- June 21, 2025
Matanzas graduating senior Emma Guldan displays some of the 15 construction industry certifications she has earned in the past two years. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Emma Guldan holds a 30-pound plainer that she worked with for five weeks plaining down lumber for 20 stair treads. "I got great definition in my arms," she said. Now she gets to name the plainer. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Emma Guldan and building construction technology instructor Andy Douglas inside the program's 1,560-square-foot workshop, which is on the first floor of Matanzas' new Building 5 extension. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Although she skipped the first year of the Matanzas' building construction technology program, Emma Guldan became a program leader and project spokesperson. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Emma Guldan needed special permission to join Matanzas High School’s Building Construction Technology program as a junior.
She said with help from the school counselors, she was allowed to skip the first-year construction technology course and go right into Carpentry Layout. Although she had always been in accelerated academic programs, she prefers to work with her hands. She grew up on a farm, so working with power tools are second nature to her, she said.
“I was able to sneak in to Carpentry 2,” said Guldan, now a senior who will be graduating in two weeks. “I kind of cheated the system, but then I started on projects. I’ve tried to get as much knowledge as I can in the short amount of time I've been in the program.”
Before the end of that first year, Guldan had already become a leader. She joined the Future Builders Association and gave the presentations for the Matanzas team competing in the Southeast Builders Conference Design Build Competition in Orlando.
Early this school year, building construction teacher Andy Douglas received a call from a custom home builder looking for an assistant construction superintendent. Douglas recommended Guldan.
After working on the job for about six months while going to school, she's decided that’s the career path she wants to take.
It taught me a lot. I was able to work on a lot of different buildings. I met a lot of different contractors in the area. So now I'm well known in the construction industry, and it helps me a lot moving out of high school.
— EMMA GULDAN
“It taught me a lot,” she said. “I was able to work on a lot of different buildings. I met a lot of different contractors in the area. So now I'm well known in the construction industry, and it helps me a lot moving out of high school.”
When Guldan started with the company, she had just turned 17 and was tasked with directing experienced construction workers. As one of 13 females in the Matanzas construction program with over 150 males, she knew she had to prove herself.
“I'm not going to be incompetent and then tell you how to do your job. That's just not OK,” she said. “It's about working with them and not ordering them around. It took me a month or two to get comfortable, but if I ever had any questions, I would just come back to school with a picture on my phone and ask Mr. Douglas, ‘What is this? What does this do?’ He would help me figure out everything to the point that I got comfortable, and I could do it all by myself.”
Guldan will graduate with 15 different industry certifications. She has her career mapped out. She plans to begin college at Daytona State, get her associate degree and then look into a bachelor’s program for construction management with a minor in architecture. Once she turns 18 in September, she wants to work days, getting as much experience that she can in different trades, while taking night classes.
“As Mr. Douglas taught me, you can’t be a good superintendent construction manager, if you don't know what goes into every single trade,” she said
After college she wants to earn her general contractor license. The youngest of five children, she plans to go into business with her siblings. She has a sister who is a surveyor and one who is in HVAC. Her brother is working to be an electrician.
“They have the un-fun trades covered,” she said. “Eventually, it's an idea that we'll all end up getting together under my license and I'll have a multi-million dollar family business. It's kind of the goal, but obviously it's a long way away.”
She has come a long way already, Douglas said.
“It took probably about two quarters to pull her out of her shell, but once she came out of her shell, she became quite the leader over the past year and a half,” Douglas said. “I would say that she’s led about 90-95% of the projects that we’ve completed. She has volunteered her summer to come in and build. She has volunteered in the community. She’ll also volunteer her time over this summer to help us run our pilot program for the summer woodworking camp. The eighth graders coming into Matanzas are going to be taught by the students, and then I'm just going to facilitate it.”
Guldan was this year's Flagler County School District nominee for career technical education for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. And despite having a speech impediment since she was young, Guldan has also become a public speaker.
“After the summer when we went to Orlando, I just took over as spokesperson,” she said. “I mean, there's no reason to fight it. I met the last mayor along with the (Flagler Home Builders Association), and the City Council, and I was able to show them a presentation of what we were doing last year.”
She has also been an ambassador for the construction program at the middle schools’ career days. She wants to show girls that the male dominated industry can be an option for them.
“Of course I'll go to the middle schools to recruit for the summer camp and recruit for the program to help Mr. Douglas out,” she said. “Especially because younger girls, they are not as confident, so it helps to see a woman there. And they can say, ‘Yeah, maybe I can actually do that.’”
