2024 Women in Construction: Connie Lu, Highpoint

What has been the driving force behind your success in the AEC industry? Three parts: 

1) I genuinely love what we do – engineering, site planning, and communicating with municipalities. 

2) I care about the reason why we do this work – facilitating development – a.k.a., making infrastructural changes that meet the ever-changing needs of communities and support the long-term economic success of businesses. 

3) I am here in this industry for the long term and care about how we do the work which means balancing work demands with being supportive of the well-being of my project teammates and stakeholders, keeping an eye on my own work-life balance, and utilizing good-faith communication.

Who or what inspired you to join the AEC industry? I went to MIT for college and M.Eng and we were pretty theoretical there. We learned a lot about the big picture and how to conduct research, which was informative to me, but it often lacked the immediacy I personally yearned for in a career. Taking a remediation and waste containment technology class my senior year opened my eyes to the AEC industry. The class was taught by remediation engineers who taught as a side job. They introduced us to their remediation projects and taught us the mechanics of solid waste facilities to a great level of detail. 

What are your goals for the future? For the near future I want to continue to grow my experience and skill as an engineer. In the longer term, I want to put the breadth of my early career and education to good use and do good by my community. I worked in environmental remediation and solar and volunteered in municipal planning processes before landing as a civil engineer at Highpoint. As a multilingual, first-generation, queer woman of color, I understand there are certain barriers that I want to help break through so that we may collectively grow our economic vitality and pursue prosperity for all.