As we celebrate Women’s History Month, let’s take a moment to honor the invaluable contributions of our female employee owners. Their dedication, expertise, and leadership have enriched our company and continue to inspire. We are proud to recognize and celebrate the remarkable impact of these exceptional women. Thank you for your outstanding contributions! We’d also like to remember a few of the many influential women whose contributions have bettered our communities, industry, and country as a whole. Read more below to learn about Norma Sklarek, Nora Stanton Barney, and Emily Warren Roebling – all pioneering women in the A/E/C industry.
We often forget about the significant barriers women have had to overcome so today let’s remember a few, starting with Norma Sklarek. Norma has been called the “Rosa Parks of Architecture” for her groundbreaking accomplishments and leadership. She was the first African American woman to pass her license exam to become an architect in New York and California. She is the daughter of immigrants from Trinidad, grew up in Harlem and Brooklyn and graduated from the School of Architecture at Columbia University in 1950. She was rejected from 19 firms after graduating before finally being hired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Like many female architects in corporate firms, Norma served as a project manager rather than a design architect for most of her career although she had the technical skills and knowledge to do so. She persevered and went on to become the first Black woman to co-own an architectural firm, Siegel Sklarek Diamond, and the first Black woman to be elected as a Fellow of the AIA. She is most noted for designing the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan in 1976 and the Terminal One Station at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1984.
Nora Stanton Barney was the first woman to receive a civil engineering degree from Cornell University in 1905 and in the same year was elected as the first female junior member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). After graduating from Cornell, she worked for the New York City Board of Water supply, took classes at Columbia, and worked for her husband, Lee De Forest’s, company. The two then separated and Nora moved back to NYC to work as an assistant engineer and chief draftsman at the Radley Steel Construction Company. She later began working part-time as an architect and developer on Long Island. She gained notoriety when her age surpassed the “junior” status age and she applied for an upgrade to associate member of ASCE. Her request was denied, and she filed a lawsuit against them that she eventually lost. In 1919, she married a marine architect, Morgan Barney and in 1923 they moved to Connecticut and Nora became a real estate developer.
One of the most iconic engineering projects in America’s history is the Brooklyn Bridge. Washington Roebling was the Chief Engineer for the project but when he became seriously sick in 1872, his wife Emily Warren Roebling started taking notes of what needed to be done to complete the project. When her husband passed, she stepped in to begin overseeing the day-to-day supervision and management of the project. Emily learned about strength of materials, strength analysis, cable construction and calculation of catenary curves. It is said she was Chief Engineer in every way but name. The Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883 and a plaque that honors Emily and Washington hangs from it.