There was a time when her biggest challenge was climbing the stairs. That was back in 1993, the year she joined Odebrecht. Yarizza González, a native of Maracaibo, Venezuela, had an accident in 1989 that originally left her paraplegic. She was confined to a wheelchair for three years. She finally managed to walk again, but during her first year with the company, she still needed a cane to get around.

One day, in February of that year, she decided to go back to work, clipped an advertisement from the newspaper, escaped her mother’s watchful eye and drove to the offices of the Centro Lago Mall jobsite, Odebrecht’s first construction project in Venezuela, using her walking stick to operate the car pedals. She had to climb the stairs to the second floor. It took time, but she managed to climb the seemingly endless number of steps and hand in her résumé. She got a job as an accountant a few days later, and joined the Finance Program team. At first she moved around the office as little as possible, avoided going to the bathroom, and was always the last to leave, embarrassed by her condition. She didn’t want to attract attention. But her charisma soon earned the sympathy and camaraderie of her colleagues, who vied with each other to help her.

The story of the stairs should not be seen as a melodramatic episode. Yarizza’s tells this and many other tales with a permanent smile. She enjoys being where she is and is proud of her story. Today, she is Responsible for Relations with Trade Unions and Communities on the Integral Socialist Project for Development and Technology Transfer in Soybean Farming, and lives in the town of El Tigre, in Anzoátegui State. Yarizza adores this job, which began in 2003 when the company was building the El DilúvioPalmar Irrigation Project in her native Maracaibo region. Going from finance to relations with trade unions and communities was a radical move. It has involved a journey of selfknowledge and resilience, which are frequent aspects of Yarizza’s life.

“In this job, you need to learn to respect and listen to people,” she says. “People want to be heard.” When she started dealing with the unions, she was very nervous, because she was a woman in a male environment where rudeness and intransigence sometimes set the tone. “Then one day, I thought, Do I have to be afraid because they’re men and I’m a woman? No way! I decided to face my fear. I studied the legal frameworks and based myself on them more and more. The law is the law, end of story. And above all, I realized that I couldn’t let people feed on anger.”

Yarizza has a daughter who works at Odebrecht. Her name is Azziray, and she is on the Program Management and Finance team at the El DilúvioPalmar project. Her name is her mother’s, in reverse, but when it comes to dealing with people, they are just the same. Both women are involved in daily interactions with people the community, trade unions, Odebrecht, partner companies and clients – which are their main source of professional fulfillment. And their main source of learnings. Yarizza and Azziray both like people.

Ruth Chacín can attest to that. An accountant on the Line 5 Project for the Caracas Metro and the first Venezuelan member of Odebrecht, she had been with the company for almost a year (she joined the firm in July 1992) when Yarizza arrived. The two kept in touch daily by phone and became good friends, but they only met in person in 1997, at the company’s yearend party in Caracas. “I called her Mom,” says Ruth.

Even today, 18 years later, Ruth is still pleasantly surprised by her working environment, which makes it possible for true friendships and camaraderie to emerge and set the tone. “Some things you never forget, because they provide important lessons and transform our way of relating with people,” observes Ruth. She clearly remembers that her leader at the time on the Line 4 Project for the Caracas Metro, Project Director Antonio Carlos Dahia Blando, always tried to get to the office early to greet the people on his team one by one before they started work. He would stop by their offices, ask them how they were doing, share a joke and sympathize with them, offer his support and listen to their stories. “I can’t imagine working at another company,” says Ruth.

The feeling of family that Ruth sensed early on at Odebrecht is more than literal to her now. She met her husband at the company. Mario Albornoz, who now works on tenders, started out as her trainee. (She can’t help laughing when she mentions that.) They got married and have two children, Michelle, 9, and Andrés, 5. Ruth also puts the teachings of the Odebrecht Entrepreneurial Technology (TEO) into practice at home. “Everyone at our house has their own Action Program, especially the kids. As parents, that helps us establish consistent standards for raising our children and follow up on their overall development,” she argues.

Because this interview for Odebrecht Informa took place in Caracas, it gave Ruth and Yarizza a chance to meet face to face again. Several times, perhaps unconsciously, one of them would answer a question addressed to the other, and they often tried to help each other remember facts and dates. Those attempts often resulted in laughter and knowing and affectionate glances. Like sisters at a family reunion.