Shapiro & Duncan, the “Provider of Choice” for complex commercial, government and institutional design-build mechanical solutions, today announced Sandy Palmerton’s promotion to director of special projects. She is the first woman to be named to this position at a company that has a reputation for supporting and growing its female employees.

According to the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), as of December 31, 2016, approximately 939,000 women were employed in various occupation sectors of the construction industry. Women now make up 9.1 percent of the construction industry in the United States.

“Sandy is a shining example of how women can excel in construction,” said Charles Ayers, Shapiro & Duncan’s chief operating officer. “She has consistently exceeded expectations in the project management role here at Shapiro & Duncan by following a very detailed approach to executing the work and maintaining a fair and equitable balance when faced with conflict. Overall, her ability to deliver sound judgment and informed decisions made promoting Sandy to special projects department head an easy choice.”  

Palmerton has made her mark in project management at Shapiro & Duncan by thriving on the day-to-day details of administratively heavy institutional and governmental projects with tight time constraints. Her experience highlights include:

• A design-build project at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Maryland. replacing a 40,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) modular air handling unit, while keeping the hospital in service. 
• Fats, oils and grease (FOG) upgrades at more than 160 Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools, a project that also used the design-build delivery method to add grease interceptors that brought MCPS food service operations into Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) compliance.
• HVAC system restoration at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., which encompassed replacing the existing mechanical systems in an occupied, historical building with close to three miles of refrigerant piping while managing roughly 30 subcontractors as the general contractor. This was another design-build project.   

Palmerton, for her part, credits Shapiro & Duncan “for tenaciously ignoring stereotypes and creating fertile ground for women to succeed in a male-dominated industry.”

In her new role, Palmerton’s primary duties and responsibilities will be supporting, mentoring and leading Shapiro & Duncan’s 50-person special projects team that includes estimators, project managers, assistant project managers, project coordinators, jobsite superintendents and craftspeople. Day-to-day tasks include reviewing bids, coordinating the team’s workload for estimating and project management, developing and implementing department goals to create sustainable growth. 

A longtime mentor to Shapiro & Duncan’s project managers, Palmerton says the biggest challenge of her new position “is figuring out how to draw the best out of each and every person on the team. I’m extremely fortunate to be leading a group of like-minded people who are willing to put themselves out there to meet our challenges.”