Reach for the skyscrapers - Military Careers, Second Careers - Air Force Times

Reach for the skyscrapers

Texas Army National Guard Lt. Col. Mary Hart manages civilian construction projects starting at the conceptual phase — between deployments, anyway.

Battalion commander for the 36th Special Troops Battalion, 36th Sustainment Brigade, of Temple, Texas, and a communications officer, Hart was inspired to work in the construction industry early on by her father, who was a contractor.

She said his death when she was 14 — her mother died when Hart was less than a year old — marked the beginning of the determination and hard work that got her where she is today, leading the double life of a National Guard officer and private-industry executive.

As a soldier, Hart served a year of active duty before the first of two deployments — Bosnia in 2000 and Iraq in 2005.

After each tour, she resumed her building-industry career in progress at Corgan Associates, a Dallas architectural firm where she started as an architectural intern in 1997 and became a registered architect in 2003.

Hart’s best advice for a bright future in the building industry: “The first thing would be to find out what you can do educationally to put yourself further up the food chain,” she said.

Figure out what you want to do, then get on the path to getting the right education, she said. “The military gives you so much to do that with.”

Solid foundation

Hart knows from experience the value of the military’s education benefits.

She earned her bachelor’s in business administration from Texas Christian University through ROTC and later took advantage of a National Guard tuition reimbursement program to help pay for one year of her master’s in architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Next came her architectural internship — three years of work experience required before she could sit for the occupation’s nine professional exams. Now she’s a registered architect, Corgan corporate design studio vice president and shareholder in the company.

“The military gave me the financial support and mental toughness to keep after that goal,” she said.

Pillars of the industry

The term “architect” in construction lingo often refers to an entire firm with multiple people in charge of varying tasks.

Hart describes her company as one of three major players — along with the owner and contractor — in any construction project it undertakes. The contractor is the construction company, made up of laborers, construction managers and people skilled in the trades.

Hart has worked her way up Corgan’s chain of command and now manages the architectural aspects of multiple projects at a time, working with engineers, owners and contractors. She also manages design-related finances and the teams that produce construction documents, including blueprints and project specifications. Her studio, or division within the company, mostly designs office buildings and is working on several data centers, which Hart described as warehouses for computers.

Bridge to the future

To stay competitive, Hart’s keeping up with trends in the industry.

She’s hitting the books again, studying for her Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification in sustainable building and development. She hopes to reach that goal soon.

Hart credits much of her success to lessons learned in the military — one in particular.

“As a young lieutenant, I was trying to influence the outcome of a situation I clearly did not understand,” she reflected.

“It did not take much for a senior noncommissioned officer to put me in my place — probably the best lesson I ever learned.”