Precision & Petals: A Lifestyle Blog

It’d be easy for someone to look at my life and think, “Oh, she just ended up right where she started. Nothing too exciting about that,” but you’d be wrong.

This post is about the various “chances” that God carefully crafted in my life to get me to where He wanted me to be, exactly where I am today.

The story covers my “lucky” encounter with a woman who got me my first internship, the bizarre fact that the first company I worked for misread my resume when deciding to give me an interview, and the unbelievable story about meeting my current boss thanks to some locked doors…

This post includes:

• Getting my First Internship: A Chance Encounter
• Getting my First Job: A Misread Resume and Decision-Making Small Talk
• My Second Job: Experience
• Depression in Personal Life Turned to Licensure and Education
• Attempting to “Set My Own Course”
• Getting my Current Job: Locked Doors Opening Others
• Summary, Part 1: Blessings are Often Hidden
• Summary, Part 2: You Have to Try

Getting my First Internship: A Chance Encounter

I came home for a weekend the fall of my sophomore year (fall 2013) to see my family (which I did often). VA Tech had an away game that weekend against Ohio State, and I didn’t think I’d be missing much in Blacksburg.

That Saturday my mom was volunteering at a local thrift store that one of the churches ran (donations for the store came from the church’s congregation and the funds went to charity). She’d forgotten something at the house, now I can’t remember what, and called to have me drop it off to her.

I begrudgingly went to drop it off to her. When I got there, I ran inside to hand her the item and she introduced me to another volunteer she was working with, Sally Lane. “This is Kayla. She’s the one who’s going to Tech for engineering!” mom said to Sally. Mom then introduced Sally to me, informing me that Sally’s husband owned a civil engineering firm in town.

Sally said that she and her husband had just spoken the other day about how they should take on interns at his firm for the upcoming summer, and that I should reach out to him. I thanked her and we exchanged information.

I remember that Tech actually won that game against Ohio State, and I was *so* upset the next week that I had went home, because Blacksburg went CRAZY after the win. I felt so upset that I’d missed being there for it!

Well, time passed and I applied to a ton of internships. I was thankful for the information, but I was hoping to see what life away from home would be like… Many of my collogues were getting internships with Norfolk Southern Railroads, or summer positions with construction giants across the east coast, and I found myself hoping for the same.

However, at the time I was *not* officially in the College of Engineering at Tech, in fact, I didn’t get into the College of Civil Engineering until the end of first semester my junior year. That being said, no engineering firms, construction firms, or similar would hire me for an engineering internship.

So, with about a month before summer starting, I reached out to Bobby Lane, Sally’s husband, through the information she’d given me months ago. Bobby was aware that I wasn’t in the College of Engineering, but was still happy to have me come onboard and I started my first internship with The Lane Group in the summer of 2014, where I interned the year after as well (& came back to work at later on, but that’s further in the story!).

This internship opened doors for me that I cannot put into words. And I don’t mean “the experience of an internship” opened these doors – no. Only THIS internship could have opened the doors that it did, and that I later walked through, all because of that one day at the volunteer shop.

Getting my First Job: A Misread Resume and Decision-Making Small Talk

In my senior year at Tech I applied to at least 3 jobs per week. I was terrible at job fairs and a very nervous person when talking to hirers, so when I got interviews they rarely lead to follow-ups.

Toward the end of my first semester of senior year, most of my friends had already accepted their starting positions with companies, and I received an offer letter from The Lane Group. It was a decent offer, but my heart was still hoping to see what else was in the world. I asked them if I could have a few weeks before getting back and they accepted my request.

During this time, I got a phone interview with a company called Granite Construction for the position of junior estimator. I was excited, as the job posting was for Tarrytown, NY. I’d never been to New York and the thought alone was exhilarating. The phone call went amazing (the phone interview was myself, a female HR hiring manager, and about half a bottle of wine. I don’t recommend that for interviews, but Gail and I were clicking!) She offered me a follow-up interview while still on the phone, and told me the company wanted to fly me to New York the next week!

I took the flight up to JFK, then a taxi to Tarrytown. The company put me up in a hotel, and just down the road from my hotel was a subway station. I arrived to the hotel around 3 PM, and then took the subway from Tarrytown to Grand Central Station in NYC. I’d never seen any of NYC before, and it was the week before Christmas – I wanted to see Rockefeller Center!

I got back to my hotel around 9 PM that night and readied myself for the morning. A town car picked me up to take me to the interview. I met Gail at the office, and numerous other individuals came into a conference room, one-by-one, to interview me. After interviewing with about 5 people, Gail told me to follow her, that we were going to Dan’s office.

From the way we were moving to an individual’s office, I knew this was the main boss – the one who would decide. Gail opened his office door, introduced us, and left, closing the door behind her.

Dan *grilled* me. He asked about my studies, asked about my minor in Spanish (only to immediately tell me that that “everyone that speaks Spanish speaks it different” so my ability was irrelevant), and various other questions.

Finally, Dan asks, “So why are you leaving Lane? Why not continue with them?”

My face surely showed surprise at his question. “Oh, well, honestly I’m hoping to move to a larger company and see more of the world. Also my passions in school lie more with construction and transportation.”

Dan scrunched his face, “Well surely Lane is big enough for you? I would imagine they could move you anywhere you’d want to go. And they do transportation; we were just on a job with them in Florida.”

Now there was no hiding my confusion, “I just… I would be surprised if they were doing a job in Florida. They’re a pretty small water and wastewater engineering firm in southwest Virginia,” I said.

Dan reached onto the table, picked up my resume from in front of him and pulled it to his face, examining it carefully. “The.. Lane… Group?” he read. I nodded.

“We thought you’d interned two years with Lane Construction,” Dan said, explaining our mutual confusion.

I could tell he was disappointed with his new understanding. We continued the interview, and finally the grilling questions stopped.

Dan folded his arms and looked at me directly. “Honestly, I think you interview well. I think you’re smart. But I don’t think you have what it takes. I don’t think you’d be a good fit for this job. You’re from a small town, you went to school near your small town, and if we hire you, you won’t be here one year before you’re deciding to go back there.”

I was surprised. I knew I’d killed the interview, but there’s little you can do when someone makes assumptions about you. “Well, respectfully, I disagree. I know what I’m capable of and what drives me. I love my family and I see them often, yes. But I’m going to make my own way.” Dan nodded, but put his hands on his desk to push himself up from his chair, ending the interview and escorting me out of the room back to the lobby.

On the way to the lobby Dan asked, “Have you enjoyed your time in New York?”

“Oh it’s been great. I’ve never been to New York before, so I took the subway to NYC last night to see Rockefeller Center. I got to see the tree and Tiffany’s, the ice skating rink… it was really cool!” I said.

Dan was walking beside of me, and turned his head with a puzzled look on his face, “You went into the City last night?” he asked. I nodded as we entered the lobby.

Five minutes later, Gail came into the lobby to tell me that they were offering me the position.

After some negotiations, I accepted my first position as a Construction Manager for Granite Construction on a Public-Private-Partnership (P3) contract and started summer 2016. These are extremely rare contract types, which will come up later in God’s amazing crafting of my story!

My Second Job: Experience

I worked at Granite for just over a year and a half. Landing my second job wasn’t as “coincidence” laden as the first, but still important to the overall story.

This second job was important because it led me to furthering my career as a construction project manager, allowed me to take on a wide variety of project types in my role, and greatly increased my salary. This second job I was an assistant Project Manager for Thalle Construction in North Carolina, and worked on jobs in Durham, NC, Knoxville, TN, Paradise, KY, and Stevenson, AL. I worked at this job for 2.5 years.

Depression in Personal Life Turned to Licensure and Education

After 4 years of being on the road (PA, NC, AL, KY, TN), I was tired of moving so often for my job. I had my degree in civil engineering, but I’d never used it (technically construction management is it’s own study, not under civil). I started considering trying design.

This was also the time COVID was starting up, early 2020, and with the scary reports on the news and not knowing what was going to happen, I wanted to be closer to my family. I reached out to The Lane Group in my hometown, the company I’d had my internships with all those years ago. I told Matthew (Bobby’s son and now owner) that I was looking to move back to the area and that it might only be for a short while (I was in a serious relationship at the time that if it’d remained would have lead to me moving), but that if they would be interested in having me, even if for a short amount of time, that I would like to join back.

Well they were happy to have me and gave me a wonderful offer. I left my construction management position and started down the path of design.

After about 8 months of being back at The Lane Group, my relationship ended. I was in a pretty depressed state in my personal life during this time. I told Matthew of the circumstances and that if they were only planning to have me for a short while, I could still leave, but that if they wanted me to stay I would like to too. They asked me to stay.

I felt tricked honestly at this point in my life, and trapped. I’d left a job that I loved (construction) under the assumption that it would only be short-lived, and that when I moved with this boy to the city we were planning on going to, that I could get back into construction if I wanted to, or I could continue with design now that I had experience in both. Now none of that was relevant, and I felt like all the efforts I’d made and plans that I had were completely shot and I was stuck.

The Lane Group was great to me, the depression was not related to the work, simply my personal life and a feeling of complete loss of control. That being said, I quickly found out that design wasn’t what I wanted to do and I missed construction. To be fair, I hadn’t planned on doing it that long either, and was upfront with them about that from the beginning. The one great thing about working in design is that my company was design-centered and therefore stayed on me about getting my Professional Engineering license (PE). This hadn’t been a big deal at ANY of the places I’d worked before (construction doesn’t care if someone’s a PE or not), but since Lane kept asking me, I finally sent in my application and studied. I failed in October 2021. Then secretly took it again and passed, March 2022!

I honestly believe that without my second time at The Lane Group, I might never have moved back home, and I believe I would have *never* gotten my PE. During this time I took it upon myself to get my MBA from an online program. (The MBA hasn’t played a role in my life to-date, but with the way God’s timing and perfect planning is, I bet it will come in very handy later on, at which point I might not be able to dedicate the time/resources to getting another degree.)

Attempting to “Set My Own Course”

After 2 years at The Lane Group, there was no denying – even to myself – that I missed construction. I decided to start applying. I applied all over the east coast, some gulf coast regions, and even a few crazy places like one in Guam and one in Hawaii.

Before ever sending the first application, I had decided that I was going to live at the beach (something I’ve always wanted to do).

I must have applied to over 100 places in 4 to 6 months, and all of which were jobs that I was a good candidate for! However, I only got 2 interviews from all those applications, and both ended when we could not come to terms on salary.

I remember specifically thinking, “God, why did you have me get in touch with this company, if nothing’s going to come from it?” on one of the jobs that we couldn’t agree on a salary. Well, the answer to that is in the next section.

Then one day, I see a job posting for Wytheville, VA (about an hour from my house) for a construction manager for VDOT. It wasn’t the beach, which I had TOLD myself would be where I lived next, but I sent in my application anyway.

Getting my Current Job: Locked Doors Opening Others

I got a call for the Wytheville, VA construction manager position and they set an interview for April 2022 at 8 AM.

Well, I showed up about 15 minutes early and pulled on the door only to find it locked. I started freaking out and looked around – there were about 5 or 6 buildings all in a circle. I drove my car around the building I was at and started pulling on all the doors I could find, but all were locked.

I am now down to 6 minutes before my interview and my panic had to be noticeable. I scanned the parking lot, looking over a sea of cars, and noticed that one man was inside of a truck on the phone. I waved, obviously nervous, and pointed at myself. The man smiled, threw up a finger as to say, “just a minute,” and got off the phone and came towards me.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt. I have an interview at 8 this morning and I’ve tried every door in this place. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go,” I said as he approached.

“Oh that’s no problem, just follow me,” he said. On the way up the steepest stairs I’ve ever been on, he introduced himself as Marty and told me that he was head of Mega Projects Construction group here at the District office. I told him I was glad to meet him and that I was actually applying for a construction position with Wytheville!

He smiled and said, “Oh that’s great! That call I was on was for a big P3 we have in Grundy.”

“No way! My first job was a P3 actually, I worked for Granite Construction up in Pennsylvania.” Again, if you remember my first job section, a P3 is a VERY rare contract type. Each state might only have 1 every few years. Marty was obviously surprised by my answer.

We entered the interview room and Marty announced to all present, “You’d better hire this girl! She has P3 experience!” and left.

Well the interview went GREAT. I knew I had the job! Only two days later, I got the call that I didn’t. On the call they told me that a past VDOT employee had interviewed and been chosen, but that another CM position was going to be posted in a few weeks.

Turns out, Marty had requested the new CM position within his group, shortly after hearing that I didn’t get the Wytheville job. I applied and could not be happier with the job that I currently have (that position!). The job before, where we couldn’t reach an agreement on salary? I was able to use their offer (which was for a traveling construction manager) to negotiate my offer for this job!

I could not be happier with where God has brought me through this journey. I get to do construction management, live in my home town, and KNOW that God put me here, because there is NO WAY that this course of events that lead me to here could have happened without Him.

Summary, Part 1: Blessings are Often Hidden

I think the biggest take away is to know that blessings are sometimes hard to see right away. It might take months or years before you understand something, and somethings you might not understand until you can ask Him yourself.

Just remember, in these stories that lead me to being as happy as I am now, first:

• I was upset that I missed that weekend at Tech because they beat Ohio State and Blacksburg went CRAZY that weekend, but it landed me 2 summers of internships and got me my first job by a crazy misunderstanding!
• I was uncomfortable; I never do high-risk things, like take a subway alone for an hour to go to NYC, but I did and telling about it got me my first job!
• I was upset that I moved back and felt “trapped,” but without this time in my life I would have never gotten my PE or MBA.
• I felt confused as to why I entered into negotiations on salary with a company, only to have it not come to fruition.
• I was so hurt that I didn’t get the Wytheville job, but not getting it allowed me to get a job with Mega Projects and kept me from having to move an hour away!
• I was nervous, but if those doors hadn’t been locked for my interview, a lot of others would have never opened.

Summary, Part 2: You Have to Try

While I believe God is more than capable of creating our path on His own (for example, if He wanted me to win the lottery tomorrow or be hit by a bus, I believe either would happen – and I don’t even play the lottery or live near train tracks), I believe He’s more likely to intervene and help us if we are trying and praying for Him to do so.

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Matthew 7:7-11

If God’s laid something on your heart and it’s weighing on you – pray about it. And on top of praying about it, try to create opportunities and paths related to the item.

If your job is weighing on your heart – pray about it and send the 100 applications, maybe your dream job is on Indeed right now.

If your relationship is weighing on your heart – pray about it and have the hard conversations with your partner.

If your heart is saying, “I want to be an author” – pray about it and write the book! Send it out and if nothing comes of it, what did you really lose?

God will help you, and if what He’s laid on your heart is His will, it will happen. If it doesn’t happen, it might not be His will but a blessing in disguise!