Georgina Jensen, 31

Georgina Jensen grew up loving math and science, and was going to be an engineer. Just what kind of engineer turned out to be the question.

She originally studied civil engineering at the University of Connecticut. There, she joined the networking group Professional Women in Construction, and was assigned a mentor who worked for a small construction firm. She interned there over the summer, and then had a new mentor the next year at UConn. That woman worked at Turner Construction Company. 

Turner emphasized field work for its interns, and that was that.

“Instead of civil engineering, I kind of like this project management thing,” Jensen recalled thinking. “It was a little bit more dynamic for me. It took my studies and love for engineering into a more practical and tangible field.”

Jensen joined Turner right out of college, first in the Nutmeg State, then in Westchester County and now in New York City, and has been in the field since on major projects. Notable ones have included the nine-floor interior fit-out of investment and technology firm D.E. Shaw’s 2 Manhattan West offices. That ran the gamut in back- and front-end operations, from audio visual closets to private offices to a podcast studio to smart technology. 

Another nine-story project that has defined Jensen’s career so far is the fit-out of Google’s St. John’s Terminal offices in Manhattan. That $252.6 million project involved the adaptive reuse of a former train terminal into features such as cafeterias, fitness centers and a spherical theater in addition to the enclosed and open offices themselves. There were the little things, too, that took big work: Google wanted unique wall coverings for its many office phone booths, for instance.

Such moving parts mean regular client liaising to keep a project moving on budget. “Everything we do is cost- and schedule-based,” Jensen said. 

Meanwhile, the project engineer pays it forward. Jensen has mentored high school and college kids interested in the field, and now also works with Turner’s interns.