(WARRENSBURG, Mo.) – Construction management has the perception of being a male dominated major, but that did not stop Taylor Beeman from building her dreams into a reality.
Beeman is a sophomore construction management major with a minor in business administration and has been doing carpentry since she was in the seventh grade.
She said outside of her previous shop classes, she worked with her father and a small company doing framing and building decks.
“I have been taking shop classes all the way from seventh grade to my senior year of high school,” she said. “My favorite trade is carpentry because it is so much more rewarding when you work with your hands and get it done yourself.”
She said she promised her parents she would go to college, despite originally wanting to be a carpenter, which does not require a college education.
“I chose construction management because I knew I wouldn’t want to work in something that requires me to be in an office building all day,” Beeman said. “I want to be outside working with my hands.”
Because of her passion for her work, she can’t decide whether she would want to work in heavy civil or commercial construction.
“I want to get a job with a medium sized company, I’m not too fond of big ones.” she said, “I am still trying to decide between heavy civil or commercial. Heavy civil is dirt work, earth work, bridges, roads and highways. Commercial would be office buildings, apartments and any tall building basically. I really enjoy both.”
Not only does Beeman prefer to get her hands dirty, but she enjoys the office side of construction as well.
“I do know I want to be a field superintendent so that way I am still working in the field, but I still would have a management position and an office side too,” she said.
This is also her first year of being the president of Spring Breakers, an organization at UCM that assists families in impoverished areas over spring break.
“We are an alternate spring break group, so we go down south over our spring break. We went to Birmingham, Alabama last year,” she said. “We help low income homeowners, typically families, with whatever they need, whether that’s pouring concrete, doing the framework of a house, we’ve done insulation, painting, decking, siding – literally anything.”
Beeman said that one of the biggest highlights of going to Birmingham, Alabama last year, was just being on site and helping those in need.
“Last year, the homeowners provided us a pizza night. They came in and talked to us, shared their stories, why they were there, and how they were thankful for us.”
The students participating in Spring Breakers will find out where their next destination will be in October.
“Our choices right now are: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina and Delaware. But we would like to help places affected by natural disasters. We are actually about to do a fundraiser on campus to help out with hurricane relief.” She said.
Her willingness to help others in need and her talent for her craft are not the only traits that set Beeman apart, she is one of the five females in construction management at UCM.
“I was really worried that they wouldn’t take me seriously. I definitely got a lot of strange looks, you could tell that they were curious and weren’t sure why I was there,” Beeman said. “But for the most part, all of them have been super nice about it and super supportive. I was really surprised how open all of the other construction management majors were.”
There’s more to construction than what meets the eye, and Taylor Beeman is a prime example of it.