The WOMEN of Steel at Zimkor!
Lately in the news we read a lot lately about our low unemployment rate and how we seem to lack female presences in trades like construction. Hopefully this feature will inform and perhaps inspire more women to make their career and mark in the construction field as we introduce the women of steel at Zimkor!
Not all construction takes place on actual jobsites; increasingly owners and general contractors are seeing the value in more and more work being done offsite (or “pre-fabrication”). The thought being it can be substantially safer and more economical to do as much as possible off the site. The steel industry by its very nature encompasses these principles and has so for decades (being a trade that the work must be defined and known to a 1/16” months ahead of time).
Zimkor operates as an offsite manufacturer (we fabricate structural steel, misc. metals and arch. metals) that holds contracts for the supply and install (subcontracted to ironworking firms) of our scopes. While we do not have any female “field hands” we do have a terrific staff of folks that include some of the hardest working gals in the business who are integral to our continued success. It is our pleasure to introduce you to the folks and careers that are available in steel construction.
Angie Wortman serves as our Office Manager; in addition to making our office tick Angie ensures every detail of our operation runs smoothly and integrates well with others. Angie assists accounting with the reconciliation of purchase orders and our payables processes; this can be hundreds of transactions any given month and Angie helps us pride ourselves in meeting all of our obligations timely and accurately. Angie likewise serves as our “quarterback” for all of our contracts (logging/tracking/return of executed) for all projects and she ensures we have proper insurance credentials issued timely all projects. Angie likewise is the brains behind all events we hold at Zimkor; quarterly lunches, monthly meetings, retreats, the picnic, etc.
Elizabeth Martinez serves as our Project Administrator; she addresses all daily/weekly/monthly accounting functions as well assisting the Project Managers with all project related functions; tracking of change requests, preparation/submission of all invoicing, as well as the maintenance of our shop scheduling efforts. Liz works directly with the PM staff to help us keep all project related efforts accurate and on track; she began as a part time employee, has grown into her role very nicely and continues to learn and master a broader set of duties.
Irene Jaramillo serves as our Human Resources Director and our Safety Director. Irene handles all matters related to employment and benefits for all staff. The expansion and complication of benefits in particular has forced us to place a far greater premium on the scope and execution of such benefits, no small task today. Irene likewise has grown into the role of overseeing our safe operations; she helps us set sound policy, enforcement and improvement of our efforts. Irene in particular demonstrates the need for a competent/growing leader in a constantly changing and always challenging field. Lastly (in her spare time) she handles all payroll functions for us to assist accounting. Irene began her career here answering the phones and continues to grow and advance as a leader with Zimkor.
Shana Fasick and Shelly Ensign serve as Project Coordinators for Zimkor. A PC at Zimkor is tasked with the oversight and execution of our drawing processes; integral to our success (if we can’t draw it we can’t built it) the PC leads this process and with the Project Manager this role is essential to our operations and has increased in it’s relevance (as contract documents are/persist in being incomplete). The successful/timely arrival at the shop with a clean/approved set of shop drawings is no small task and a strong value argument for “why Zimkor;” Shana and Shelly are 2 of the best in the business at what they do.
Kim Schnaible serves as our Asst. Materials Manager and Traci Miller serves as Materials Assistant. Materials is just what it sounds like; get ALL our required materials here as specified and when required as presented on our shop drawings. This is literally 1,000s of transactions/purchases/allocations each month. Purchasing/tracking/dispensing materials to meet AISC Certification requirements is no small task and Kim and Tracy are integral to our efforts accordingly.
All of our women of steel play key roles today and will do so tomorrow; they truly are amazing folks doing great things and helping Zimkor (and steel construction) be a better place to work today and tomorrow.
L to R: Angie Wortman, Shana Fasick, Traci Miller, Shelly Ensign, LIz Martinez, Irene Jaramillo and Kim Schnaible