AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.<\/p>\n
Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n At 7:12 a.m., the Veridea job site is already teeming with activity on Apex\u2019s southern edge.<\/p>\n Read more Need for speed? New go-karting venue is coming to the Triangle. Here\u2019s when<\/a><\/p>\n Excavators crawl across the red clay. Survey crews trace the edges of newly poured roads. Machinery hums over the 1,100-acre site between U.S. 1 and N.C. 540 where New York-based RXR<\/a> is building an entirely new district<\/a> from scratch.<\/p>\n And somewhere in the middle of it, walking briskly across the gravel in steel-toe boots, is 25-year-old Samantha \u201cSam\u201d Roth.<\/p>\n As a project manager for Greensboro-based Samet Corp.<\/a>, she\u2019s steering Phase I of the $3 billion project. On any given day, this self-proclaimed \u201cold school\u201d Gen Z\u2019er oversees $100 million in active construction across three sites \u2014 roughly 170 acres of newly cleared woodland \u2014 and more than 120 workers. She manages budgets, schedules, subcontractors and the daily choreography of a project that changes by the hour.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fast-paced,\u201d she says, walking with an easy confidence during a recent site tour, wearing blue jeans, a neon-yellow vest and hard hat with her name printed neatly across the front. Her pink-streaked hair peeks out from underneath.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pivoting and high-pressure decisions. You have to make the most of every 30-minute block.\u201d<\/p>\n She pauses, then adds with a smile: \u201cIt\u2019s like getting a Lego set without the directions.\u201d<\/p>\n At a moment when the Triangle is racing to keep up with its own growth, Roth represents a new kind of builder stepping into roles once reserved for people twice her age. Her rapid rise in a male-dominated industry facing a national labor shortage<\/a> offers a glimpse of who will shape the next decade of construction in North Carolina \u2014 and how quickly the field is changing.<\/p>\n Construction managers specifically have seen a major increase in women \u2014 from 6.7% in 2015 to 10.5% in 2024, according to the Institute for Women\u2019s Policy Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the \u2018good ol\u2019 boys\u2019 network anymore,\u201d said Joe Graziose<\/a>, RXR\u2019s executive vice president of development, in a phone call. He\u2019s been in the construction industry for over 40 years and has overseen billions of dollars in projects from Long Island to North Carolina.<\/p>\n Over the last two decades, he\u2019s seen a steady rise of women stepping into top construction jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cI see it on my teams and in my mentorship programs. Half of them are women,\u201d he said. They\u2019ve carved out space for themselves, he adds, and the industry has taken notice. \u201cThey\u2019re educated and highly regarded.\u201d<\/p>\n Roth is part of that shift. \u201cWomen now make up a third of our project management associates,\u201d said Adam Fouse<\/a>, Samet\u2019s senior project executive. The firm is working on 20 large-scale residential projects across the state. Women are playing \u201ca vital role in our region\u2019s growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On the Veridea site, Roth works from a corner office inside a trailer. Her walls are covered with digital mock-ups and renderings, which she deciphers throughout the day. She\u2019s unapologetic about her tattoos (13 and counting \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m finishing my half sleeve this summer\u201d) or her ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to disrupt the industry,\u201d she says. \u201cThere aren\u2019t many women in operations running general contracting teams. I want to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n Roth was born and raised in Petersburg, a quiet rural stretch of northern Kentucky near Cincinnati, where she was adopted as a baby and grew up far from the world of large-scale development she now helps manage. Brought up with her younger brother, she spent most of her childhood outdoors \u2014 snowboarding, playing tennis, exploring open fields.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents never taught me to play life small,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Roth began college studying biomedical sciences, working in genetics labs and earning straight A\u2019s. But something felt off. \u201cSwitching majors was a trust fall,\u201d she recalls. \u201cPeople thought I was crazy. But most of the time when you take a leap, you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. You have to believe in what you can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n She enrolled in construction management, a field she knew almost nothing about. But one experience had stuck with her: a high school visit to Babcock Ranch<\/a>, the solar\u2011powered community in southwest Florida built around an 870\u2011acre solar farm.<\/p>\n Read more Get to know the 25-year-old running one of the Triangle\u2019s largest developments<\/a><\/p>\n Roth says the appeal came from watching raw land transform into something far larger. For her, development isn\u2019t just about construction \u2014 it\u2019s about \u201chelping decide how it gets built\u201d before the first shovel ever hits the soil.<\/p>\n At Northern Kentucky University, Roth was one of only two women in her graduating class and worked full-time \u2014 managing hospital renovations by day and attending classes at night. Later, at the age of 23, she joined Samet Corp. at as an assistant project manager. She was promoted to project manager last year.<\/p>\n Veridea<\/a> \u2014 a planned district with homes, offices, retail, parks and miles of new infrastructure \u2014 is the largest project she has ever worked on. By 2035, it\u2019s expected to bring up to 8,000 residential units; 3.5 million square feet of retail, hospitality and civic space; 12 million square feet of commercial space; and a new public elementary school. Plans also call for a 34-acre Wake Technical Community College campus<\/a> and a 230-acre North Carolina Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a>, announced last July.<\/p>\n \u201cVeridea is the project of a lifetime,\u201d she says, though she dodges talk about compensation. It\u2019s \u201csomewhere in the six-figure territory,\u201d she hints. (According to Glassdoor<\/a>, Roth likely earns between $95,000 and $125,000 annually.)<\/p>\n Her days start early. She wakes at 4 a.m., journals, goes to the gym, and arrives on site by 7 or 7:30. She lives eight minutes away in Apex \u2014 a strategic choice: \u201cIf I work late or want to get in early, it\u2019s right down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mornings begin with emails and a priority list. Then come meetings with design partners, subcontractors, bidders and owners. In between, she handles payment applications, monthly reports, site walks and pre-construction for new work.<\/p>\n Most of the people Roth manages are older than she is \u2014 sometimes much older. She\u2019s honed her ability to lead with a firm sense of self. \u201cYou can\u2019t lead with ego, but you also can\u2019t let people walk all over you,\u201d she says. \u201cYour presence matters. Your knowledge, your energy, how you carry yourself. People pick up on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Over time, she\u2019s also learned how to confront bias directly: \u201cAs a female, you do have to work twice as hard. People assume the guy in the room knows more \u2014 you have to shut that down.\u201d<\/p>\n When comments cross a line, she has a go-to response: \u201cWould you say that to your daughter?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt stops people in their tracks,\u201d she says, unflinching.<\/p>\n But Roth doesn\u2019t pretend she\u2019s unbreakable. In a recent LinkedIn post<\/a>, she wrote about the years that tested her: the cross-country moves, the heartbreaks, the mental-health battles, the family illnesses.<\/p>\n In a moment of rare vulnerability, it underscored the kind of leader she\u2019s trying to become: \u201cSomeone in your life who can speak up when times get tough.\u201d Compassion and kindness in the workplace, she concludes, can make a \u201csignificant difference.\u201d<\/p>\n By 30, Roth wants to be in executive leadership. She also wants to show young women the opportunities waiting for them in construction.<\/p>\n