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Ever since she was little, Camila Ramirez Guerrero knew she wanted to create something totally new. What she didn’t know is what that would look like. Would she become an inventor? A scientist?
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She could lose herself admiring skyscrapers and unusual houses. She would spend hours online researching the weirdest houses in different parts of the world. She loved looking at buildings.
Now, Ramirez — who serves as Durham Technical Community College’s student vice president — knows what she wants: to own a construction company.
She wants to create spaces for people to call home. For families. Safe spaces for kids. Beautiful patios. Places where people can feel completely comfortable and connected. A place they never want to leave.
Ramirez studies engineering at Durham Tech — and she’s one of the school’s growing number of female students launching careers in male-dominated trades like construction.
This summer, she interned with the construction company Skanska, which is working to construct Durham Tech’s new life sciences building. She worked both in the office and in the field, helping to coordinate and engineer the complex project.
In the meantime, the 23-year-old from Ecuador was dreaming up a project of her own.
She’s working on her submission to an international “microhome competition” that asks for designs for an off-the-grid tiny home for a young couple. The competition, organized by Buildner, asks for an architectural solution to an economic, social or cultural challenge.
So Ramirez designed a tiny home for the Galápagos Islands, which has always been one of her favorite places in her home country. She calls the home ENDEMIA after the endemic species of the islands and their ability to adapt — a quality she wants the home to have as well.
She hopes to address the environmental issues that affect housing on one of the islands, San Cristóbal — issues like “solar heat, resource use, and the importance of protecting its fragile habitat,” she said. The deadline for her tiny home submission is Nov. 2. Until then, Ramirez will be very busy.
In addition to her work in student government, Ramirez works at Durham Tech’s Center for the Global Learner, helping students improve their English. That’s an undertaking she had to face as well.
She faced down her own language barrier — barely detectable now — at the beginning of her Skanska internship.
The construction world has a vocabulary all its own, she learned, replete with abbreviations and unusual words. For a non-native English speaker, it was a challenge at first to keep up. During her first couple meetings, she felt nervous and sometimes lost.
But she caught up fast. Soon she was conducting in-wall checks of the construction site and easily communicating about complex and technical items with subcontractors and internal teams. Her favorite part of the internship was in the field, wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard, using a special camera that records the interior of the building to create 3D models.
“I love the technical aspect and the hands-on work,” she said. “And I always love seeing how buildings shape our cities.”
She didn’t initially think of applying for an internship like this one, but her mentor, Flavio Albuquerque, director of Durham Tech’s engineering program, encouraged her to apply.
“I almost lost this opportunity,” she said, because initially she didn’t step forward when Albuquerque presented it. “But he told me to apply after he didn’t see my name on the list, to just send my resume and information in and see what happens.”
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Albuquerque had to push her to throw her name in the ring, he said, because at first she lacked the confidence to make the leap herself. He says that’s common among women in the engineering program at Durham Tech — in part because there are so few.
Being a woman in the male-dominated construction industry isn’t always easy, Ramirez says. At first, she was scared of working with so many men. She doesn’t think it’s fair that women always “always have to prove ourselves,” she said. “But it’s how it is.”
“I learned that when you work as a woman in the construction world, you have to be brave. You have to be tough, and prove them wrong. You have to prove that you are capable of doing everything that men can do. We are building our way up,” she said. “I know that there are more girls working in construction now. I saw a lot more women now than how it used to be.”
Ramirez was inspired by one of the higher-ups at Skanska, vice president and account manager Beth Sayman. She was Ramirez’s boss’s boss.
“She was a woman, she was a leader, and she was tough,” Ramirez said. “Everybody respected her.”
Sayman says she’s thrilled about the increased female representation in construction. It’s a struggle to attract women to the field, she said. She tells women who might be interested that they will feel proud to drive every day by something they’ve built.
Sayman remembers Ramirez’s inquisitiveness and curiosity above all.
Maryah Smith-Overman, director of construction trades at Durham Tech, has worked at the school for a decade. She says during that time, she’s seen more women start careers in the trades.
“I can name a handful of female-run contractors in Durham now, and I couldn’t before,” Smith-Overman said. “That’s important for people to see.”
Smith-Overman ran a National Science Foundation grant aimed at getting more women into male-dominated technical fields through a summer camp program. But under the Trump administration, Smith-Overman had to shift the program away from women specifically and toward students of all genders.
Ramirez had two years of college architecture classes in Ecuador that didn’t transfer when she came to the United States. But now, she says, she feels lucky that she’s switched into engineering and construction because of how much opportunity she sees in those fields.
Her architectural ambition goes beyond homes. She’s also interested in designing public spaces for families. She wants to create parks and other spaces that feel just as natural to gather at as a mall or the movies. She’s even thought about designs for hospitals and schools.
“I’m always thinking about the people that are going to inhabit these places,” Ramirez said.
She often feels homesick for Ecuador and misses having her family close. But she had to pursue her dream of studying abroad in the United States.
“My mom is one of my greatest sources of strength,” she said. “She always encourages me to keep moving forward and pursue my goals. She celebrates every achievement with me, and I feel incredibly grateful to have her in my corner.”
Ramirez hopes to study engineering at NC State University after her time at Durham Tech.
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