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Trunk Tools’ Founder and CEO, Dr. Sarah Buchner, on turning construction’ s data overload into actionable, AI-driven decisions

To begin with, could you introduce yourself and share an overview of your career history and how you came to be in your current position? I grew up in a pretty poor environment on a farm in Austria. Working on the farm and with my dad in his carpentry work was part of what you did to put food on the table. I started helping my dad around the age of 12, and eventually he took me out on construction sites. I liked the people. They were authentic and there was no BS. And I loved building, so I got stuck in in this industry.

I was a blue-collar worker for about eight years and eventually became a foreman and superintendent.

Eventually I switched to the GC side because I thought that’ s where the money was. But that was a tough landing. I worked my way up at Strabag( a $ 20 billion construction company in Europe) working on bigger projects. On one high-rise job in Berlin, I had a fatality on my job. That was the moment when I started thinking about whether I wanted to continue to manage jobs or to try and make more systemic change.

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