Alumni Spotlight: Macy Walker ’22

Walker, who graduated in May of 2022, spent her first year working in industry on the road. “Although it has been a crazy year, it has been a great experience and has given me so many opportunities I never thought I would have,” she stated.

Having interned at Layton Construction in Nashville, Tennessee, during college, Walker happily accepted a full-time position there as a Project Engineer after graduation. She jumped right back into the same project she worked on as an intern, which was the construction of Rothschild College. This building is Vanderbilt University’s newest residential college, an on-campus facility in which students and faculty live alongside one another. When that project was completed in the fall of 2022, Walker headed south to Florida and was assigned to work on the vertical expansion of a hospital in Miami. However, Hurricane Ian soon hit the Gulf Coast of Florida and Walker was sent to Port Charlotte, Florida, to help with remediation work on a community hospital.

Her next assignment took her to Austin, Texas, to complete work on a data center and then to Dallas for the expansion of a women’s hospital. “Every day looks different for me,” Walker said. “My responsibilities include managing RFIs, submittals and change orders but also helping in the field by coordinating with subcontractors and solving problems.”

As a student at Auburn, Walker was involved with Design-Build Institute of America, Sigma Lambda Chi and multiple competition teams, competing in divisions that included concrete, international design-build and Virtual Design and Construction. “The class that helped me the most was Professor Paul Holley’s Contracting Business,” she stated. “Professor Holley is very knowledgeable and was able to share his personal experiences about how contracts can be used to benefit you. Every day I am referring to contracts to have a better understanding of each subcontractor’s scope.”

Walker said that eventually she will return to her home base of Nashville, but for the time being she will continue exploring new cities as she travels to a variety of work sites for Layton. “Every project has presented itself with different challenges and I have learned so much from each one. I have gotten to see so many different places that I never would have visited otherwise.”