Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates Hispanic and Latino history, culture, and community. From September 15th to October 15th, we recognize the Latino and Hispanic communities. Starting out as a simple weeklong celebration in 1968, it wasn’t until 1988 that the celebration was expanded to a month. The Hispanic Heritage Month honors resilience, determination and culture, as we see with this month’s Changemaker; Alejandra “Ale” Spray.
Ale Spray currently leads as the CEO and President of the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado. With a habit of challenging expectations, Ale started her incredible journey in construction with her degree in Civil Engineering at ITESO Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara. A Colorado resident since 1999, she has over 20 years of construction experience. Throughout her career, Ale has worked as a Project Engineer, Marketing Director, and business development and community empowerment manager. Her impressive resume shows her dedication and passion in her field.
Her interests in the field have always been with Diversity, Equity, an Inclusion (DEI) and Outreach Efforts – paving the way for more Latinos and women to make a name for themselves in a field known to be male-populated. We are honored to be speaking with her today!
Q: As a changemaker yourself, where do you feel you’ve had the greatest impact in your career? What is the legacy you hope to leave?
A: That’ll take me a while to think of. You don’t ever think you’re changemaking, you think you’re just doing your job, then your passion. That’s how I approach my career, just being passionate in what I do. I’ve been privileged to be in the rooms where sometimes minorities have not been invited; sometimes finding myself to be the only woman of color there. Which thankfully is changing – but I had to adapt quickly. It’s a big responsibility. Because you can’t speak on behalf of everybody, but you also have to ensure you open those doors for others to follow. I believe, strongly that my legacy is supporting women and Latinas in this industry. Educating folks about what diversity means in construction.
I believed I had a definition of diversity until a classmate in our leadership program mentioned “diversity without a meaningful inclusion approach is not really diversity.” I think that’s what it is. Not only bringing people to the table but ensuring they have that voice and safe space to be heard – and sometimes, it’s not easy for them to express themselves! It’s having their back and saying, “I’m here, I’m supporting you” so they can feel comfortable and safe expressing their ideas.
I’ve worked with women in construction, and now I advocate for small minority and women-owned businesses. We know small businesses are the fabric of our country. The challenges they have to navigate comes with the understanding that they are just the same as larger companies. They all started with the same dream – to create a company for their family, to build generational wealth with the tools and knowledge they had at hand. It has been women and minorities – those voices who sometimes feel that they aren’t represented who want to be in those rooms, so we have to bring them to those rooms and provide resources and support for them to be successful.
Q: Who, or what do you feel was your “changemaker”? A moment or a person who most inspired you to pursue your current work?
A: Well, for my career, I have to go back to my father. He was a civil engineer. He always showed me the blueprints of his projects – I got to see what was on the paper become reality. When I told him I wanted to be an engineer he said, “Oof! I wasn’t expecting that!” But I think he also thought, “Okay, well I fed this interest, so let’s go for it.” In Mexico, it wasn’t easy to be embraced as a woman in engineering or construction. So, I owe it to him for giving me that little seed he planted.
After coming to the United States, I was blessed with amazing mentors and sponsors. We have to mention the definition of sponsors. The sponsors gave me the opportunities – they’ve put me into the roles that would scare me and tell me “I believe in you, and you will do great.”
Manuel Gonzales, the majority owner of AMI Mechanical, where I started my construction career here in Colorado, he was a strong mentor and sponsor. But from all the mentors – Marcy Loughran, she was the first one to embrace me, and asked; “Where do you see yourself in 3, 5, 10 years? First as individual then as professional; it was that approach that helped me tremendously.” Lately, it has been all the minority small business owners in this industry that drives me to educate others – inside and out of the AEC industries on the challenges and resiliency of these entrepreneurs that need to be acknowledged and respected.
Everyone that I work with educates me, and that empowers my work. I don’t claim to have all the answers, I am always learning, and that’s part of the beauty of this role. Every company has its own challenges. We might do similar work, but there will always be different challenges. The education on the many challenges helps me make our industry better and change perceptions that haven’t always been favorable.
It’s not just opening the door; it’s about making sure the door doesn’t close behind me.
Q: You have overseen great changes for creating opportunities for under-represented groups. What’s the best way to open those doors for those who would not otherwise have the opportunity, in your opinion?
A: It’s not just opening the door; it’s about making sure the door doesn’t close behind me. I think that’s the difference between the mentor and the sponsor. We love our mentors. But the sponsors are those who will put their hand on the fire for you and give you that opportunity. Mentors will give you advice, but sponsors will say “I’m giving you this opportunity,” “I’m nominating you for this”, “I’m putting you in this room to do this.” That is the difference that will help us see more diversity. But we also have to make sure that those people to who we are providing these opportunities to, that they feel supported.
I get upset when I see people say, “we tried it, it didn’t work.” Did you truly, intentionally try? Did you support them, did you help navigate them, did you give them that psychologically and emotionally safe space for them to come forward and say I failed? This is very relevant to women – as women, we always feel like we have to perform. What if we allowed women to fail? And to be, okay? Not chastise them, because men fail and are given opportunities. When companies start embracing that it’s okay to fail and learn from that experience that’s how you start to mentor and sponsor them. Continuing supporting people when things do not always go as planned. Failing is part of growing and learning, it’s how we keep opening those opportunities for people. We all have experienced failure, right? It’s about how we pick ourselves back up.
I’m looking out for my younger Latinas interested in construction. People ask me; “Why are there not many Latinas in construction?” I say, “what are you doing about it?” It’s easy to point out the problem, but it’s harder to address the challenges or the solutions to it. I ask them, “Did you go and participate in classrooms? Do you offer to mentor or guide them during their college years, do you offer job shadowing, internships? To tell students what your job is about?” I’m so proud I went to career fairs, universities, high schools, middle schools and told my story to inspire girls. At some point, we have to ask our young professionals – how do you give back? Because it’s not about just me doing this, it’s about all of us, together. It’s about inspiring us, and how we support each other.
Q: In your LinkedIn bio, we noticed the term “Corporate Social Responsibility.” Can you explain what you define this as?
A: Yes! When I’m doing my work, I’m always reinventing myself. I think I’m now Ale version 6.0. I started as estimating coordinator, then had a role in marketing, then I moved into business development, and then I started doing more outreach. Which, you know I’m passionate about.
When people ask me how long I’ve been doing DEI, I tell them since I decided to be a female in construction. That was always my career, I just decided to make it official with a certificate. When I started doing more of the volunteering and seeing the impact, I wanted to learn more about Corporate Social Responsibility. It’s the practice of organizations putting their missions not only on their websites and in their communications but understanding what it truly means to impact communities, to inspire their associates, to support causes that align with their core values. Clients, investors, and future generations are looking at what and how companies are approaching this commitment
I thought I knew it, but when I started working on this certificate and exploring its components, it felt like the iceberg analogy — I only knew what was above the surface, while everything beneath the water represented all that I didn’t know; I had barely scratched the surface.
I know lately people have been a little hesitant to continue working on DEI initiatives because of burnout. It was pushed hard on everyone, to learn, to implement, to give results. But I suggest people see DEI being humanity. It’s about seeing each other as we are. How we collaborate daily. It’s about understanding each other and understanding that sometimes we have burdens from our personal lives that we can’t leave behind. We’ve been told before; “don’t bring issues of life into work.” But after Covid, we’ve realized we’re more than a number. We’re humans. Sometimes it’s hard to show up at work without still having a feeling about something in our personal life. And the same thing at home! When you go home, you can’t always leave stuff from work behind. It’s about seeing and collaborating through humanity. This business is about people! We should care about people, at all levels, as humans. Respect our differences.
If you really want to promote diversity in your company, what programs are you doing? How are you supporting your first generation or your underrepresented individuals? Beyond the level of the field – because we can find a lot of Hispanic labor in the field. But how do you support them so they can become the managers and leaders they are meant to be? How do we really support them? Just seeing a social post doesn’t actually support the complexities they have to navigate in this industry. We need to do more than just recruit them, we need to retain them, promote them – help them find their success at the definition they want.
Q: Do you feel there has been a significant change in the roles Hispanics and Latinos play in the construction field? How do you see the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado (HCC) navigating the future?
A: Definitely there’s been a change – because our population is changing. There’s work to celebrate. Sadly, the narrative of Hispanic and immigrant communities is not always positive.
How do we tell people from underrepresented communities that the industry is welcoming, and give them the opportunities that they ask for? The qualified candidates are supposed to get it. But are you really looking at a broad pool to give the candidates that opportunity? And again, once you give them that opportunity, how do you help support them?
The future for HCC will hopefully address these questions. I have a vision, we’re going to launch a Hispanic Legacy Committee, because we were created by Hispanic owners. It will be for bringing those young Latinos into leadership positions – to become the next HCC Board members, HCC business owners, because we don’t tell students our story about being entrepreneurs. We always tell them you have to work for a company. Instead of telling them that they can open your own company. Working with our Committee, young Latinos can get the leadership and mentorship to become the stronger leaders in their organizations and in the community.
I’m also looking to collaborate with our local colleges. We want to bring those first generation or underrepresented students to our dinner meetings, where they can meet all members. To get those opportunities that they don’t get in career fairs. Not every student can attend career fairs because they have to work to support their family. Some of my small businesses cannot go to career fairs because they can’t afford that one day away from work or they feel intimidated to be next to a large company with nice swag and recruiting efforts, but they have so much to offer! I’m hoping to bridge that gap between underrepresented students and small businesses to hopefully have opportunities for internships, job shadowing, and get to learn more about them. Hopefully, this will bring more diversity and more cultural inclusion, expanding it to students and creating change. We already have Hispanics in labor, but I need more Hispanics in management, more engineers, more architects. Not just because they see it as a potential career, but because they had somebody right there supporting them throughout that journey.