Project Management deals with different complexities within different industries. Say for example, within the medical device industry, there are different federal regulations such as the FDA or even ISO Standards that must be adhered to in order to be compliant. Whereas within the construction industry, there are different building codes and regulations from the state that must be adhered to. Also another big factor that I think comes into play and would introduce difficulties is the type of personalities one would deal with within specific industries. For construction, one would be dealing with blue collar hands on individuals whereas medical device you may be within a lab or typically behind a computer. The environment in which you interact with your team as a project manager would greatly vary throughout different industries and a project manager that cannot adapt to the surrounding environment will in my opinion not be able to assimilate them into the project.
Overall, I feel project managers can indeed go from different industry to industry and be successful. Although I realize that this may not be common, I believe it is possible. The main key would be their intrapersonal skills and how they can really connect with the team surrounding them. The potential lack of technical skills can be balanced out by the rest of the team. The project manager would be the enabler that is able to utilize all the potential that he or she has on their team. If the project manager can do that and have a concrete idea of the goals and objectives of the project, they can rely on the rest of the team for majority technical input. I feel that lack of technical input will be the biggest setback when transferring over from one industry to the next. But the project manager is not necessarily there to provide that technical background, they are there to drive a project from start to end and meet end goals.