BROOKLINE – March 5, 2018 – In celebration of Women in Construction (WIC) Week, we are featuring two outstanding woman of Kaplan, field laborer Shalayne Jordan and project manager Rachael Montosi. NAWIC’s Women in Construction (WIC) Week provides an occasion to raise awareness and emphasize the growing role of women in the industry.
As baby boomers retire in droves and vacate construction sites, the industry’s historically male-dominated industry is facing a looming worker shortage. The industry is trying to replenish its diminishing workforce by attracting and retaining more women, a demographic that represents a huge opportunity for growth.
As a WBE, Kaplan has been empowering women to succeed in construction for over four decades. We employ women on a broad scale of essential roles including field labor, project management, admin, accounting, and marketing.
Shalayne Jordan, Laborer
With Kaplan since 2017
Shalayne has always been good at building things to someone else’s specifications. She was once told at a former job assembling household appliances and furniture that her meticulousness and keen ability to follow instructions would make her a great fit in construction. From there she started looking into the trades until she got her “breakthrough” as a laborer at Kaplan. A self-described workhorse, Shalayne has found that working in construction has been the career that she has been looking for all along. When asked what she enjoys most about being at the jobsite, she shared,
“I appreciate that I am constantly expanding my mind by learning new skills and I enjoy figuring out different solutions to get the job done.”
Shalayne’s advice to young females starting out in the industry? If you are passionate enough about it, you will find a way to get it done. In other words, “just do it.”
Rachael Montosi, Project Manager
With Kaplan since 2013
She didn’t know it at the time, but Rachael was destined for a career in construction after taking a vocational quiz during her junior year of high school. The results of her quiz revealed two skills essential in the construction world: spatial planning and relationship building. With this, she decided to pursue a future in engineering. After earning her degree at Wentworth Institute of Technology, she began her career as a field engineer and gained further experience over the next eight years in various roles 
both on and off site. Today, Rachael is a project manager at Kaplan where she has overseen renovations for Northeastern University, MIT, Bright Horizons, and currently, the ground-up construction of a mixed-use apartment complex in Fenway’s Audubon Circle.