Еще кое-что о женщинах-строителях
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By CATHY DYSON
Suzanne Carlson's father told her to stay home and take care of her family, that she had no business in a man's world.
Helen Cantrell's dad did the opposite. When she needed a job after high school, he got her into a construction union in Washington, where she spent 30 years doing the same back-breaking work as the male carpenters around her.
Kristen Pruitt handles the design and development stages of building homes and brings a feminine touch to her work. She focuses on how the house will be used by those who live in it--not just where it will sit and how many trees will be around it.
Kathy Metts wants the people she works with to see her as one of them. She says she's not any better than anyone else, just a different gender.
The four women got into the construction business different ways, but they are among a handful of females in the Fredericksburg area making their mark in a male-dominated world.
The women builders and developers, carpenters and project superintendents say they're still a rarity in their field--even in the 21st century.
"At seminars, it is not unusual for me to be the only woman in a room with 50 or 60 builders," Pruitt said.
Women with tool belts are even more unusual, said Cantrell's brother, Jerry. He's lived and worked in Stafford County most of his life and doesn't know another woman carpenter who owns her own company, as his sister does.
Helen Cantrell struggled to get to the point she could be her own boss.
"I started back in the day when it was hard for women in construction," said the 51-year-old. "I had to fight my way up through the ranks, tooth and nail. I'd come home sore, every night, but I always carried my weight."
Cantrell is among an estimated 975,000 women in the building industry, according to 2003 statistics from the National Association of Women in Construction.
The number of women working as plumbers and masons, carpenters and job superintendents rose 18 percent between 1995 and 2003, but women still make up the minority.
They represent less than 10 percent of the entire industry, according to the association.
Pruitt, 37, is the youngest of those interviewed for this story. She married into a building family and is president of American Heritage Homes Inc. in Spotsylvania County.
Her husband, John, and father-in-law, John Sr., have always supported her, and she's never been made to feel that she didn't belong.
"I would say the building industry has been very good to me," she said.
So would Metts. She's been a project superintendent for Battlefield Homes for two years, after several other careers.
The North Stafford native trained horses, worked in a family restaurant and ran commercial kitchens for the military before she ended up on building sites.
She worked for Battlefield long before she became a superintendent. The 48-year-old ran a commercial cleaning business--not a maid service, she emphasized. She cleaned up construction sites after Battlefield crews finished their work. She and her workers would fill up several Dumpsters with building scraps. They'd scrape the mortar off windows, clean the duct work and even shine the chandeliers.
When Battlefield needed more project superintendents, she gave it a try.
"I took the bull by the horns and went with it."
She's one of four superintendents, who work with subcontractors in every field. She makes sure people are brought in at the right time to drill wells or do masonry work, pour concrete or paint the walls. She also orders every item in the house, from light fixtures to appliances.
"I haven't learned as much as I have in the last two years since I was in high school," she said. "It's rewarding work, it really is."
Carlson feels the same way. She enjoys working with customers because she knows "you're delivering dreams," she said.
She also struggled to become her own boss. She and her husband, Roy, who also comes from a building family, own several companies.
Suzanne Carlson is president of Carlson Custom Homes. Early in her career, the 54-year-old was told regularly that she was in the wrong line of work.
Most of the discrimination came from her father, the late Curtis Rudolph. He also built homes, and he often took his little girl on job sites with him. He liked teaching her things about soil percolation and building codes, but he didn't want--or expect--her to put that knowledge into practice, Carlson said.
"I learned in spite of him, and that made him mad," she said.
When her father started building homes in the North Stafford development of Aquia Harbour in the early 1980s, he asked Carlson and her former husband--another builder--to join him.
She ran the business, and her husband worked in the field.
When the two divorced, she kept the company. "I wanted the business, and he did not," she said. "It was my heritage."
Over the years, she and her father continued to butt heads regularly. He specialized in cookie-cutter houses and gave people few choices. They could pick a home that had three bedrooms or four--and the color of carpet.
Carlson wanted to let buyers decide their styles and designs. Custom homes with unique features, especially in the ceilings, have become her signature.
Carlson's father finally made peace with his daughter's career choice. When he got cancer in the late 1980s, she went to his home, near Richmond, almost every weekend to look after him.
She'll never forget the moment he accepted her as a member of the building industry.
"He looked at me and said, 'I'm proud of you. I don't know where you got your common sense, but you're not a dumb a-- anymore,'" she recalled. "He was a trip."
To reach CATHY DYSON: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
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