Kabri Lehrman-Schmid is a Project Superintendent at Hensel Phelps with over 17 years experience. She’s currently leading the S Concourse Evolution Project at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as part of a $2B+ terminal renovation program, with a career portfolio that already exceeds $2 billion in completed project value. Off the job site, she’s co-founded Build With Pride Seattle, co-chairs the Washington State Task Force on Construction Suicide Prevention, and created one of the first toolbox talks on neurodiversity in construction. In this episode, Angelo and Kabri go deep on what psychological safety actually looks like in the field — not the boardroom version, but the day-to-day decisions a superintendent makes to create an environment where people feel safe enough to do their best work.
In this episode:
• How Kabri went from an engineering student working at Starbucks to leading a Pentagon renovation internship — and why you never know what conversation will change your life
• What 17 years at one company actually teaches you about what people need to stay
• Why field leaders don’t need to wait for corporate culture — and how a superintendent builds it from Day One of mobilization
• The “gatekeeper” reframe: why we’re all gatekeepers, and how you choose to be a conduit or a barrier
• Perspective taking as the most important leadership skill in a technical world
• Mental health in construction: 7,000 workers lost to suicide per year, 10,000 to drug overdose
• The room of 45 electricians, and what happened when half the hands went up
• What a low voltage foreman said to Kabri a year after she left his job site
• Why people are afraid to say the wrong thing — and why saying nothing is worse
• The business case for psychological safety as a performance strategy, not a feel-good initiative
• Build With Pride Seattle: 200 people, 85 companies, and what it means when people say it was the first time they felt acknowledged in construction
• Why inclusion programs that don’t survive the job site gate are a leadership failure
• Neurodiversity in construction and the toolbox talk that didn’t even say the word
• The deep foundations foreman who buried cows in an elementary school lawn
• What Kabri wishes she had known on Day One of her career
This episode is for any construction leader who has ever wondered whether the human side of the work is really their responsibility — and needs to hear the answer from someone who runs a billion-dollar job site every day.
Want to be a guest? Reach out: angelo@hsoc.one
