Women in Construction Spotlight: Bianca Strickland

ADB Companies is rapidly growing across the country. All business groups are in need of world-class people ready to join the family. This growth is supported by a dedicated HR and Recruiting team led by Bianca Strickland. Serving as the Vice President of Human Resources for ADB Companies, Bianca leads the efforts to recruit, hire, and retain talent to help drive ADB’s vision and achieve continued success.

Bianca joined the ADB family in 2013 as a receptionist but was quickly promoted to an HR Assistant within six months. Since then, she has continued to advance and is now running the entire HR and Recruiting department. When she started, ADB consisted of only 200 team members in four division offices servicing three operational groups. Today, ADB is close to 1,000 team members in nine different states serving seven operational groups. She proudly leads her team of 16 and the team has grown from being task and process driven to results and strategy driven. As a team, this has allowed them to develop and improve programs and processes across the companies. Bianca has been given incredible opportunities and has felt very empowered in her work.

“People are my passion, so when I can see the end result a year down the road of how an initiative has affected them and our business positively, it motivates me to use the empowerment I have to continue to be a change agent for ADB.”

Bianca wanted to join the construction industry because of her blue-collar family and background. These roots have carried her into business and given her a passion for making a difference in the lives of our office workers and craftspeople across the country. She knows how hard they work, how back breaking the job can be, and how much the hours can take a toll not only on the workers, but on their families, as well, because she watched her family experience it. She has an immense level of respect for the work and she is grateful to contribute to the industry in some way. With her background, she also knew that starting her career in construction would mean entering a male-dominated industry. While it was frustrating at first, she quickly realized that by building relationships and learning to speak the “operations language”, her goals and success began to progress. She can now look back and be proud at how far she has come in an industry where success for women can be challenging. Bianca is grateful for her journey and if she could give one piece of advice to young women wanting to start out in the industry, it would be:

“Learn every part of the business you want to impact, build relationships, and don’t take things personally.”

Bianca’s growth, along with ADB’s, is not slowing down anytime soon. Throughout her career, she has learned a lot of lessons, but the most important lesson she has learned, and the one that has contributed to much of her success is that she doesn’t have to be strong and tough all the time. Women tend to think that they have to put on a tough demeanor in this industry, but compassion, empathy, understanding, and patience are what really make a difference. As soon as she stopped worrying about being “tough” and started leading with compassion and understanding, Bianca felt her career shift for the better. She leads with these characteristics today and sets that example for her team. When she thinks about the future, Bianca is excited to be an advocate for positive change across the companies.

“There are so many opportunities at ADB. My biggest focus is to drive diversity within the organization, develop a recruitment plan to keep up with our talent needs as we grow, and to continue making a difference for our blue-collar team members.”

Bianca, thank you for your leadership and your passion for growing and developing our people. Our ADB teams are lucky to have you and we can’t wait to see all of the world-class talent you continue to bring to the companies!