Natasha Callender-Wilson is Vice President of Bass Installation, a glass installation company whose work can be seen in many Toronto projects, including CIBC Square, TEC Bridge and the Shangri-La Hotel Toronto. Her father, Stephen Callender, founded and owns Bass and serves as president of the Afro Canadian Contractors Association (ACCA). Natasha joined Bass in 2005 and spearheaded the creation of its subsidiary Bass Curtainwalls Inc. in 2010. She spoke with Sasha Reed, Director of Industry Advancement for Procore.org, about being a Black woman in construction, how she’s grown as a leader, and how the industry can make room for a more diverse workforce – beyond gestures that simply check the “diversity” box.

I’ve been around builders all my life, my dad’s an iron worker by trade. There’s some level of satisfaction in helping solve the challenges on a job site, whether you’re looking at drawings or in the office doing payroll. Everybody has a role to play. We can say, “Wow, we did that as a team, built something that’s going to be part of Toronto, or Ontario or Canada’s legacy.”

It’s not just the physical work of building skylines that is changing, but also the industry as a whole. There are women including women of colour entering into construction. At Bass, we can play a part of opening up those lines for people who just didn’t really have the opportunities like when I was coming up (being a woman and a minority). So I think part of the reason I want to stay in the construction industry is because I have a voice and knowing where we came from and to see where we’re going. I want to be a part of that.

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