The construction industry offers great career opportunities for Millennials and women.

The construction of high-rise buildings is happening right now in urban areas all over the world. Every major metropolitan area—from Memphis to Dallas to Mumbai to Singapore to Moscow—has its construction ecosystem, and in each, there are exciting job opportunities for bright young minds looking for engaging work and plenty of growth.

Here in the Bay Area, there are at least 400 companies across the fields of architecture, engineering, design, and construction that participate in this ecosystem.

You may be wondering, “Wait a second. If it’s such a big industry with so many job opportunities, why haven’t I heard more about it?”

The explanation is, in fact, quite simple: the construction industry is not consumer-oriented. There’s next to zero publicity. The tech industry is the polar opposite—consumer-oriented to the max—and the media has lauded the praises of everyone from Tesla to Apple to Google to LinkedIn to SnapChat.

The result? Bright students want to work in tech. The construction industry has simply not gotten the fanfare that the tech industry has.

Our goal is to change that.

Several months ago, we spoke with a young man, a college student, who was looking for a summer internship. He said his ultimate intern job would be to work for Tesla. We asked, “Have you considered something in the construction industry?”

That was entirely new to him.

The LISA Movement was born as a response to the current status quo idea that only jobs worthy of merit are found in the tech industry. We deeply question this idea and would like to point a big, shiny arrow towards the technology and innovation trends happening in construction ecosystems worldwide.

The thing is, if you’re going to work for a high-tech company, most are clustered in a half dozen cities -Silicon Valley/San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Austin plus a few more. If you’re from Memphis, however, and your friends and family are there, and you live in that area—it’s difficult and expensive to go across the country and take up a job where Tesla happens to be (Fremont, Calif.). 

One of the key things that we talk about at LISA is, unlike the tech industry, in the construction industry there is a (big) local ecosystem in every major metropolitan area in the world.

If you’re in Memphis, for example, there’s an ecosystem there. You don’t have to go very far down Main Street in Memphis to see a 30, 40, or 50-story building under construction. And every other major metropolitan area is the same. As a result, for young job seekers, the opportunities are right in your backyard (unless of course, your backyard is a big farm). In every city that is building high-rises, hospitals, and sports arenas, local, national, and international companies have an office.

The AEC industries (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction…plus Design) is the only industry we know of that has worldwide metropolitan-based ecosystems.

Our goal at LISA is to educate high school and college students about the dynamic career opportunities in these fields and to work with companies looking for new talent.  

Why “LISA”? The story goes that one of our founders was told by a genuine tech genius that thanks to the magic of technology and the socially innovative nature of humans, the Mona Lisa could be torn to shreds, each piece sold on a crowdfunding site and then reconstructed in a matter of days.

According to the genius, she would be better than her original form.

As a naïve and non-digital tyro, this both horrified and fascinated our founder. In mulling the idea over, however, he began to understand that while she would certainly be a bit tattered from the journey, the Mona Lisa would now contain the social energy of innovation and change, representing an entirely new kind of art.

The AEC industry needs bright minds—students who can think for themselves and have a technical bent, or just like solving problems. Because building a high-rise building or a 200-bed hospital complex is a bunch of challenges waiting to be solved.

Da Vinci may have been horrified, but Renaissance Man that he was we think he might have celebrated this idea with a wink and a nod. In this spirit, we were inspired to pay homage to both his ingenuity and the Mona Lisa’s enduring allure by starting a movement.

We aim to bring awareness to an overlooked industry that offers young people remarkable career opportunities.

Welcome to The LISA Movement.