Local engineer technologist, interviewed at the start and end of her career

By Lethbridge Herald on March 10, 2026.

herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Local Civil Engineering Technologist Shari Jankowiak, shares a full circle moment with the Herald after being interviewed at the beginning and towards the end of her career.

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Lethbridge Herald 

Almost four decades after being interviewed as one of the first female engineering students to graduate from the Lethbridge Community College’s Construction Management option of the Civil Engineering and Drafting program in 1989, Shari Jankowiak spoke to the Herald about her retirement plans after 35 years. 

Jankowiak shared with the Herald what happened in her career after that initial interview in 1989, and said she had the opportunity to not only utilize her construction management skills, but many others within the same company. Her most recent position being take off supervisor at Kawneer. 

“I came out of that program and within a couple of months I got hired. I applied for an estimating job here at Kwneer, got an interview, and at that point, they said I was more suited to project coordinating,” said Jankowiak. 

She said back then things were different, they took on large projects and some of them were overseas. While now they do smaller jobs and mostly just within North America. 

“The first two jobs I project managed was twin buildings, with one in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the other one in Abu Dhabi,” said Jankowiak. 

She said the company shifted gears shortly after that and their highly custom work was removed from the Lethbridge facility and centralized in the United States. 

“We lost that work here, which presented my first opportunity to either leave or take another job within Kawneer, and obviously being here 36 years, you know where I headed,” said Jankowiak. 

She said at that point she took on hands-on title, where she started as a window indoor takeoff technician, which is one of the areas she now supervises.  

“I do the takeoffs as well as manage a very small team, but I started as a window indoor technician, the actual hands-on tech position. And I stayed there for 6 years,” said Jankowiak. 

She said the business model shifted again, and they took on larger fabricated projects, in North America, but most of them happened in the US. 

“I did a 13-story building in Seattle that was freight expeditors. I took on some of those projects for a couple of years,” said Jankowiak. 

And once again there was company changes, which lead to another career path change for Jankowiak. 

“At that point, I’d already met my husband, I didn’t have kids yet, but he had a job in Lethbridge, so I didn’t want to leave. And I was given another opportunity for another role here at Kawneer and I took it,” said Jankowiak. 

She said her new role at that point was called production control supervisor, which lasted only a year as she became pregnant and went on maternity leave.  

“When I came back from maternity leave, that position was filled, which is fine because I was guaranteed a position after mat leave, so I was placed back into the takeoff department as a door/window slider technician,” said Jankowiak. 

She said she stayed in that position for six years, and it was during that position she another child and came back from a second maternity leave to the same position. 

“From there, I moved into an engineering services position, which was awesome. That’s what I went to school for. That role provided an opportunity to work at the beginning of a project,” said Jankowiak. “And help customers pick the right products, work with the architects, make sure they were selecting the right door types, hardware types, window types, curtain wall, all of that stuff.”

She said she absolutely loved that job and did it for over eight years and then she became a quality manager. 

“The quality manager is a corporate, higher up management position. It’s a step up, but it was to say the least, very difficult,” said Jankowiak. 

She said she could do it for 10 years and end her career with Kawneer there, but after five years, she said she started to feel like she was not as productive as she could be. 

“Fortunately for me, timing is everything, and this position came open in 2021. And it was a position that, obviously, I had done, at a lower level, but overall had done it a couple times throughout my career in Kawneer,” said Jankowiak. 

When asked about one of the highlights of her career, Jankowiak said it was the ability to have multiple roles within the same company. 

“I had so many different opportunities to do different roles and learn so much about the business from the start to the end,” said Jankowiak. “And it allowed me to stay in Lethbridge with my husband, raise a family in a smaller community, so it was a win-win for me.”