"You can pick your own career path"

Women in Construction Week takes place the first week in March every year. To celebrate this week, we are highlighting some of the women who are participating in MnDOT's on-the-job training program. Today, we spotlight Savana Sylvester, certified crane operator.

Savana Sylvester works with Lunda Construction on bridge projects. While she does everything from bridge start to finish – demolition, pile driving, concrete form work – she typically operates a lattice boom crane. Unlike most on-the-job trainees, Sylvester joined Lunda and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 with significant experience and certification. Two years ago, Sylvester earned small and large crane certifications at a non-union trade school in Oklahoma City and worked in Oklahoma. She was planning to move to Minnesota when she called Ryan O’Gary, operations manager at Lunda Construction and, because of her experience, O’Gary hired her right then over the phone. Now she’s a MnDOT on-the-job trainee with Lunda, working through her union apprenticeship.

“The construction community might be intimidating to look at from the outside,” Sylvester said, “But once you’re here, everybody’s willing to help. And they want to help you, especially if you go through a union pathway, which would be the best way. They have all the information, the contractors are extremely helpful, there are union training programs. Every winter you go up to the training center multiple times and you learn more and more about what you’d like to do. You can pick your own career path. There are some great people up there with a lot of information and a lot of years’ experience.”