This month, we’re celebrating Women in Construction Week (March 6-12) with a blog series highlighting the value and ingenuity women bring to our member businesses. We’ll also feature careers and opportunities available to women interested in a rewarding, full-time job and being a part of the precast, prestressed concrete industry’s bright future.
My name is Danielle Fleagle. My husband, Mark, and I have three children ages thirteen, ten, and seven. I moved to Guam with Mark after I graduated college in 2003, when he was stationed there with the Navy for two years. That is where I started my IT career. My first IT job was in Guam at the Pacific Islands Club as an IT intern. From there I moved back to Pennsylvania and worked at a CPA firm for eight years. I had a few different jobs in between that time, but then I found my current position at Northeast Prestressed Products, LLC (NPP) in Cressona, PA, where I have been since March of 2016.
PCI-MA: How do you describe your job to people?
Fleagle: On the IT side, I take care of everything from phones and building security to servers, backups, laptops, printers, and anything to do with electronics. On the safety side, it's a daily job of walking our property and talking to people to make sure we are being as safe as we can be.
PCI-MA: How did your career journey lead you to your company?
Fleagle: When I applied for the IT Director position at NPP, I was working as an IT specialist in the nursing field. I just had my third child, and my current job was about forty-five minutes away. NPP was only ten mins away! My first interview at NPP went so well, and the people were so nice, I just knew it was a perfect fit for me. I was going to be the whole IT department. So taking care of twenty-five to thirty-five people alone, along with a network I didn't build myself, was a bit nerve-wracking
PCI-MA: What is one of the greatest challenges you’ve faced in our industry and how have you overcome it?
Fleagle: The greatest challenge for me would have to be on the safety side. I was asked to be the safety director, but I didn't have much experience in the field. But I always love a challenge, and that I did get! I have a problem with being a people pleaser, but you just can't please everyone. I felt they looked at me as if I shouldn’t even be there, so I started putting a lot more time in on the plant floor. I needed to learn what these guys did every day. As I learned the job, they started treating me differently.
PCI-MA: What do you enjoy most about your job?
Fleagle: The thing I enjoy most about my job is the people and the fun we have at work. I have also enjoyed performing and learning some of the jobs that go into making a beam on the plant floor. We are all friends, and it's a really cool environment to work in. I've never had a job like this one before!
PCI-MA: Do you have a mentor or role model? If so, how does this person support you in your personal and professional growth?
Fleagle: I would have to say my mentor is my father, Ali. He was a welder for Local 420 for more than thirty years. He would leave at 4 a.m. and not get home till after dinner for at least nine months out of the year. He taught me that being successful doesn’t come easy. You really need to put the time and effort into what you are doing if you want to succeed.
PCI-MA: What are your career and life aspirations and goals?
Fleagle: As for career goals, I'd really love to stay here at NPP and learn different positions and roles to be able to help grow our business and be even more successful. For life aspirations, I just want to be a great role model for my three kids. I want to show them that working hard and being a good person really does pay off in life. You never know what people are going through in their own life, so just be kind to everyone.
PCI-MA: What advice would you give a young woman entering the construction industry?
Fleagle: The best advice I can give to any woman entering the construction industry is to be strong. It is a man-dominated world, but if you stick up for yourself and prove you can do what a man does or do it even better, they will respect you. Once you have the respect, you can do great things.
About Northeast Prestressed Products, LLC
Northeast Prestressed Products (NPP) maintains office, production, storage, and fleet operations on a 28-acre site in Cressona, PA, strategically located to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 80, and other major transportation arteries. NPP serves agencies and contractors from Virginia to Maine and hauls most elements with its own fleet, which includes customized trailers for delivering bulb-tee girders in the 175-ft. range—a size class for which the producer has been a forerunner in the Mid-Atlantic and New England markets. Among its most notable recent projects, NPP delivered 52 bulb-tee girders for the Coplay-Northampton Bridge in eastern Pennsylvania. Also known as the Chestnut Street Bridge, the three-span structure consists of five lines of its spliced bulb-tees, each with four grouted P-T tendons. For a project quote, email NPP at nppinfo@npp-llc.com.
Want to learn more about a career in precast? Check out our workforce Career Center for job descriptions, career paths, job listings, and other helpful resources.
