BUFFALO, N.Y. — This week's City Shaper is a rare find in the construction industry. She's a woman.
Gail Ettaro is the Vice President of Business Operations for ARC Building Partners, and she’s from Williamsville. ARC Building Partners is a Buffalo-based construction management company doing projects all over New York State and beyond.
Ettaro has worked on the renovation of the club sections at New Era Field, a hotel in the Catskills called Entertainment Village, and the 19 North apartment complex in Buffalo. The company has also done some work for Delaware North at Patina 205.
But one project has really stood out to Ettaro.
"The Barton House. It's a small building on the Darwin Martin House campus, and I look at that as it was truly Frank Lloyd Wright's proving ground," Ettaro said. "All the details and finding out things like, some of the woodwork happened to be river retrieved cypress logs, or that it's beeswax to make the gold hue on the walls, those are just fun little details.”
"How did you get into this industry?" asked 2 On Your Side’s Kelly Dudzik.
"It's a fun story. So, I actually was in the aggregate world. So, I worked for a manufacturer of commercial aggregate screening, and loved to figure out puzzles and work with a team to figure out solutions, so construction was a natural progression from that," Ettaro said.
"Walk me through a typical work day. And there may not be a typical work day, but what are the kinds of things that you do from start to finish?" asked Dudzik.
"So, in my role here, I really am the back of house support to make sure that everything for the company is operational so that the teams that are out in the field can do everything with the successes on the jobs," Ettaro said.
That means she's using her background in marketing and business development, and she's also overseeing the accounting department and working with I.T. and H.R.
"I'm a woman in an industry, and I'm one of 9 percent nationwide in the United States. Not great statistics, but exciting because there's opportunities for growth and I think there's also great opportunities for women to get involved in construction," Ettaro said.
"You might not realize that you can work in I.T. in a construction company or human resources or brand strategy or business development or accounting. All of those jobs and opportunities are here if someone, if a young woman wants to work out in the field and be an engineer, great."
Ettaro also plays a big role in the Warm Up WNY blanket drive for Oishei Children's Hospital. They're expecting to collect $10,000 new blankets for kids this year.
“What a wonderful, simple token and gesture that the community can stand behind," Ettaro says.
If you'd like to nominate a Western New York woman to be a 2019 City Shaper, just send Kelly an email.
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