Well-matched team of women helps construction activity stay on track
March 9, 2023
This paid piece is sponsored by Knife River South Dakota.
Before any building can start for the day.
Before trucks get loaded with material heading to job sites.
And before most of us have even thought about heading to work, Jen Fahrini and Lexee Bliss have started their day.
“In our busy season, we usually start at 6:30 a.m.,” said Fahrini, a dispatcher at Knife River South Dakota, who serves more like a master control operator.
“I start entering in all the dispatches and orders that come in from homeowners to contractors, and then we’ll dispatch out rocks, sand, landscaping material, and I always have to know what the next step is going to be.”
Saying it’s a fast-paced job is an understatement – especially in the heart of construction season, which brings 10-plus-hour days when Fahrini regularly finds herself keep track of more than 50 trucks going to and from the Sioux Falls quarry and jobs sites.
“We want to keep the trucks going and moving product at all times,” she said.
Bliss, her counterpart and colleague, sits across the office and takes care of the other pivotal piece of getting trucks to job sites: operating the scale and issuing tickets.
“Jen deals with a lot of the bigger jobs – like if a contractor needs 2,000 tons of the same material, she calls the trucks and dispatches. I mostly deal with companies hauling rock for themselves,” Bliss explained. “So their drivers call with a job number and the rock they need, I put the trucks in the system and make sure the material they’re taking is the correct material. We have lots of piles in the yard, so ensuring everyone is going to the correct pile can be challenging but works out well.”
Homeowners also call in for help.
“We know the material very well,” Bliss said. “Jen has made up a binder with all the specs of different materials, so we can put it in basic terms and explain what they need. I had a call today from a homeowner expanding a driveway who needed the correct tonnage, and we recommended three or four options that would work in different price ranges.”
Both women said there’s a lot to like about their jobs – from the pace to the people.
“I have a friend who works here who told me what a great place it is to work, all the benefits, plus it’s fun,” said Fahrini, who joined Knife River four years ago.
“I like the pace and just the company in general and all the people we work with, from the contractors to Knife River employees. It’s a bigger company, but it’s close-knit, and we all work really well together and communicate.”
Bliss joined Knife River more than two years ago after changing careers from working as a hotel shift manager. She’s attending SDSU for construction management, and “I thought this would be a good way to get my foot in the door and get used to the materials used,” she said.
“Watching Jen dispatch the trucks and see the flow helps generate knowledge I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And we both like constantly talking to people and getting to the calls and learning about the kinds of jobs that go on. Learning the depth of what goes into construction is huge for me.”
It won’t be long before both women are back in the thick of their busy season – making this week a perfect time to recognize all they bring to the industry. March 6-12 is Women in Construction Week, organized by the National Association of Women in Construction to lift up the contributions of women serving in a multitude of construction-related roles.
At Knife River, Bliss and Fahrini “are quite the pair,” said Jeff Thompson, aggregate sales manager. “They’re high-energy, the customers love interacting with them, and they’re just really, really good with people. When our customers call in or send employees in, these two are the face of the company.”
Fahrini “is very thorough,” he continued. “With her, it’s detail. She thinks before she speaks and does things, and that’s important because she’s dispatching trucks. You have to be detail-oriented or trucks are driving around aimlessly.”
Bliss “has a great personality. Always upbeat, always in a good mood, and those things are so important working with customers,” Thompson said. “The two of them make a great, great team. Their dedication is phenomenal. They don’t miss days. They coordinate their schedules if someone needs to be gone. They’re not looking for credit, but they do what they do so well, and I can’t give them enough praise.”
Inside the scale house, it’s the women’s domain, he said.
“They paint it every winter. They pick out the colors. They’ve hung coffee signs and made bistro signs, and they’ve even gotten it to smell nice in there,” Thompson said. “I told them to make it how they want and make it comfortable, and they’ve done a lot with it.”
They’ve also made it welcoming for customers, even handing out Halloween treat bags.
“We like to give back to the drivers who come in and work with us, and our drivers know us well too,” Fahrini said. “They’ll bring us food and treats and coffee because they know how busy we are.”
Many of the drivers served by Fahrini and Bliss are like Cody Lengkeek and his team at Black-Top Paving, which sends multiple crews to and from the quarry daily.
“They just have good attitudes – they’re very personable and easygoing,” he said. “Trucking is the lifeline for us. If we can’t get material, we can’t work, and they help out quite a bit with that.”
The team “both have been really great for us,” he continued. “Whenever we’re short on trucks, they get right after it and just help all across the board. It’s very, very timely turnaround.”
Knife River also is “always looking for new and upcoming ways to make our job easier, with different programs and systems,” Fahrini added. “So that’s really nice, and the IT goes a long way to help us do our jobs.”
The leadership is supportive from the top down, Bliss added.
“A lot of times, you don’t get to meet management – the big shots – and I know almost all of them and have met them personally,” she said. “Our president Clark Meyer waves every time he drives by and stops by at least a few times a month to check on how we’re doing. If I saw him outside work, I have no doubt he’d wave to me. That’s huge.”
