Fieldwire. We have added a ton to the product since then to cover, you know, more office cases, more innovation when it comes to how do we look at photos and AI with that, you know, all these different things coming up, which is really exciting. But at the end of the day, we want the people out there on site to be empowered to build and not be. doing extra paperwork or, you know, all these extra processes.

• Speaker #0

  Right. I appreciate that explanation. And like you're pinpointing probably again, from your experience, right? This has really helped when you were executing on that job in Oakland. And what I'm curious about is this transition side from going from construction on the field to this construction tech role, like what skills has translated well, probably the knowledge of the industry, right? And how. you know, the processes and everything that's happening.

• Speaker #1

  I was really nervous about the transition. And even, you know, my parents were also like, are you crazy? You're going from a really established company to like, do they even have healthcare? You know, to a small, small organization. But I actually found it way, like super culturally similar to it from a job site trailer to a startup because you are wearing a lot of hats and everybody is there to solve this. issue, whether it's building a building or building a business, everybody's there working in one common goal and we're all kind of having to pitch in when it makes sense. And so I found it pretty seamless in terms of the culture, which was surprising to me. And I will say that like project management skills that you inherently learn in construction are helpful in all types of business. And so that of course helped where I'm used to, okay, what's my schedule? What I'm breaking down the parts and pieces that get me to that end result that has helped me. And I think helps anyone in construction in that industry, but also beyond, but it was surprisingly more seamless than I had anticipated.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, that makes sense. And like, Do you see many people making a similar transition that you have?

• Speaker #1

  I built a team dedicated to that because I think it's so important that we have construction expertise within our company. It's a really hard industry to teach people about unless you really lived it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I know you have, right? You can learn the phrases, you can learn the terms, but... But... Unless you've really been out on the job site and involved, it's hard to learn. And so I built up our construction team, which is made up of people from the industry. And they're kind of our customer advisors. They help our customers get the most value out of the product. And that has been really important. And the rest of our business has lots of people from the construction space. that have moved from the construction team into different areas or also from external hires.

• Speaker #0

  And do you see any, and this is more traditional skilled trades roles, but any of those roles going into a construction tech?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. We have people who come from the trades and moving into our company. Again, you understand the pain points deeply.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And construction. It's always evolving, but it still is a really big trust and people type business. I'm biased, but I think that Fieldwire is the best solution for people out there. But when you can actually speak to someone that's, you're not just a salesperson, you're actually somebody who has been in that customer's shoes, it adds a level of comfort and understanding of the value of our product because we can speak. So, uh, so eloquently towards all the problems that are out on a project and the communication hurdles and all of that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Oh, it's so interesting. I am thinking about it for pathways, right? Like, because I think about this next generation exploring careers and to know that this is a path you can get into construction tech, right? It's just, I think it can be appealing. It's interesting. Like there's a lot of innovation. I think construction. is like the last industry to innovate. So I think there's a lot of opportunity and I think it's going to be really exciting in general over the next couple of decades of what's going to happen in the industry. So it's, yeah. And we can talk about that. There's a lot happening. What is exciting you most right now?

• Speaker #1

  I mean, yeah, there's a lot happening. I think there's a few. industry things that I think are interesting. And then of course, the AI spaces is interesting to everybody right now and really applicable. But as an industry side, I really love the lean construction concept and integrated product delivery and that transparency to promote more teamwork and collaboration. And that those types of contract models and owners, especially in the healthcare space really. understanding the value in that because I think that just brings us so much further in an industry to being transparent, working together and understanding, sharing in the risks and the rewards. I just love that area. And I also prefab and some of the sustainability related to that is exciting. But then on the artificial intelligence side, again, there's a lot of busy work in construction for good or for bad that can take people away from building. AI is not replacing people whatsoever. It's replacing the busy work or the kind of monotonous work that we can automate through other means so that people can get back to building so that it can be a very appealing industry for young people, for women, for all types of people, because it is such a rewarding career. And so I'm excited for AI to kind of take away some of that stuff to make it such an exciting. industry because it is incredible as you're well aware like that the physical put in a lot of blood sweat and tears and there's a thing there that I drive by or I saw last week you know one of my buildings it's an incredible industry where you get to work with a lot of different people with different knowledge sets and I just find it to be always evolving always always changing and I'm always learning from it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Well, and yeah, the stats on like the one, yeah, I hear the same thing about people in the industry of like how, oh, that's my building. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  exactly. I'm very proud.

• Speaker #0

  I built that.

• Speaker #1

  My name is signed to the foundation over there in that corner.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, to be able to see like the physical nature of something you built, it's just, there's something about that that you can't replace or take away. and It is interesting seeing some of the stats that are coming out. Like 20%, they're thinking it's going to increase the construction productivity by 20% because of the project planning, right? That AI might be able to do. And something I saw this morning, which I thought was interesting, and you mentioned to it, you were alluding to it, touching on it a little bit before, but the time spent fixing design problems. They're saying that 20% of the AEC professionals are fixing design issues. And so... How do we utilize or augment AI? I mean, at the end of the day, it's a tool. So it's like, how do you best deploy that within the industry and save on some of these inefficiencies, create efficiencies? I mean, to your point, get back to building. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And generate insights that would take us longer to see otherwise, right? Being able to see, identify trends earlier from all the data. So it's definitely an exciting, exciting space that will have a lot of impact in. this industry and obviously others.

• Speaker #0

  Awesome. Okay. So I want to transition over to, I feel like I asked this in every single one of my interviews, but we look at raising awareness, shifting culture around these careers. Is there a misconception or myth that you continue to hear that you think is hurting the industry? Maybe, I'm not sure if construction tech is the same, but I would say like broader construction industry.

• Speaker #1

  I mean, I would say that stereotype that construction is a man's world. I would say construction is a male-dominant space. Tech is a male-dominant space. Construction tech can be the same, if you can imagine. And so I think that I'm continuing to see more and more women in the space, which I love to see both in construction and construction tech, but it is slow going when you look at the overall stats and percentages. I mean, over my whole time, I had one female foreman, which was incredible. She was my elevator foreman. Again, learned a ton from her.

• Speaker #0

  Who was that person?

• Speaker #1

  Summer from... Yeah. Yeah. So I learned a ton from her. But when I see the stats, especially for women in the skilled trades, it's pretty dismal. Yeah. Yeah. And construction tech, I think, again, it's getting better and better. And that's something as a company that we've focused on and has been a priority for us. but it's still not great. And so that's, I think, a preconceived notion. And if you aren't exposed to it early on, you know, I think people were like, why are you getting into construction? What? Like, I don't know, that's not something I would expect from you. And, you know, I don't what I think they were saying. That's not a common space for women, but it's such a rewarding industry like we've spoken about. And I would love to. you know, get rid of that stereotype. And it's needed to get rid of that stereotype. We need young people, we need women, we need all people, because it's one of the largest industries in the world, and is just so fundamental to everyone's well being and how we live and our infrastructure and all these different things. And there's a big risk out there if we can't attract talent to the space, which is why I love what you're doing.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's so true that the percentages are scary and you're seeing more women explore these careers. I think there is a drop off or you do see the churn and you're like, okay, well, why? What efforts can we do? And I think your point, there's a lot of representation stuff of how do we continue to put women in, whether it be well-earned leadership positions, right? But like showing those positions to people and raising awareness around it. So that other young girls can be like, aha, I want to do that. It is interesting, though. Like, obviously, you went to Stanford and you have a double degree. Like, people are just like, wait, you're going into construction? Was that like crazy?

• Speaker #1

  I think COVID was kind of also a really helpful changing point in people realizing that you don't need to be physically on the job site from 5 a.m. to 6, 7, 8 p.m. every day and on every Saturday in order to get your job done. And I think that that's been a mainstay in the industry where people are having a bit more flexibility on how they think about that. And one of the reasons that I love software is because it can also help empower people to still have the information they need, but it's on their computer, wherever they are, on their phone. And so I'm hopeful that that also makes the industry more attractive for everyone because you know, historically, it's not a very flexible place to work. You have to physically be there and you know, all these things. And obviously if you're doing physical work, you, you have to be there, but there's so the technology side has, I think, enabled people to have a bit more flexibility in their schedule. And that's been really cool to see that as a mainstay.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And this goes into the part. and the thought process around like navigating this industry as a woman. You're a new parent, right? Like there's working parents in general. How has that been in navigating that as like a new mom? And like, what do you think both in construction tech? Because I think about the tech world in general, like in your right, like that's male dominated, but like what needs to happen in order for working moms, but also just families to succeed?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I mean, I think some of that is that flexibility for sure. I mean, for me personally, I also have made it a point to also be vocal about some things, right? Like I have some commitments related to my child, my baby, or I decided to breastfeed for a while coming back to work and I was traveling quite a bit. And, you know, there's also some cultural differences in that that I've encountered. and I've tried to be vocal on, oh, you know what, I need to go take my break. And this is why and not necessarily sweep it under the rug, but make sure that people know I'm, I'm here, I'm contributing and all that I just, you know, every few hours, I need to go to my special room for a bit. And I think trying to make it normal for people has been important for me, because we're still on our journey to having more, more, especially mothers, I would say in this space. And there's, you know. incredible mother like network within my company and other companies. And so it's fantastic to be able to lean on each other, get advice on things. And I think that we also just need to educate people because oftentimes...

• Speaker #0

  I find that people maybe say things or act a different way and it's not malicious in any way. It's just a lack of, of understanding or a lack of empathy or, you know, just literally not understanding like, Oh, okay.

• Speaker #1

  So, I mean, I think about even like before I became a mom where I was working before, I just didn't have it at all. And then, and then I was like, I became a mom and I was like, what the actual fuck?

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. You're like, what?

• Speaker #1

  How have people been surviving in these different things? I'm like, how did they make it through COVID? The whole remote learning, I was like, oh my God, it totally gives you a different perspective of empathy, compassion, respect for people that are also going through that at your company. It does create this camaraderie in a way of you're not alone, but you're also just like, wait a minute.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, for sure.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Well, okay. So what advice would you give someone that is entering the industry today? So somebody that's in middle school, high school, they're interested in these careers. Like what advice would you give somebody that age?

• Speaker #0

  I mean, I think getting as much exposure as you can from people that you know in the industry is fantastic. I would say when I got into the industry, even though I had... courses on construction. I like, you know, I made a concrete beam and stuff. I didn't know how to read plans, like read what all the different things that like, there's a lot that you learn in the industry. You just kind of dive into the deep end and learn a ton that way. And so if you're interested now getting exposure through through people, you know, by even a lot of jobs. job sites. We'll do public tours, especially public buildings. We'll do public tours at certain cadences, volunteering for any of those opportunities. There are also a lot of programs like the ACE mentorship program, like a lot of construction related programs to keep an eye out for. And the other thing I know is near and dear to your heart is college is for some people and trade school is a fantastic other option and it's an incredible incredible livelihood. It's an incredible industry, again, where you can really feel a sense of accomplishment and impact while making a very good livelihood. And trade schools are a fantastic option to get more exposure to that.

• Speaker #1

  Cool. Yeah. And I've been seeing more and more internships getting offered within construction to high school students. And I was like, when I was in high school, I don't think that was an option. And I know like liability. I've heard about this, like liability. If you're under the age of 18, there's a whole thing, but trying to figure that out because one of the ladies were doing this construction camp with her daughter is going to be doing an internship and she's like 16 years old with that construction company. I was like, that is so cool.

• Speaker #0

  I love that. Yeah. I mean, and that's a win-win, right? Like the child gets more exposure or student gets more exposure to the industry and it's a great place for the company to pull from for future talent. that's a great program.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So then looking back, you've had quite a journey. What is one thing that has surprised you the most about the industry?

• Speaker #0

  I go back at least because of my journey, I would go back to, it was very surprising that startups and construction go hand in hand and that culture is very, very similar. I would also say I studied engineering and there's... a lot of great careers in your traditional engineering and a lot of them are behind a desk modeling things and construction is such a fun industry again where you're problem solving with these people who have expertise and incredible skills that are never going to be able to be replaced by robots and all these things and that's just so rewarding at least for me who's somebody who really likes team oriented. problem solving. I think I didn't understand the extent to like how much the industry is that until I was in it. And then the fact that it's very similar to, to a startup.

• Speaker #1

  Cool. I like it. Is there something that you're like, ah, this has been like really hard or like the worst part of the job or like that you're like, oh, I did not like that.

• Speaker #0

  I mean And the industry, again, that's kind of one of the reasons I switched was because of some of the monotonous work that had to be done for because it's a litigious industry. That's annoying or that was annoying, but important. And on the technology side, I've been from a group of six people to 300 plus people, 300, 400 people within a 35,000 person organization. And so along that way, there's just growing pains. And how do you still work efficiently and effectively while maintaining a culture that is naturally going to shift with the size of company? And I think... I ended up learning a lot more about building a business than I was intending, just jumping to the construction tech side because I was like, I'm just here for the industry. But I learned a lot about how do you grow a team, maintain some of the culture, evolve the culture, go from in-person only to remote during COVID to now a global organization. And it can at times be painful to go through those iterations, but it's, it's so important because people at the end of the day, make, you know, make the business and help the people are the ones that are helping build the software that serve our customers. So I wouldn't say it's not a bad thing. It's just the reality of having to really consciously evolve and what got you to this stage won't necessarily get you to the next stage.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it makes sense. Okay, so then where do you see this construction tech industry heading over the next five, 10 years?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, so the industry has evolved quite a bit since I've been working in construction tech for 10 years. I would say when I originally got in the space, customers were looking for really, especially larger customers, looking for really best of breed solutions. And nowadays people are looking for... best of breed, but also some connections and more of a platform offering. And I see it moving more and more that direction, especially because these solutions such as Fieldbar, such as others have so much data in them now, you know, there are 10s of 1000s, you know, sometimes millions of photos being taken on single job sites, a lot of content and tracking of what's going on in the project. And that integration side is really important, as well as that layering of the insights from AI, from others. Okay, now that we have all this data, what does this mean for us as an organization, so that we can actually look more ahead instead of being reactive. And one thing that's really cool about joining forces with Hilti is Hilti has traditionally been a hardware company, that's where it was founded. But Hilti has realized the importance of software. with the goal of being a productivity partner for their customers, being the best partner for productivity, safety, and sustainability. And Hilti has acquired actually more companies in this space, and I'm really excited to see that full offering alongside the best-in-class hardware offerings that Hilti has. So there's definitely a few things that are evolving, and it's exciting to see the customers really realize all of the value. that software can bring for them to get better insights in how to run their companies.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. I'm curious about the people, it's more on the behavior change kind of thing. Like construction, it's typically like a lot of these people have been in these jobs for decades, right? It's hard to change, right? So being a part of that wave of getting people to change what they've been doing for years.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. That's another thing that's changed when I first started. People that I was speaking to were using physical plans and Excel to track things. Nowadays, when we talk to people, they're using some sort of construction software. And so that's really cool to see that evolution. What you're just speaking to is really core to the fundamental reason that Fieldwire was founded because the mobile aspect, right? If somebody is really great at doing their craft, technology historically was not necessarily built for them. They were definitely it was built for the project executive is built for the project manager for the back office. But Fieldwire is founded, you know, mobile first for the field. And we are very cognizant of any changes or additions that we add to the phone. It's kind of funny. Our founders, they actually met in a video gaming company. And, but one of them was very passionate about construction, the other about like lean, lean Six Sigma stuff. And they realized for a video game, nobody's reading a manual to figure out how to play the game. And so Fieldwire is the same way. Like, it's very easy, you don't need to read anything in order to start. And we have this concept of progressive disclosure where, okay, you start using it a bit, okay, you understand. And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, there's more functionality here. Let me dive into it. So it's purposely very simple at the beginning, but it's quite powerful, but it kind of, you have, you slowly get to it versus overwhelming them or they're like, Oh, there's 60 different things that I can do on this, on this tab. And we talk to people, you know, that are of a different generation, 60, 70 plus years old. And nowadays, everybody can text and FaceTime their grandchild. And if you could do that, you can use Fieldwire. And so some of our best champions are in that demographic and use Fieldwire every single day to manage their job, also because they see that it's such a time saver for them.

• Speaker #1

  I like that progressive feature thing. I mean, it's the whole paralysis analysis.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. You're like, what do I do?

• Speaker #1

  So overwhelming. Simplicity is key. I love it. Well, thank you, Marielle. This has been so awesome to talk to you and get this perspective of the industry, of construction tech, of where you're focusing and why. I think my last question is just if there's anybody you would like to thank that got you to this journey or anyone in particular that just had a strong impact on your life.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I mean, besides obviously my husband, child and parents and brother who have been so supportive throughout the whole process, I'd say some of my teachers and advisors, professors, and then some of my former bosses and Jim Coyle at Panko and helping me there, Javed and Eve from Fieldwire and the progression that we've seen the company take. There's no way I would be here by myself. There's so many different people that have helped along the way. And again, that's why I love this industry and the space is that it is a people industry and we work together to solve big problems and help our world be a better place, help construction be better through working together.

• Speaker #1

  Cool. I love it. Well, I will include information about, well, one, if people want to connect with you and then Fieldwire and the show and the show notes and stuff, or reach out to me and I'll help make the connection. But it's really interesting to see the work that you're doing and where you're positioning yourself. I think with AI, it's going to be a very interesting space over the next five years. And yeah, it's such an awesome opportunity, again, to just glimpse this career path for people. Next Gen can go into this route and they can go into the field and they can go into construction tech. Like, it's so cool.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Oh, and thank you for all that you're doing for this space because, yeah, it's just so well needed. And I feel like the more we get the word out, the word isn't out yet. I feel like we, but, you know, we need to talk about it more broadly. And so I love this platform and I'm excited to follow you along in all the stuff that you have coming up.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for being on. Amazing. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Skilled AF podcast. If you enjoyed it, please rate, review, subscribe to it wherever you're listening. And if you want to stay connected, partner, you name it, head over to theskilledproject.com or follow us on social media at theskilledproject. Until next time, stay skilled AF.