President/Owner of Firm

Jennifer Powers

Place of Birth Long Beach, CA

Lived most in your life
In California, the last 20 years in Sacramento, with a 4-year stint in New York

Recruitment Specialties and Geographies
Jennifer specializes in heavy civil construction, transportation (such as rail) and underground construction. Her geography is Northern CA and Washington State- however, she recruits nationwide as necessary.

Recruiter’s Background
Jennifer worked for Caltrans (CA DOT) for 5 years before working for self-performing heavy civil construction firms for 8 years. She became a recruiter in construction in 2005.

About your Team
Jennifer leads our heavy civil construction team. We have split the Western US into territories so that we have an up-to-the-minute pulse on what is happening in the market.

What sets you apart?
J Powers Inc recruiters are able to place a candidate for every 1.5 first-time interviews we arrange. The national average is 1 placement per 8 first-time interviews. We have been able to significantly reduce this ratio due to our quality control and a well defined, office-wide, recruiting process.

Our clients say, “we love working with you because you don’t waste our time sending the wrong candidates.”

Key to success
Focus on what the client and candidate need.

What is the one thing you would tell your younger self?
Things work out for the best on their own, so don’t stress!

Senior Executive Recruiter

Jenna Flanagan

Education B.S. Business Administration and Human Resources; California State University, Sacramento.
Place of Birth Roseville, CA

Lived most in your life
Placer County, CA

Recruitment Specialties and Geographies
Jenna specializes in executive level recruitment in the heavy civil construction industry. While she works a national desk, her specialty is working with clients and candidates west of the Rockies with a special emphasis in Southern California.

Recruiter’s Background
Jenna started working at J Powers Recruiting in 2012 as an executive recruiter. Prior to working with JPR, she worked at one of the largest recruiting firms in the nation, Management Recruiters International. It was there she worked under the direction of her current boss, Jennifer Powers, developing clients and placing executive level positions in the construction, engineering, and public industries.

About your Team
Jenna started working with Jennifer Powers in 2006 and has been on and off her team since. “We have a professional relationship built on mutual respect, hard work, and talent. She has been the single-most important person in my professional development, and I am fortunate to continue to work under her heavy civil division.”

What sets you apart?
Jenna prides herself on being loyal, determined and has, over time, developed a certain level of grit that has allowed her to be successful in recruitment for over 10 years.

Key to success
If you just stay quiet, listen, and focus on what you can do to help a person, rather than what they can do for you, you will always come out ahead.

What is the one thing you would tell your younger self?
Learn to handle fear and overcome it. It is a pathway to success. For every difficult situation, you learn, grow, and further develop the type of person you are meant to be.

Something surprising about you
She started her last semester of college 3 days after she gave birth to her second son. Getting her degree was one of most important professional achievements of her life.

Executive Assistant - Office Manager

Gina Academia

Education B.S. Business and Secretarial Administration
Place of Birth Manila, Philippines

Lived most in your life
Elk Grove, CA

Gina’s Specialties
Gina is a seasoned executive assistant with over 25 years in the field. She has extensive experience with all administrative tasks, including planning, scheduling, and correspondence.

Background
Having held positions in all fields, Gina is able to tailor her skills to meet the needs of various clients. She has increased efficiency in several of her assigned roles and is very effective at office management. As a senior assistant, she emphasized having specific skill sets in the realms of analysis, savings, organizational efficiency, and planning. She also planned several events including a company open house, golf tournaments, employee training programs and activities. Gina interacts directly with potential and existing clients and has increased customer satisfaction ratings at several companies.

About your Team
Gina helps with research in the field of heavy civil construction, transportation, rail, roads and bridges.

What sets you apart?
Gina is the first person one meets when they enter our office, and her job is to create the first impression for the organization. Having an optimistic outlook is critical to her; to keep morale high and be a positive influence in the office.

On a daily basis, she is faced with endless requests from employees, and her goal is to continue to prioritize requests and to anticipate recurring requests. She strives to move forward the overall success of the organization. Having an active interest in the company’s well-being allows her to identify and improve areas of office life that will promote the company’s future success.

As the point of contact for questions about company policies and more, she is big on efficient, coherent and effective communication, whether it is face-to-face conversation, on a call, via email or via instant message. Her goal is to carefully and clearly communicate successfully with her peers.

Her ultimate job is always to be available. When there is an issue in the office, she solves it. Her goal is to have a successful and productive office environment.

Key to success
“Executive level support and office management is my forte. I believe in partnership and a long‐term collaboration with my manager and colleagues. I view my accomplishments as mutual– the success of my manager and my teammates are a reflection on myself and vice versa. Thus, there is a true atmosphere of teamwork and solidarity between us. I am blessed to be part of J Powers, Inc. because I’m surrounded by amazing people who bring so much positive energy to the company.”

What is the one thing you would tell your younger self?
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Something surprising about you
I was born and raised in the Philippines, and my dad is from Spain- I am 50% Spanish and 50% Filipino.

National Director Civil Engineering

Nora Wood, CSAM

Education B.S. Advertising; California State University, San Jose
Place of Birth Albany, NY

Lived most in your life
Nora spent her early years on the East Coast, and in Japan. Hawaii was home for middle and high school. She moved to Kansas for the first half of college, finishing her BS in the Bay Area of California. She spent 10 years in San Luis Obispo, where she started recruiting. She then moved to Portland, OR for three years, and now resides permanently in Sacramento.

Recruitment Specialties and Geographies
Nora manages our civil engineering and construction management practices Nationwide. She specializes in transportation, (highway/roadway, rail, rail systems, bridge), and design-build project managers across all disciplines. While she is most known for placing seller-doer project managers, practice builders, area managers, and regional to national practice leaders, she thrives on discovering design engineers and construction management professionals on all levels that are hard to find, very specialized, and/or extremely rare.

Recruiter’s Background
Nora attributes her outgoing and “no fear” positive nature in all social gatherings- and cold calling recruitment- to growing up in a Marine Corps family. She attended 10 different schools between K-12, three of them occurring in one year in Okinawa, Japan.

She began her career recruiting professional engineers in 2005, with Management Recruiters International. For the 13 years prior to joining J Powers Inc., she and Jennifer Powers were at different MRI recruiting offices, yet collaborated with each other, sharing candidates between their respective offices to better serve their client’s needs and candidate’s desires. They both achieved the MRI Network’s Pacesetter designation, ranking in the top 5% of all recruiters. Nora also carries the prized CSAM designation reserved for a select few recruiting professionals who have met rigorous performance and knowledge requirements.

Recognizing that she and Jennifer shared the same practices of transparency, and creative measures to please both clients and candidates, resulting in long term relationships with both, Nora moved from Portland to join Jennifer’s team at JPI in 2018.

Key to success
Nora’s record of career placements is based on matching a candidate’s motives, skills, and future plans with her client’s specific needs. She has a strict policy requiring both sides to lay out all information, pro and con, at the outset. This has created, and continues to ensure, successful matches of personalities, strengths, company, and culture, and has resulted in long- term placements.

She has a guiding mantra from the U. S. Navy SEABEES: “The difficult we do now, the impossible takes a little longer.” Her success with difficult assignments in civil engineering stems from her appetite for embracing challenges, combined with the employment of a highly focused approach. The greater the challenge, the more excited she becomes. Her clients and candidates reap the benefits of this attitude. She is still in touch with, and advises many of the engineers she has known since entering the industry in 2005.

Something surprising about you
I am a die-hard sand volleyball player.

Executive Recruiter

Jessica Trudell

Place of Birth Northridge, CA

Lived most in your life
Placerville, CA and Sacramento, CA

Recruitment Specialties and Geographies
Jessica specializes in executive level recruitment in the civil engineering industry. She works with clients and candidates on the West Coast and specializes in water and environmental.

Recruiter’s Background
Jessica started working at J Powers Recruiting in 2020 as a Recruiting Development Representative, assisting Nora Wood, and was quickly promoted to Search Consultant. She has experience in restaurant management and liability insurance claims investigation.

What sets you apart?
Jessica is a fully engaged recruiter with a personal interest in improving the lives of her candidates and ensuring she has a clear understanding of exactly what her Clients are looking for in a new employee.

Key to success
Practice unconditional friendliness. Every encounter is a chance to share yourself with another person. Listen, empathize, and help.

What is the one thing you would tell your younger self?
Opportunities arise when we least expect them.

Something surprising about you.
Jessica is a great team player but has historically enjoyed solo activities such as horseback riding, ballet, and downhill skiing. She is an avid reader and can answer most of your questions about the Song of Ice and Fire book series (Game of Thrones).