As Construction Suicide Prevention Week approaches, the founder and CEO of The Wounded Workforce and executive director of its Center for Construction Mental Health helps builders and contractors create a safe haven to manage mental health.

Groundworks Chief Human Resources Officer Laura Mueller joins the Women at WIRC podcast to discuss employee ownership, workforce development, and the challenge of finding and retaining skilled construction workers.

Groundworks, a foundation repair and water management company with roughly 7,000 employees, distributed $31 million to nearly 5,000 employee owners earlier this year. Mueller explains how the company’s ownership program works, why it doesn’t require employees to buy in, and how Groundworks is using it alongside internal training and promotion programs.

She also discusses the company’s effort to create its own pipeline of future leaders, the case for skilled trades as an alternative to a four-year degree, and why Groundworks is looking to bring more women into the skilled-trades workforce.

At a recent Women in Residential Construction Conference, Allison Guido, the president of Almar Building & Remodeling in Hanover, Massachusetts, spoke about the "Who Moved My Cheese?" effect. The topic comes from a book of the same name, and Allison walks us through the story of the four central characters' different attitudes toward changing conditions.

The “moving cheese” in her story was a new sales strategy based on information she gleaned from Pro Remodeler's Pinnacle Experience in 2024 (Thanks for the plug, Allison).

But there is a whole new kind of cheese on the scene, and it is moving fast: AI Cheese.

Considering where your next Munster is coming from and how you can parmesan it into revenue is an example of two puns that did not land, but Allison’s presentation from the 2025 Women in Residential Construction Conference certainly did.