As the oldest of four siblings — with two younger sisters nearly a decade her junior — Macy Morley Brandt learned to take on responsibility at an early age.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Macy never had to look far for familiar faces. She grew up surrounded by siblings and cousins, all within a 10-mile radius.
Construction was in the family blood. Her father and grandfather were home builders in St. Louis, working together in the family business, Taylor-Morley Homes. Now when Macy visits job sites as a project engineer, she has different things on her mind other than looking for arrowheads.
She spent her childhood outdoors — riding bikes, walking the dogs and playing in the neighborhood. Or they would join Dad at work, tromping through job sites. She recalls visiting projects in muddy shoes, searching for arrowheads conspicuously placed around the site.
“Now looking back at those experiences, I fear those arrowheads might’ve been planted for us to find,” she said with a laugh. “But nonetheless, it’s a very fun experience to look back on.”
Finding her way
Macy graduated from Parkway Central High School in 2013 and earned her bachelor’s degree in architectural studies from the University of Missouri in 2017.
After graduating, she had a hard time finding a good fit. She started working in design for interior and residential architecture firms. But she wanted more freedom and responsibility in her long-term career than residential could offer.
She needed to find a company where The Job is the Boss.
Her transition started during COVID. Like many, she used the opportunity to take stock of her professional life. She decided to go back to school and build a broader skill set that would allow her to pivot toward a new career path.
It also was during this time she grew close to her now husband, Tyler. They met right before lockdowns and quickly became one of each other’s “core group of six” who came together to play boardgames while everything was shut down.
Macy enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 2024 with a dual master’s degree in architecture and construction management. The connections Macy made at WashU led her straight to The Korte Company.
Construction Management Academic Advisor Steve Bannes introduced her to Director of Technology and Development Alex Ayres, who just so happened to come from the same dual-degree program. Within weeks, Macy had an interview and soon after, a summer internship.
“I’m so thankful to Steve for introducing me to Alex, and thankful to Alex too for seeing my schooling and what I was working toward and not necessarily my previous work experience,” she said.
An internship that led to a career
The internship gave Macy exactly what she’d been looking for — real-time exposure to construction projects and the full arc of the Design-Build process.
“It was exactly what I was missing,” she said.
She was assigned to work with Project Manager Harsh Bansal on a project at a Navy base in Charleston, South Carolina. There were challenges as soon as they hit the ground. But Macy saw each one as an opportunity to learn. It was a crash course in constructability — something she hadn’t been able to learn in the residential construction industry.
“It was really great to see all of these opportunities that were arising and how we could handle them,” she said. “That was awesome.”
Harsh also helped Macy overcome the feeling she wasn’t skilled enough to work on a large-scale project, assuring her that confidence comes with experience.
“I asked Harsh one time, ‘When do you feel like you’re confident in the constructability factor?’ And he laughed and said, ‘Every job is so different. You learn as it comes and you look at product data, you look at shop drawings, you’ll look at manufacturer instructions and you’ll learn it.’ And that was a huge weight off my shoulders.”
From intern to project engineer
After her summer internship, Macy returned to WashU for her final year of studies. But she was already confident that she would return to The Korte Company to restart her career in commercial construction.
And she was right. Today, Macy is a project engineer.
She’s also a married woman. Macy and Tyler tied the knot in September 2024, just a few months after she graduated, and are enjoying the chance to settle down after a whirlwind year.
They live in South City St. Louis, near many family and friends. The couple still enjoys hosting game nights, “Survivor” watch parties and other social events.
Hitting the jobsite and building confidence
After only two months on the job, she’s already traveling between two very different projects. One is a Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command project at a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, California. The other is the local Highland Elementary School renovations in Highland, Illinois.
She sees these two projects as a great example of the broad spectrum of jobs The Korte Company contracts. One is highly complex and tightly regulated, and the other is more focused on building long-lasting professional relationships with local vendors. Both are valuable learning grounds.
Submittals and RFIs anchor most of her day-to-day work, but she’s also learning from those around her, including both of her project managers, Megan Banks and Brianna Ratermann-Blaser.
“It’s really great to see Megan in the moment ask questions in order to understand what is going on in a field that she is not the expert in,” Macy said. “It was so eye-opening because the project manager, much like the project engineer, it’s not expected that you have the answer right now. It’s expected that you will find the answer and you will investigate and figure it out.”
The full-circle moments: Taking ownership of her work and career
Although she’s still early in her career, Macy’s already found exactly where she wants to be and knows what she wants to do — become the best project engineer she can be.
Now she looks forward to seeing her first project all the way through, from submittals to final walk-through.
“I think once I am able to see a project from beginning to end, I’ll have a better understanding on how to organize this project for everybody involved, just to make it the easiest for everybody.”
Macy’s career feels like a continuation of something much older — her family’s legacy in construction, her time spent wandering job sites as a kid, her love of design and her gift for leadership.
It feels like something new, too. She’s carving a path of her own — one built on curiosity, compassion and the kind of confidence that only comes from putting in the work.
Her father passed away in 2010, but Macy knows he would be proud.
She’s learning to Build Smart, one project at a time. And it’s just getting started.
