The Women in Leadership: Representation Matters, Part 2

Resuming our feature on our women leaders, we will now pivot and discover Tracy Giorgetti’s journey from joining HMH fresh out of college to serving as our senior land surveyor then becoming one of our first female principals. In celebration of Tracy’s nearly three decades of service to HMH, we wanted to delve into her background and retrieve insight into her thought process of being a unique blend of civil engineering and land surveying.

In a world full of career uncertainty like many attempting to figure out what to do or what to become, Tracy’s decision to take up civil engineering right after high school was quite simple. “I wanted to do math, and writing didn’t come naturally to me,” she answered without hesitation.

A catalyst to Tracy even deciding on what discipline to take on stemmed from her father, an accounting major. However, she wanted to tread down the path less beaten and independently chose to not follow in his footsteps. “My dad received a degree in accounting but that didn’t necessarily interest me,” she firmly recounts. “Instead, I considered my options and landed on engineering because I preferred numbers and science, and it sounded the most appealing. I still had to narrow it down, and eventually chose civil because it appeared the most straight-forward branch of engineering.” Tracy’s pragmatic mentality influenced her to follow her instinct and not settle for a career based on familial history and interests.

Soon after graduating college with her civil engineering degree in tow, Tracy discovered an opening at HMH within the Land Survey Department. She noted that what stood out to her during the interview was the casual and conversational approach. “I appreciated that it wasn’t so structured. The culture felt casual. It felt comfortable. I was even interviewed by Bill Wagner (former Principal), and he was so accommodating and relaxed. He basically mentioned that, as a fellow Santa Clara University alum himself, seeing that I played Division I soccer while doing well with the tough course load of engineering—that persuaded him to hire me,” she said.

Yet, regardless of her civil background, HMH, at the time, had an intuition about her. The role at that level technically involved drafting and the basic knowledge and principles that Tracy had already theoretically learned through school and felt could still apply as a fresh engineering graduate. Surprisingly, the beauty of this route was how it led to her staying in the Land Survey Department, as she quickly learned the ropes of the field. Tracy then recounts…

Tracy adds that HMH had a need for more civil engineering work to be done so she did eventually go back to it for a couple of years, but once an opportunity opened within Land Survey, she jumped at it because that was her preference. She details that she even took some courses to further her overall understanding and knowledge in land survey and in time, pursue a license as a professional land surveyor. And then, the rest is herstory.

With Tracy’s journey thus far, earning a civil engineering degree to being immediately hired by HMH within the Land Survey Department and a role that was meant to be a steppingstone into professional engineering, the pivot truly served her well in the end. She had not planned it out that way, but after some time, she honed her craft and proved her worth. She confidently says…

She admits that the actual decision to become a principal was a joint effort between her and Dave Stanton, VP (fellow Principal and Survey Manager), as they typically had discussions about her development and growth within the company to the point of Dave pushing for it at the end of day. “Dave believed in me. It was about me appreciating being here, being part of the company. The leadership team saw and felt my love and dedication for my job and naturally, the whole company. I had that pride for HMH and showed it… it was palpable. And I felt that they saw that and took the leap.”

While Tracy will be hitting thirty years of service in a few more years, her career highlights and “lessons learned” are about the “puzzle pieces” and establishing relationships, whether professionally or personally. She explains…

In her opinion, “lessons learned” coincides with her advice—build solid relationships and nurture them. Relationships are critical in project partnerships and everywhere else, for that matter. Tracy even rhetorically asks, “Why wouldn’t you want to foster great relationships? That contributes to a more pleasant working environment and culture.”

This segues into her becoming accustomed to her role as a principal, with her stating the promotion hasn’t affected her in any particular way. She’s aware of what her role means to the company. “If anything, I’m still the same because that’s the mindset that got me to this point. I know that I am officially a leader, an owner of the company so I continue to prove my value. I maintain that pride in my company. It hasn’t changed how I manage my team, and what’s important to me is remaining dedicated to my craft for the success of the company.”

Ending our conversation, Tracy provides her impressions of what it means to be a woman in engineering:

Tracy has triumphantly demonstrated for a majority of HMH’s operation that she deserves part ownership of the company and continues to dominate as both a land surveyor and civil engineer. Thank you, Tracy Giorgetti, for your unwavering dedication after all this time! And we agree—women are engineering mavens!