Washington State’s I-405 Project: Women in Industry Leadership

Abstract

Within the engineering profession, women have traditionally been in the minority, especially in management and leadership roles. In Washington State, however, three women engineers, Denise Cieri, Stacy Trussler, and Wendy Taylor, lead a multibillion-dollar roadway design and construction project to ease congestion and improve traffic flow on the state’s second-most-traveled corridor, I-405. This paper provides excerpts from interviews with Cieri, Trussler, and Taylor in which they discuss the factors that influenced their successful careers and lives. In addition, Mr. Kim Henry, the Eastside Corridor project director, describes what it has been like for him to work with these three women.