2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the Miami chapter of National Women in Construction (NAWIC), and the local group kicked off its year-long celebration during Women In Construction Week, March 6-12. The kick-off events included a Builders Boot Camp, a membership party and 50 women in hardhats participating in a jobsite tour and photo opp at the Florida Marlin’s new baseball stadium now under construction.

“Miami women were ahead of their time in 1961, establishing one of NAWIC’s very first local chapters,” says Clare Whelan, president of Miami Women in Construction. “Now, 50 years later, most of our board and many of our members are running their own construction businesses. Women are changing the face of Miami’s construction scene with every new project they lead, and more hardhats are being worn by women on jobs than ever before.”

In 1961, the world was a very different place. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld rules adopted by the state of Florida that discouraged women to be called for jury service on the grounds that “a woman is regarded as the center of home and family life.” Paraguay had just become the last Republic in the Americas to grant women the right to vote.

Also in 1961, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, and it was the year that President Kennedy established the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Fifty years ago, when those visionary Miami women founded our local NAWIC chapter, I wasn’t even allowed to take Shop class at school,” Whelan recalls. “Thankfully, that’s changed. Today, the top women-owned businesses in Florida each employ an average of 9,000 people, boasting per-company revenues of $5 million or more.”

NAWIC is an international association serving more than 5,500 members and 150 chapters in the United States, plus affiliates in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

(Photo by Marguerite Beaty.)