Texas Border Business
By Joey Gomez
McALLEN, Texas – Recent South Texas College Construction Management Assistant graduate Marcela Spamer said she was looking for immediate training opportunities at STC that would enable her to keep up with the vast changes taking place in her industry.
Working in administration and finance with Commodities Integrated Logistics (CIL) Capital, Spamer said her role at the company was front and center when it announced its new McAllen Nearshoring Industrial Park, a 117-acre project located adjacent to STC’s Technology Campus that, once its complete, will feature 1.5-million-square-feet of industrial space designed to attract companies looking to expand or relocate to South Texas.
Anticipating that development, Spamer said she knew she had to receive additional training and entered STC’s Construction Supervision program in the fall.
While in the program, Spamer said not only did she receive valuable insight into the permit, inspection and code processes involved with large-scale construction, but she also immersed herself on a local level, visiting various residential properties and projects to connect with residents and communities.
“My company supported me in getting this additional training and they are very happy with what I’ve learned here along with the work experience I have been able to bring back,” Spamer said. “I’m typically focused on administrative and finance responsibilities, so this has been a little bit of a deviation for me, but it’s been very informative. I feel like the knowledge that I’ve gained here in construction; it’s really going to help me.”
Initially a graduate in theater management from St. Edwards University in Austin, Spamer said her first experience in construction was working in a scene shop where she performed various carpentry tasks such as building sets for television, film and various events as an undergraduate student.
That degree choice, however, lacked the finer details about installation along with construction and work permits when she entered the construction industry after graduation, which eventually led her to STC, she said.
Now a year after entering STC’s Construction Supervision program, Spamer was among the 3,000 graduates at STC’s spring commencement ceremonies and received a certificate in Construction Management Assistant.
“I just set out to learn everything I didn’t know about the construction process,” Spamer said. “The assistant certificate I received just really helps to give you a foundation which you can grow from. They give you the basic outline, and then it’s really on you to just learn more and more on each job site that you go visit. It’s these foundational pieces that are so helpful for when to what you need get out into the real world.”
Back on the job at CIL, Spamer said she hopes to break into real estate development while working on construction projects and development that are more creative or community-based as well as supporting more women seeking to enter the construction field.
“I hope that that I can inspire other women to take that journey. It can be difficult at times, but you just have to roll with the punches because we’re all just trying to get the project done,” Spamer said. “With that being said, at CIL we’re hoping to be able to bring STC construction students onsite so that they can see a commercial and an industrial lot being built from the ground up. We’re very much in the pre-construction phase, but hopefully within the next year, we can get some students out there to see what industrial construction actually looks like. There have just been so many great things that have come out of this department and out of STC and I’m happy to help out in whatever way I can.”
