PWC establishes the Gwendolyn Colbert Kushner Memorial Scholarship

Professional Women in Construction (PWC), has established the Gwendolyn Colbert Kushner (GCK) Memorial Scholarship in memory of Kushner, according to Lenore Janis, president of PWC. The GCK Scholarship will provide tuition towards a M.S. degree in Construction Administration offered by Columbia University's School of Continuing Education. The award will be granted to a qualified woman with financial need. "The GCK Scholarship exemplifies Gwendolyn's ideals and pays tribute to her, by allowing the principles to which she committed her life to live on. It will give future generations of women new and meaningful opportunities to succeed," said Janis. Kushner was wholly devoted to the goals of PWC since the organization's infancy in the early 1980s. A pioneer member, she served on the PWC board and was actively involved in helping the organization obtain corporate and institutional sponsors and increase its general membership from the mid-1990s on. To help women and minorities compete in the public construction contract arena she developed and presented PWC's W/MBE Technical Assistance Workshops for several years. In addition, Kushner chaired and was responsible for the success of the greatly expanded PWC Trade Show and Professional Recruitment Fair launched in 2007. Kushner once said, "PWC does more in the way of networking than any of the old-line traditional organizations. It has brought women's abilities and skills to the attention of the construction industry which prior to PWC had not had a place for women." Her work and commitment to expanding opportunities for women and minorities in the A/E/C industries continues to act as an inspiration. After receiving her bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kushner became a diplomate of Bryn Mawr College's Summer Executive Training Program and continued post graduate studies at The New School for Social Research and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta. In the early 1980s, as director of contract compliance for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) under then chairman Richard Ravitch, Kushner singlehandedly established the first W/MBE program for the agency. "Gwen was one of those human beings who accomplishes her goals without sacrificing her relationships," said civic and business leader Ravitch, now a partner in Ravitch, Rice & Company, the chairman of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust's board of trustees and the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust's advisory board, and the head of a newly formed commission at the MTA.  During her career, Kushner was also assistant commissioner of the Community Development Agency of New York, corporate director of Equal Employment Opportunity for Health and Hospital Corporations of the City of New York and a faculty member of City University of New York. She established her own firm, GCK Consulting, in 2002. She received numerous awards in her lifetime including the Outstanding Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Outstanding Service Award from the Association of Minority Enterprises of New York and the Certificate of Appreciation from the Urban Mass Transportation Authority, Washington, D.C. PWC is hosting a special memorial tribute celebrating the many accomplishments of Gwendolyn Colbert Kushner on Friday, March 27, at 9:30 a.m. at the Center for Architecture New York Chapter, LaGuardia Place in New York City. For directions:  http://aiany.org/centerforarchitecture/about.php#directions; tel. 212-358-6112. For more information on Gwendolyn Colbert Kushner, visit the PWC website: http://www.pwcusa.org/News/00000/REWFeb25reprintKushner.pdf.