Leigh-Anne Harrison

Director, CHASSE Building Team, Southern Arizona Division

By Rodney Campbell

From a job found on Craigslist to now running CHASSE Building Team’s Tucson operations, Leigh-Anne Harrison is thriving in a challenging industry.

In 2005, Harrison found an online listing for a receptionist at Pillar Builders in Gilbert, Ariz. The position offered an entry-level position that she has since crafted into a brilliant construction career. “The owner of the company didn’t keep me in a box and allowed me to grow,” she said.

Harrison would become a project coordinator and engineer for Pillar, using her knowledge of company operations to ascend. After more than six years there, she moved to CHASSE as a project manager in Phoenix in 2011.

Her big opportunity with CHASSE came at a crucial time in her family’s life. Harrison was asked to move to Tucson just as her husband, a CHASSE general superintendent, was starting a project in Phoenix.

The couple had also recently adopted two children, a sister and brother who were 10 and 11 years old – encouraged to grow their family by their son, who wanted siblings.

“It was me down here with three teenagers,” Harrison said. “I was scared to death. But that’s where I had my most significant growth. I was forced to sink or swim. There were so many considerations and aspects of the business I had to learn on the fly.”

CHASSE’s Southern Arizona office now has between 35 and 40 people and Harrison was named business unit leader in 2018, leading an office with a project backlog of $100 million. Its presence here started in 2014 with construction of the Tucson Premium Outlets in Marana. CHASSE is now behind numerous landmarks such as the Pima Community College Transportation Center and its Advanced Manufacturing Center, the January 8th Memorial in Downtown Tucson and Union on 6th student housing development.

Harrison is also a force in the community. She serves on the board of directors for The Salvation Army, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson and Cornerstone Building Foundation.

An important upcoming project for CHASSE is the Marana Community and Aquatics Center, a 61,000-square-foot facility that will include an aquatics center, gym, cardio fitness space, group exercise rooms and meeting space.

“Leigh-Anne is clearly passionate about providing CHASSE clients with high-level construction services,” said Marana Town Manager Terry Rozema. “She has proven to be a knowledgeable and tenacious professional whose contributions to the planning and construction of Marana’s Community and Aquatics Center have been invaluable.”