Master of Real Estate Graduate Katelyn Crinieri Builds a Bigger Picture of Development

August 13, 2026By Jordan J. Phelan '19

Katelyn Crinieri M'26, a Project Manager at Baxter Building Co. in New York's Hudson Valley, earned her Master of Real Estate from RWU and is expanding her work from construction project management into real estate development.

Long before Katelyn Crinieri M'26 knew she wanted a career in construction and real estate, she collected floor plans.

As a child growing up in New York, Crinieri would study the house plans printed in the Sunday newspaper, clip them out, and tuck them into a lunchbox she still has today. When she wanted to rearrange her bedroom, she drew it from above, mapping where the bed and desk should go. She was fascinated by spaces - and, even then, by understanding how all their pieces fit together.

That curiosity followed her through architecture school, drafting, construction management, and a decade-long career at Baxter Building Co. as a Project Manager. But as Crinieri gained experience managing increasingly complex projects, she found herself asking a bigger question: Why?

Why was a project being built? How had developers decided what belonged there? How did financing, zoning, and community needs shape decisions long before a construction team arrived?

"The longer that I've been in the business, the more I wanted to see the big picture," Crinieri said. "I'm always one to ask why: Why are we doing this? How does this fit into the bigger picture?"

That desire to "see the big picture" brought her back to Roger Williams University, where she completed her Master of Real Estate in May. The degree has helped Crinieri build on nearly a decade of construction experience as she takes on an expanding role in the development side of Baxter, connecting the realities of building a project with the financial, planning, and community decisions that determine what gets built in the first place.

Building With Purpose

Crinieri's path into construction was not linear.

She began her undergraduate studies in Architecture at RWU, then explored different corners of the building industry while continuing her education. She worked at a Home Depot tool rental counter, where she learned how construction equipment operated, and later became a draftsman for a modular home manufacturer. From an office overlooking the factory floor, she could watch drawings move into production almost immediately.

She eventually earned her bachelor's degree in Project Management from Wentworth Institute of Technology and, while still in school, found Baxter. The Hudson Valley company described itself as a design-build firm, appealing to Crinieri's interest in working across disciplines. She initially imagined the position might eventually bring her back toward design.

Instead, she fell in love with construction.

Over the next decade, Crinieri grew into a project management role while becoming increasingly interested in how projects came together before construction began. One project in particular gave her an early look at that process from beginning to end: Newburgh Wireworks transformed a former 19th-century factory in Newburgh, N.Y., into a mixed-use development. Crinieri helped prepare Baxter's purchase offer and development proposal. She also participated in early meetings about how the property could be used before following the project into construction.

"It was a real change maker for the community," Crinieri said. "It was the first one on the block, and it was one of the first projects where I got to see that start-to-finish development process."

Today, the roughly 21,000-square-foot adaptive reuse project includes apartments, coworking and commercial space while retaining historic elements of the former factory. In 2023, the Urban Land Institute New York recognized Wireworks with an Award for Excellence in Mixed-Use Development.

That kind of project helped clarify what interested her most about real estate. Crinieri said she is drawn to work that can have a meaningful effect on the places surrounding it.

"When you're in construction, those decisions are already made," she said. "I wanted to have more involvement in the backstory of how a project got there and more of a role in the planning process."

Graduate school offered a way to learn that other side of the industry deliberately rather than piece by piece on the job.

Crinieri had maintained a connection to RWU since beginning her undergraduate education in Bristol. When she began researching graduate programs, she wanted one that would allow her to continue working full time in New York. When she discovered RWU's Master of Real Estate - offered primarily online - the fit immediately stood out. Her earlier experience in RWU's Architecture program, she said, had already given her confidence in the caliber of the education she would receive.

She entered the program already established in her career, which changed the way she approached graduate school.

Baxter supported the degree by giving Crinieri responsibilities that connected directly with what she was learning. At the same time, her years of construction experience allowed her to bring real projects, costs, schedules, and challenges into classroom discussions. In an earlier RWU graduate profile, she described her professional and academic lives as working "hand-in-hand" throughout the program.

The courses also gave her something she had specifically gone looking for: fluency in the parts of real estate development she had not encountered as deeply in construction, including finance, lending, economics, municipal approvals, and the terminology developers use to evaluate whether a project works.

"What I wanted to develop through school was an understanding of the things I knew I wasn't going to get quickly enough just learning on the job," Crinieri said. "I wanted to understand the logic and reasoning behind it - things like cap rates, municipal approvals, how banks work, lending, and the financing process."

Taking the Classroom Into the Community

Some of Crinieri's most influential lessons expanded the way she looked at the Hudson Valley communities where she had spent years building.

An urban planning course with Ginette Wessel, Director of Urban and Regional Planning at RWU, examined the evolution of cities and the decisions that have shaped them over time. Crinieri began looking differently at the smaller Hudson River cities where Baxter works, considering how highways, development patterns, planning decisions, and historic change had influenced what those communities had become and what they needed next. Wessel is an Associate Professor of Architecture whose teaching and scholarship span urban and regional planning.

"I'm a history buff, and that class blended a lot of my different interests," Crinieri said. "It made me think about all the small cities I work in - how they're structured now, how they used to be, how they were intended to be, and what their current needs are. It gave me a new lens to look through when I'm working in those communities."

Her capstone with Architecture Lecturer Bob Rulli pushed that perspective outside the classroom.

Working alongside an independent study focused on "missing middle" housing, Crinieri developed a case study around a 40-acre property near her own community. Her proposal imagined roughly 50 to 60 smaller single-family starter homes as an alternative to large homes on expansive lots, while taking into account wetlands, utilities, existing neighborhoods, open space, and a nearby rail trail.

The idea was informed partly by her own experience. Crinieri and her husband had been able to purchase a starter home in their early 20s after saving while living with family. Looking at today's housing market, she questioned how many young adults in her community could realistically follow the same path.

The academic exercise soon became considerably more real.

Rulli required students to bring their proposals to a public official and solicit feedback. When Crinieri's first attempts failed to gain traction, she kept reaching out. Eventually, connections through her professional network led to a meeting with county officials. She arrived at the government center with bound copies of her proposal and data on housing needs, income, and affordability.

The meeting lasted more than three hours.

Crinieri stands with her "missing middle" housing development proposal in the Cummings School of Architecture's Grad Gallery. Developed through her capstone with Architecture Lecturer Bob Rulli, the case study envisioned smaller, attainable starter homes on a 40-acre property near her community in New York.

What began as feedback on a student project expanded into a conversation with several county officials about housing shortages, outdated zoning, changing demographics, and efforts to better educate local planning and zoning boards.

"I went in with this hypothetical plan, and it flowed into this incredible conversation about all of the needs they were already seeing in the community," Crinieri said. "We talked about housing, planning, zoning, and how much the area had changed. It was certainly a highlight of my master's."

Those relationships were central to her RWU experience. Returning to college as an experienced professional felt different from entering as an undergraduate, she said. Professors often felt more like colleagues, and she described them as accessible and willing to bring their own professional experience into discussions. RWU's in-person residencies added another layer, allowing her to meet classmates who approached development from government, historic preservation, business, and other perspectives.

Building the Bridge

Completing the degree required fitting those experiences around an already full life.

Crinieri began the program in January 2024 while working full time and caring for her infant son. During her first semesters, three-hour evening Zoom classes sometimes happened from a TV tray in her living room. When home became too distracting, she moved her temporary classroom to a guest room at her in-laws' house. Her husband, family, and colleagues helped make schedules work while she remained a part-time student.

"It was a team effort," she said.

Now, the result of that effort is increasingly visible in her work.

Crinieri, right, joins Baxter's Director of Construction during a beam signing for a 40,000-square-foot food bank warehouse she completed in 2025. At $23 million, it was Baxter's largest and most expensive project at the time.

Crinieri remains a Project Manager on Baxter's construction team, but her responsibilities have expanded into development administration and relationship management, creating what she describes as roughly a half-construction, half-development role.

"Both sides of our team are really excited about this transition for me because I have the knowledge on both sides," she said. "With my half-and-half role, I've really just been acting as the bridge."

That widening perspective has also strengthened Crinieri's interest in helping other people find their own paths into the industry.

She has served as a mentor through the ACE Mentor Program and, during Women in Construction Week, joined other women project managers from Baxter in speaking with architecture and construction students at a local community college. She particularly enjoys showing students how many careers exist around the construction industry - jobs in project management, accounting, law, design, development, and other specialties that young people may never encounter when choosing a major or career path.

For Crinieri, project management was one of those careers.

"It's been such a rewarding and successful career, and it was a job nobody ever talked about when I was figuring out what I wanted to do," she said. "There are so many careers within construction that young people may never hear about, and I think it's important to show them what those paths can look like."

She is less interested in defining exactly where the next decade must take her. For now, she said, she is "riding the wave" as her role and Baxter itself continue to evolve.

What she knows is that going back to school gave her the broader understanding she was looking for - and prepared her to keep asking what comes before the building begins and what effect it can have long after construction ends.