Rhonda Pollard

Lauren

Rhonda, I'm really excited for us to be meeting in this platform today. I'd love for you to start off by introducing yourself — who you are and what you do.

Rhonda

I'm honored to be one of your guests. I'm Rhonda Pollard — I go by Ro for those who know me best. I'm the Business Development and Community Partner Leader for PCL Construction here in Seattle, covering the Northwest District: Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana.

But more than that, I consider myself a connector of people — someone who's trying to break barriers both on and off the golf course. 

My board position at The Pro Shop, a nonprofit founded by five women in the AEC industry, really speaks to that. We kept showing up to charity golf tournaments and realizing we were the same three or four women out of 144 players. Something needed to change.

For the first 22 years of my career I said no to golf. Now, four years in, it's been unbelievable how much it has impacted me. I used to think it was kind of silly — just a bunch of guys goofing off. Then I started watching my counterparts leapfrog over me into positions of greater power and realized it was because they were spending so much time with decision-makers at the top, who were still predominantly male. In Seattle, women make up about 13.8% of the AEC workforce — slightly above the national construction average of 12.7% — but golf is still where a lot of business happens. You spend five hours with someone and you get to know them fast.

So now I also volunteer as a girls' golf coach, because I want to show little girls that you can be a dancer, a cheerleader — all of that — but when you enter the corporate world, it's hard to take a client dancing. You can absolutely take them golfing. I tell the girls: keep doing what you love, but don't skip the basics of golf. Know enough to say yes to an invite without being intimidated. Nobody — unless they're a professional — is really that good at the game anyway. We all deserve to be out there.

On the PCL side, I'm the strategic business leader. I look for emerging markets that align with our value proposition, make sure our team is pointed in the right direction, and work to build long-term community partnerships through the work we do — infrastructure, high-rise, and beyond.

Lauren

Your intro is long but you also left out a lot. You are so active — you have your hands in so many pots. You and I collaborated with the Benaroya Research Institute as ambassador committee members, helping spread awareness about autoimmune disease research, which is something we both have personal journeys around. I love how diverse you are in the way you choose to spend your time.

Rhonda

You're right, and I do get involved in a lot because I have my own autoimmune journey and I see people like you doing incredible things in the community. What I really appreciate about this season of my life is that we're finally at a place where instead of doing the things we think others want us to do, we're doing what our hearts and gut and intuition tell us. We're not fearful of the outcome — even when the things we're doing aren't always welcomed.

A lot of women are afraid to speak up for what they see isn't going right. I figured out my personal "why" about ten years ago, thanks to another incredible woman in the AEC industry. Before that, even though people thought I was confident, I was deeply unhappy. I was climbing the corporate ladder, doing all the things I was supposed to do, making more money than I ever expected — and I was completely miserable because I wasn't fulfilling my purpose. I hadn't taken the time to listen to my own voice. I was too busy letting everyone else tell me what I needed to do.

Now I know my why: to fix the system that was broken for me and to be a voice for those who don't have one. As long as what I'm doing points back to that north star, I'm okay with running myself ragged. And I no longer believe in failure — only lessons. Everything you do, you learn something. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expected, and that's okay, because the lesson is often more valuable than the outcome would have been.

Lauren

I love that, because there's no roadmap — and that's part of why I started this podcast. The people who employ us sometimes look at us like, "Help me make sense of what you're doing." We don't fit in a box. And I think that diversifies us as people and the companies we represent. I love that you see failure as a non-issue. You try something, it doesn't work, you adjust and try again — that's what business development strategy is all about.

Rhonda

If you're not okay with rejection, you definitely can't do this job. Business development has been one of the more predominantly female roles in AEC. But I've seen, at some organizations — not PCL — where the reason they hire women for it isn't purely strategic. There's a "shiny object" mentality, hiring for appearance rather than brain power. I've worked with incredibly smart, strategic women in BD, and I've seen Seattle be very different. But in other markets I've worked in, that dynamic existed.

In my early career in Kentucky, we had an entirely female sales force and I was thrilled — girl power! Then a consultant came through and gave our firm a review. Over dinner, he told me and my partner that our group had a nickname: "Mindi-land" — after the owner, Mindy. He said it was like a "Barbie doll factory." I looked around and realized... he was right. And I was working for a woman who was doing this. When I brought it up with her, she said, "I hire women who are smart and strategic — but yes, I also hire women who have the look, because in Kentucky this is a boys' club. You won't even get invited to the table if you can't get past the first hurdle of someone being willing to speak to you." That hit me really hard. I still think about it every day, nearly 18 years later.

I'm grateful that Seattle is different. But even here, even with well-intentioned men, implicit bias is baked into the system. What I love about PCL is that we have 55% women in leadership and key positions in our district, and there's a place of trust where we can have those conversations openly — without anyone's intentions being questioned.

Lauren

I feel like you and I have been coached a lot — and some of that coaching needs to be undone. The old message was "look the part, be the part, stick to the script." The new message is: lean into who you are, because that's the real value you bring to the table.

Rhonda

Exactly. At various points I was told I couldn't wear my hair curly, had to straighten it, could only wear a certain type of earring — and then at other times I was told to wear a skirt or a dress. By women. It was insane. And I think going that far overboard is genuinely traumatizing. If you're supposed to go out and confidently represent your company's value, but you're sitting there wondering if your hair is okay and if you dressed the part, you're not connecting as a human being. You're playing a character. We're in our 40s now — we're just not going to do that.

I had a mentor tell me something when I was 20 that I never forgot. She was the chief of procurement at a school board, and she said: "When you get to be my age, you're going to stop caring what people think and you're going to become yourself. You might say no to something that costs you your job — and you're going to be okay with it, because you'll realize that wasn't the right place for you anyway." When she said that at 20, I thought: I could never do that. Now I'm in a leadership meeting saying the same thing out loud — that I love PCL because I'm not afraid to say what needs to be said, and if we ever come to a point where we're not aligned, I'm not going to compromise what's important to me. I finally don't wake up terrified of losing my job. I'm confident enough to know I bring value to this world, and if I hit rock bottom, I'll bounce back.

Lauren

I'm definitely enjoying this phase of life — the "give no fucks" part. So let's talk trajectory: where did you start your career, and how did you get to where you are now?

Rhonda

I was the first in my family to go to college. I went for communications and journalism because the only women I saw doing something powerful when I was a little girl were the news anchors on TV — we didn't have cable, just local news and PBS. By age five, those were the women I looked up to. Research shows that if little girls don't see someone who represents them by age five, 98% of them lose hope that they can do that thing. So I wanted to be a news anchor.

I graduated at 19 through a gifted program and quickly realized I had no resources to travel the country working for free at news stations until my big break came. So I started job hunting and answered a newspaper ad for a customer service position at a commercial interiors firm. I was obsessed with fashion and interior design, got hired on the spot, and worked for that woman for 15 years. She called me a diamond in the rough — but she also led by fear and intimidation in some ways.

Lauren

Let's pause on that — I feel like women of previous generations had to lead a certain way just to make it in corporate. And it's so interesting to see what the younger generation is evolving into. It feels like a pendulum — the men aren't changing that much, but the women are.

Rhonda

Every time I talk about her it hurts my heart, because she did see something in me — and you're absolutely right, she had to behave that way to survive. She said it to me many times: "If I were a man behaving the way I behave, people would call me a badass businessman. Because I'm a woman, I'm a bitch." And she was right. She was aggressive — I'll use that word — and I fell into being overly aggressive too, especially toward men.

But I always tried to open the seat next to me for another woman rather than protect my own spot. I've been on the other side of that too — where women above me said, essentially, "there's only room for one up here and you're not coming." Our responsibility now is to make sure the women coming up behind us have better role models. Lead by inspiring people to follow you — not by fear. I see that in the younger women rising through the ranks and I'm hopeful.

She said something to me when I told her I was leaving after 15 years: "I pulled you out of the gutter and shaped you into who you are. You owe me more chances than you deserve." That was hard to hear. I left because her daughter was coming into the business and my path to ownership was disappearing. I was 34, I'd given a lot of myself, and honestly I'd never planned to stay in Kentucky — that was always supposed to be a stepping stone. So I came to the West Coast, fell in love with Seattle, found a job at a much larger firm, and worked there for another ten years.

Lauren

And that firm — how did things go there?

Rhonda

It was extraordinary in some ways, but also extraordinarily abusive. The founder was like a father figure to me — he gave people chances and genuinely cared. But the inner circle was still a boys' club. Women were in middle management, doing the hard work, and when promotion time came, they weren't taken seriously. That happened to me about five years in, and it happened in a way that was very ugly.

They had secretly started recruiting for an enterprise sales leader position that they'd told me they were building me toward. I found out through a woman I respected who'd been asked to interview for it. When I confronted them, they said I didn't have the "executive emotional maturity" for the role — which they hadn't mentioned once during the years of telling me that was the path. Meanwhile, I'd watched men throw actual temper tantrums in our executive meetings and get praised. I had been saying things in those rooms for years that would only get heard a year later when a male colleague said the exact same thing. I was invisible.

So one day, after a project went badly wrong and I couldn't get anyone to focus on recovery, I cried and left the room. They came to find me — and then penalized me for the "emotional outburst," the very same behavior I'd watched men do with no consequences. I stayed four more years anyway, and eventually they tried to forcefully relocate me. They flew me down to corporate headquarters under false pretenses, told me my Seattle position was being eliminated, and offered me a move to headquarters. One of the leaders said, trying to be reassuring: "This is one of the easier transitions we've ever done because you don't have a family for us to consider." And that was the moment I realized they didn't care about me as a human being.

When they asked for my first reaction, one word came out: freedom. Then: relief. I asked for the severance and walked away with no idea where I was going — just the confidence that I would be okay. And then PCL came after me, waited five months while I recovered, let me move my start date four times when my father got sick and passed away. In 26 years, that was only my third career move — and I took it without testing the market at all. My gut told me these were my people. I've never felt more valued in my entire career than I do right now.

Lauren

There's a lot there I want to touch on. How do we stop chasing moving goalposts and people-pleasing to accommodate companies? How do we take that power back?

Rhonda

At PCL, if something doesn't make sense to me, I have an open invitation to say: help me understand why you're asking me to do this. I can challenge things in a healthy, constructive way and they're open to listening. There's always some give and take in any job, and that's fine. But when the goalposts are constantly moving and nobody's being transparent about it — when you're running around in the dark, not meeting expectations nobody told you about — that's a sign you're in the wrong place.

My one regret is that when my gut started telling me something was off at my previous employer, I didn't listen. I thought I was the problem. Sometimes you do have to look in the mirror honestly — but when something feels wrong over and over and over again, you have to trust that inner voice. Get out sooner. That's the lesson I wish I'd learned faster.

Lauren

You mentioned that they said relocating you would be easy because you "don't have a family." We often talk about supporting women in corporate in the context of moms — but there's the other side too. When you don't have a family, people assume your time is theirs. Can you talk about navigating that?

Rhonda

It's really important. I wanted to be a mother, but at the time I felt like I had to choose between a family and a career. And because I don't have children or a partner, people assume my time is available by default — that whatever I'm doing in that "free time" isn't as important as what someone with a family has to do.

I also exist with two chronic autoimmune disorders, and there are weeks where I'm working every single day in some capacity. If I don't govern myself — if I don't skip the occasional evening networking event — I'll throw myself into a flare. Then I'm not good for anyone. AEC is not a nine-to-five industry. Everyone, with or without children, needs to take care of themselves. But I've had to become really confident about that, because there's a fear in our world that if you take time for yourself you'll be seen as less committed, less relevant, and you'll get passed over.

What I love about PCL is that we're a performance-based organization — not a "we can see you sitting in your chair so you must be doing a great job" organization. That changes everything.

Lauren

We're coming up on time — one last question: how do you think the system could better support women?

Rhonda

I think about my mom aging faster than most women her age — at some point I'll be moving into a season of caring for her, which isn't unlike having a child. So the conversation about flexibility has to expand beyond motherhood.

It starts with how we structure things. Not every networking event needs to be a happy hour or an early morning that conflicts with school drop-off or getting a parent set up for the day. How do we embed childcare and elder care resources into workplaces? How do we make events more family-friendly? One of my colleagues recently told our team upfront: "There will be days I'm on time for this meeting and days I'll be 50 minutes late because of my son." I love that. Nobody should have to apologize for being a present parent. I told her I was genuinely glad she chose to be there for her son's teeth-brushing tantrum — because there are only so many years where you get to witness that.

I spent the first 22 years of my career not prioritizing the people I love most. I had the houses and the cars and all the material things — and I was miserable, because I hadn't figured out that time with the people you love is what actually matters. It's priceless, and you can't get it back. That's my other regret: I don't have a family and I don't have a partner partly because I put my job first for too long. That was a mistake I won't make again.

Lauren

So if you could go back and tell your younger self anything, what would it be?

Rhonda

Trust your intuition. Put your time first and foremost, and spend it with those you love — because you never know when that's going to be over.

Lauren

I love that. Well, thank you for spending some time talking today — I really enjoyed this.

Rhonda

Me too. I'm really glad you're doing this — I can't wait to hear all of the other guests. Being here at PCL, I've never felt more valued in my entire career, and a year ago I might have shown up to this conversation as a jaded, discouraged person. Instead I get to be here saying: I feel safe, I feel valued, and people talk to me with respect. It's been great.