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In this episode: Christi Powell and Angela Gardner interview Natasha Sexton, president and CEO of Sexton Design and Development, an eight-and-a-half-year-old design-build firm based in Greenville, SC. Sexton explains the company’s landscape-architecture roots, multi-state work (SC, TN, pursuing NC licensure, with GA next), and focus on hospitality, university, and commercial/institutional projects, including Clemson University’s Tiger Walk design. She discusses Southeast market challenges—rapid growth driving labor shortages and material cost volatility—and how value engineering and alternative materials keep projects on track. Sexton shares scaling and quality strategies centered on choosing aligned clients and the “photo, friend, fee” philosophy, plus team culture priorities like leading by example, paying above average, benefits, open dialogue, and burnout awareness, with interest in an employee-ownership/ESOP-style future. She highlights community projects with Upstate Warrior Solution and Camp Greenville, board involvement with the Greenville County Art Museum, and emphasizes surrounding yourself with supportive people.

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In this episode: Christi Powell and Angela Gardner welcome back Perlla DeLuca of Southeast Constructors and the Pink Hard Hat Foundation to discuss her recent work and advocacy for women in construction. Perlla shares insights from an international safety symposium in Miami and explains that her foundation was sparked by worsening treatment of women, even in federal contracting, and by seeing female students denied training opportunities. She identifies key safety gaps: jobsite harassment and abuse incidents aren’t being tracked, so they’re not addressed, and she’s working on an AI-driven code of conduct to help protect women. Perla describes how the Iowa School of Construction builds skills and confidence through hands-on, critical-thinking training, plus added self-defense for women and harassment education. She advises women to lead with knowledge, prepare thoroughly, and find supportive male allies, and she discusses her self-care through fitness, cooking, entertaining, and short trips.

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In this episode: Christi Powell and Angela Gardner welcome returning guest Nancy Novak, a 30+ year construction executive who has semi-retired into an ambassador role at Compass Data Centers while serving on adjacent boards and continuing mentorship to advance women in the industry. Nancy explains planning her transition nearly two years in advance, overlapping a year with successor Amy Marks, and valuing a “soft landing” while prioritizing health and family time. She identifies AI as the most disruptive recent jobsite technology, building on earlier database advances, and stresses keeping critical thinking and improving industry communication to become more relational than transactional. Nancy shares Google’s “potential vs. credential” promotion data to highlight systemic gender patterns and urges women to self-advocate earlier and lead differently. She discusses a “perfect storm” of demand, demographics, infrastructure, and technology creating opportunity, outlines ways to check and counter implicit bias through diverse decision-making rooms, and says her husband and continuous learning keep her grounded.

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In this episode: Angela Gardner and Christi Powell interview Vinny, Vice President of Job Site Solutions at Milwaukee Tool, celebrating his 25-year career with the company. Vinny recounts Milwaukee’s cultural shift after its 2005 acquisition by Techtronic Industries, when leadership refocused from trying to serve everyone back to core plumbing and electrical trades and recommitted to in-field user research to drive safer, lighter, more productive tools. He describes Milwaukee’s major disruption in 2005 with the first lithium-ion cordless platform (V28), later evolving into the M18 and M12 platforms. Vinny explains why Milwaukee consistently supports ABC chapters to help train apprentices and strengthen future infrastructure. He names the M12 screwdriver (2401-22) as a sentimental favorite and closes with Milwaukee’s “disruptive innovation” elevator pitch.

Supported by: NPK

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In this episode: Adam Hoots joins Women Talk Construction with co-hosts Christi Powell and Angela Gardner to discuss lean construction as “flow” centered on respect for people, emphasizing that high-performing teams require intentionally developing high-performing individuals and optimizing global project flow. He describes shifting his mission to elevate and serve skilled craft workers by spending time in the gemba, “standing” on projects to focus on workers’ needs, connection, and ergonomics, including sharing photos with craftspeople. Drawing from managing over $1.5B in technical projects for clients like Stanford and the University of Florida, he highlights construction as a socio-technical business where communication and emotional intelligence matter as much as technical skill, sharing a lesson about unclear direction. They discuss managing stress through self-awareness and choosing responses, and ways to pass construction wisdom to the next generation via podcasts, books, university engagement, teaching, consulting, and improving industry conditions to boost retention.

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In this episode: Christi Powell and Angela Gardner interview Clemson University lecturer and former walk-on Clemson basketball player Tom Fuduric, introduced during an interview with guest Adam Hoots. Fuduric shares how he entered construction at 16 through asphalt paving and learned relationship-building and servant leadership from mentors on a road crew and from coach Art Musselman. Drawing on 40+ years in construction, human resources, and safety management, he explains why Clemson revitalized courses on building high-performing teams and the human side of construction to strengthen students’ communication, negotiation, emotional intelligence, and teamwork across architects, engineers, owners, and trade partners. He discusses psychological safety, mindfulness, and a proposed certificate in human-centered leadership in construction, emphasizing trust, a growth mindset, active listening, and not taking on more than you can handle.

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In this episode: In this first news brief for February 2026, Christi and Angela share construction-industry updates with a focus on North Carolina and South Carolina. They highlight state government priorities aimed at removing bottlenecks and maintaining the Carolinas’ status as a top construction market, including South Carolina’s South Carolina Justice Act push to reform joint and several liability toward a proportionate fault system to reduce “deep pocket” lawsuits and lower insurance premiums. They also discuss South Carolina energy expansion bills to streamline permitting for high-voltage transmission lines and natural gas pipelines supporting the battery-belt surge, with electricians in high demand. Workforce items include a need for 500,000 workers nationally, ABC’s education strategy supporting certified apprenticeships, NAWIC’s 2026 safety/retention priorities for women, and North Carolina’s “graduation with a trade” pilot placing seniors on job sites to earn diplomas and Level 1 apprenticeship credentials.

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In this episode: Christi Powell and Angela Gardner welcome returning guest Jesse Hernandez (Depth Builder founder, partner in No BS with Jen and Jess, and host of Learnings and Missteps) to discuss leadership and systems in construction. Jesse shares pivotal moments from moving from installer to foreman, where intimidation got results but cost relationships, and how leadership training helped him shift to a people-centered approach. He explains why most leadership training is too generic and not contextualized to construction, emphasizing conversation, listening, and challenging ideas over slide-heavy agendas. For quick job-site results, he says leaders must be present, visible, and model desired behaviors. A simple ROI habit is setting daily targets and end-of-day check-ins to identify “time bandits” and interruptions. He urges listeners to meet someone new on the jobsite to build connections and improve the industry, and shares ways to reach him via LinkedIn and depthbuilder.com.

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