FRANKLIN COUNTY, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) -- This Women’s History Month, Western Mass News is sitting down with a Franklin County construction worker who has poured the concrete, cut the stone, and carved out a career in a blue-collar, male-dominated industry.

Starting at just nineteen years old, Chelsea Fenton was turned down twice before she ever landed a job in construction; a fight that she says set the tone for working in a male-dominated field.

“I went down for the third time, and I like walked into my interview. And I like shook all of their hands like a man would, nice and firm. And I was like; you’re going to give me this job because I’m going to wear circles around these guys. And they accepted me,” Fenton tells Western Mass News.

Now, as a labor foreman for Shawmut Design and Construction, she’s not only running crews on major projects, but also using social media to show other women they belong in the trades too.

She goes on to explain, “Not enough women see themselves in this industry. And we have to change that. And visibility and representation does matter. And being on social media and showing young girls who we are and what we’re capable of is just going to open up a bunch of other doors for other women. “

Fenton also tells us that a union construction career didn’t just change her workday, but her life too, saying, “I want every woman to have the same opportunity that I had. Because it changed my life. I bought my own house at 26 years old. Um, I’m raising my beautiful eight-year-old daughter with my wonderful husband.”

Now, those opportunities are built into the landscape around her. On the UMass Amherst campus, she can point to the physical fruits of her labor. Chelsea walked us through her work restoring the chapel building at UMass, “This is the UMass chapel building. It is one of the most historic buildings in UMass. And I worked for the general contractor. So, I did a little bit of everything. I grounded all of the windowsills in this place. Uh, all of the door frames,”

She even faced her fear of heights to finish the job, “I even helped the guy that put that lightning rod up on that steeple. I had to help him with this lightning rod in a man lift. And that wasn’t my favorite, but I did it. I was very nervous because I don’t like heights that much.”

She also says working alongside other women on that crew, made the project even more special, “And I got to work with a bunch of other women on this job. So, it was really, really cool. And it was one of those jobs where, like, this is going to be here for a long time. And it came out beautiful.”

Fenton says that knowing her work will stand the test of time is what she treasures most about this job, “That was something tangible to me. That I can drive by these buildings and tell my daughter, like, Mom helped build those. And they’re gonna be here long after I’m gone. So, I think that’s really cool.”

Now, her work is seen in buildings all across western Massachusetts, but for Fenton, the real measure is how many other women end up lacing their boots right behind her.

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