EP52: Making Waves In Construction With Elyse Parks

Absolutely. I'm excited too. Lots to talk about.

So I, you know, I went to college. I started out in the corporate world. I did. a few different things that had sales. I did recruiting. I did product development and it just didn't make any sense to me because I had like all the right ingredients, I guess, but this, you know, the cake was not ever coming out good. So I finally got fed up with it. I just, I was tired of trying to force it to work. So I quit actually without having a plan. I ended up, I, you know, I ran a small restaurant for a little bit. I knew I was going to start some type of company. I just didn't know what type. And around the same time that I left my corporate job, my fiance, who was my boyfriend at the time, he was a structural engineer. He got laid off from his job and he had a friend that had a carpentry company. There's a big golf tournament down here every year, players championship at Sawgrass. And they put up all these additional structures. So his friend was like, hey, while you're not doing anything, collecting severance, why don't you come work for me? A few months later, he was like, I don't think I want to find another engineering job. And once he started working under a finished carpenter and I saw some of the stuff that he did, I was like, you could teach me to do that. Even though I had no experience, I was like, I could do that and we could start a business. And so that's pretty much what we did.

Yes, I did. I recruited, I would say about half of my experience in the corporate world, I did recruiting. I recruited automotive engineers, actually anything really in automotive industry on the manufacturing side. So like your machinists, your techs, up through your engineers and concept designers. I also recruited IT. And then I would help out recruiting occasionally on like more labor, I guess, unskilled labor skill sets as well.

I mean, it definitely carried over in the sense of when we looked for people, I knew how to do it. Because, I mean, recruiting is a full-time job, even when labor was more, I guess, readily available or you had less demand for people. And so companies could be pickier. and there are more candidates out there, it's still finding people who are a good fit and who are going to stay is a skill set in and of itself. Oh,

When Will was working under the finished carpenter that he was working under, they did all high-end homes. So we still do, and we do your... typical trim packages. And that's what they were doing as well. It's just that these days, anytime you have like a custom home for the most part, like a million dollars or more, there's going to be some type of ceiling work, wall, you know, work, that type of thing. And so it was just kind of a natural progression into it. That's kind of what we'll have the experience with. But also as we began working together, we realized that we're both extremely OCD. We both will not settle. for putting out less than like the best product that we can. And so honestly, I don't know that we would make it as production trim carpenters. I don't know that we could just go and, you know, trim the whole house in a day because a lot of times, you know, you know, it's just the nature of the business in order for them to make money. You gotta, gotta go and, and pump it out. And that means sometimes that the quality suffers a little.

Oh, we can't either. We have to, or not, we'll never like paying, but when we first started out, because when we started with essentially no contacts in the industry. So in order to get jobs. We basically joined the Home Builders Association and that was really our saving grace. But before that, when we were doing more customer homeowner jobs, sometimes they would be like, oh, well, if you can't paint, we can't give it to you. So we try and we always underestimate how long it was going to take and how much it would cost.

My fiance now, we actually just recently got engaged when we started the business three and a half years ago. We knew that we were going to have to put some of the other things on hold just to be able to afford things. But yeah, so we act. So, you know, I thought it was going to be a little less awkward being like, oh, this is my fiance and business partner instead of just my boyfriend. But I don't know. It feels weird still.

So I, we've obviously just like any. people that work together have gotten into disagreements or like one of us has been in like not the best mood. I wouldn't say that we like full fledged argue. And I think both of us are pretty aware when that happens. And so we kind of either will just like walk away from the other person. Like we, you know, we are both present enough of mine to like, if we do get into a disagreement that, you know, we understand we're at work. It's not something that we're going to fight about. We have a job to do. And, you know, if we really wanted to, we could fight about it at home. But yeah, no, I mean, honestly, we work together surprisingly well. And then as far as from like a division of labor standpoint, I do handle more of like the sales and marketing and estimating activities. And he does more, for lack of a better word, the master carpenter. He's the one that has to be there, you know, especially for the more complicated projects. So I'm not always in the field. especially once we were able to hire people to help us, which actually right now it's just him and I again. But for like the first year and a half, it was exclusively just us. So we were together 24-7. I have had to step away a little bit from the field to do some of these types of activities. But honestly, I love, I always hate it when I have to. I always would much rather be doing some program.

If you were to ask, well, the reason that, you know, because people, especially when we first started, they'd be like, oh, it's your boyfriend's company. And I'm like, no, actually, I'm the 51% owner. It's my company. If we're, you know, splitting straws here. But I mean, really, it's our company. But at the same time, I'm the more, I guess, aggressive one from the business side. I'm the one. that make, made the business happen. I basically, you know, just bugged him because he had said, he was like, okay, you know, he had always been handy. He caught him really quick. He worked under somebody else for a year and a half before we started the business, but that's still pretty quick learning curve. And I was just on him for like six months. Like, are you at the point yet where you can, where you think you can run any projects by yourself, you know, by yourself type of thing. And then finally one day he told me yes. And so I filed the paperwork and I was like, okay, we started the business.

Three and a half years ago.

Yeah, we're in Jacksonville. Okay.

I know exactly where that is. We actually, it looks like we're about to be doing some work up in St. Simon's.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I grew up here. Will grew up not far from here. I've moved away twice and I've moved back each time. I enjoy it. We both do.

So the Professional Women in Building Council is a council of the local Home Builders Association. And I am on the board of it. Every year, there's like an officer installation dinner. And so each of the councils will give out an award to whoever they felt, I guess. I don't know, made the biggest contribution or really stepped up. I really got it for my newsletter that I put together. I think because I'm OCD about, I'm super extra about everything. And so I put a significantly better newsletter and just tried to include a lot of, you know, content like outside of just like, hey, here's some pictures of us and here's some events that we did. And then in addition to that, kind of, we started to pilot a program or not pilot. We started really ideation, like in the steering committee phase of a program to increase exposure to high school-aged girls in the trades.

No, I'm so excited.

I had no clue. That's

From a sales perspective, I think in general. I've had a little bit of a unique women in the trades experience in general because I didn't have to start on a crew. of like all guys that I didn't know, like Will and I started the business together. But that said, I do most of the sales. I think if anything, if people think it's weird at all, then it's usually more of like a pleasant surprise. Like, oh, like you have that company, you know, you're the trim carpenter type of thing. I haven't had any like overt. people, you know, sexism, I guess. I've definitely noticed a little bit of the subconscious bias, but when I noticed that, if I feel like they aren't taking me seriously at first, I'll just send Will to go talk to them because I have plenty of relationships that I manage. If he wants to take them, that's cool. And honestly, after working with us for a few weeks, they figure out who's the boss. But that's how Will put it. But in that, I know what I'm talking about for the most part and that type of thing.

Yes. Oh, I've noticed. I don't know if you saw that the other day I posted, it was like a seven second video. It was a trend video and it was just. I posted some of our work and I mean, it really triggered, it triggered some people that I would even claim that that was my work, even though it was. So I definitely understand that point of it. I've really gotten, if anything, more of the backlash from like random people on TikTok than like out in the actual field. But again, I definitely know that's not every woman's experience for sure.

I mean, you can be anonymous

So I will, I'm going to quote this woman, Barbara Moore, who she's like an OG GC in Jacksonville. She's like one of two or three ever women presidents of. the Northeast Florida Builders Association. And she, her and I were having this conversation one day and she was like, I can't understand why women aren't banging down their doors, right? Because it's one of the only industries where you can, you know, rise up through management without college degrees still, where you can get paid well. You know, you can literally, we need people so bad in this industry. You can have no experience. You can be whatever age you can walk in. She's like, I just don't understand. why women aren't banging down our door. She was like, because I think there's a perception that the construction industry doesn't want women because that's what we've literally told women forever. She was like, but really, I think right now what's going on is women don't want the industry because they don't think that they're wanted. And I think personally in regards to the trades that the biggest hurdle is just exposure, right? So I grew up in a family of blue collar workers. My dad, all of my uncles, they either had AC companies, HVAC companies. My grandfather had an HVAC company or some of my cousins did electrical. Some of my girl cousins worked in the office of electrical companies, right? I never touched a tool. Like, and it wasn't because my parents were, had these. gender bias roles or anything, because I mean, I played all the sports, right? Like my parents encouraged me to do anything that I wanted to do. It's just that the thought never crossed my mind. And so I think that if we can get exposure programs out there that put tools in the hands of girls, whether it's something that they're doing to get their volunteer hours for school or whatever, I think you'll have women start to realize that A, they're capable of it and B, that they enjoy it.

That's a fair statement. But I mean, when I was in the corporate world, I only worked in male dominated industries. And I would argue, in my experience, it took probably, especially if you're somebody like me, who tends to say what they think, it takes a... a thicker skin to be in the corporate world. I've definitely received more negative feedback from, and I get it, not everybody's my personality, but I've definitely received more negative feedback about being too candid or whatever in the corporate world than I ever have in construction.

Oh, absolutely. I think that the industry needs women for a multitude of reasons, right? Like diversity is what increases profitability. You look at Fortune 500 companies, that'll tell you that. So even if you didn't specifically care about getting women in, you should because of the bottom line. But so I think there's lots of reasons, but also obviously the glaring one is just we need people.

And I mean, my generation is the, you need to go to college generation. You know what I mean? I'm actually the only person in my family. I have a huge family, like 40 something plus cousins that completed a four-year degree, but I found myself back in the trades, but it's just because that was hammered into everyone. And so we have to start changing the dialogue around it. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with college. You can go to college and become a trades person, right? If that's the path, there's all different kinds of paths, but. That said, we have to stop talking about the trades like it's a lesser career. Because really, there are lots of trade jobs where you will make a lot more than you will make as a teacher or even as a lower-level salesperson or middle management. I mean, electricians. Honestly, we should all go be electricians. Well, that's true. They make a ton of money.

yourself if you're an electrician. Oh my gosh, so true.

I have him in my family, so I feel like I can say it honestly.

We all have our things, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

So this is what I've been recommending to women that have reached out to me, is that they Google their local... Home Builders Association. And I guarantee you, if you call that number and you go, Hey, I'm interested in getting into the trades, they either have an apprenticeship program or they have about 50 companies that are interested in hiring people. That's the direction I would go. They also, you know, go show up to a, to a networking meeting, honestly, business owners that have trades companies that are just looking to hire. So, I mean, that's, that's what I would do. I do think it's harder. Women don't have as natural of a profession, right? Because like you said, a lot of people out there, they started doing it because their dad did it. And my brother knows HVAC because of my dad, right? And then if it's not your dad, then it's usually because your friend is doing it, right? So like, you know, your friend's doing it. But with women, obviously that's, neither of those are normally the case. So I do think it is, it can be an intimidating situation, but I promise you, you're probably just building it up more in your head than what. you would think that it actually is. And if you just, you know, you make the call or you, you know, go to the meeting and just introduce yourself, it'll open a lot more doors than what you would think.

Oh, it's terrifying. Like I, I completely agree with you. I mean, even when I first stepped onto the job site, right. And Will and my boyfriend, you know, he's there with me. We literally did the company together. It was, it was scary because there's just so, it's like as a woman in the trades, even, you know, sometimes like in the comments and stuff and TikTok, all that, it's like, you have to be perfect, right? You can't get any of the answers wrong. You can't. You know, you didn't see like these DIY wires out there that are women that get, well, this isn't right. Or that's not, you know, trying to pick their stuff apart. And so it's scary. But that said, if it's something that you're interested in pursuing, I promise you, it still seems scarier than what it actually is. And I'm not, again, I can't speak for all women. I know other women have, you know, I would assume a union position is probably a tougher environment. I have no idea. But so I'm not saying that there aren't. you know, some still really intimidating situation. But in my experience, most people have either been like, oh, that's really cool. Or they, you know, might be like, oh, I didn't even know, you know, basically a girl can do that. Guess what? They're doing it. And they're usually just like, cool. And I live in the South. So it's very much the good old boy network here.

So it's funny that you say that. I get that feedback a lot from people in the trades that have hired women or worked with women. And actually, so funny story. So my dad has an HVAC company. After the recession, he kept it very small. And my mom, you know, was in the corporate world and then kind of like retired and was helping my dad out with the business. Well, he had like two helpers or like one tech, you know, kind of like an installer and one technician that would help him well. His like main guy left. And then my dad developed neuropathy, which is very debilitating. At least his was, it like attacks the casings of your nerves. It does because it's an autoimmune neuropathy. But anyways, long story short. So then his other helper like quit. And basically in her mid fifties, my mom became like an AC technician learning from my dad who like sometimes couldn't even be like standing or out there. for more than 30 minutes or something because it hurts you bad. And he told me that had he known 30 years ago when he started the business that women were going to be this good at AC, he would have tried to hire all women. He's like, they show up, they pay attention, and they want to learn.

And I mean, and to your point, listen, I'm not ever arguing if women or men are inherently better at trades or anything like that. I'm not here to try to say that I'm, you know, it's, it's, we're all people. Right. So you're going to send people that are better at things than other people. But I think that the women so far that have shown up in the trades for the most part, you know, we usually have a little bit of a chip on our shoulders. So I would assume that they're there giving, you know, a hundred percent every day because they have something to prove. If we were complete, if there were more women in the industry, I'm sure people, some people would have more, maybe bad experiences, but I think, I think overall, I mean.

So you bring up an interesting point. So women in the trade or women in construction. make 99.1 cents to the dollar to men, which any wage gap, like, you know, to me is unacceptable, but it's definitely the smallest one of any industry.

Absolutely. I do think that in the construction industry, from me talking to other business owners that are men, it usually comes up hiring women because I'm a female tradeswoman and they're like, oh, I either have or I haven't or I'm open to it. But I think two things. One, I think that male business owners or really any business owners that... say that they want to hire more women, I think you actually have to do the work to do it. You know what I mean? You can't just necessarily expect for them to come to you because for so long, women have been told it's not their place. It's, you know, they, they can't physically do it, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think that, you know, if you have a commitment or you're just putting in, you know, recruiting and development efforts out into the workforce, because you just need people, part of that should be. doing specific activities to recruit women. Or when you're looking at resumes, you know, you may be hiring an entry-level position and, you know, this guy may have worked wherever that was a little bit more physical and maybe she was, I don't know, stalker, warmer, whatever it is. I would challenge you to, you know, bring them both in for an interview. Yes, he may have more, slightly more hands-on tool knowledge. Most men will have that because they grew up socialized too. But bring them and see if they'll be a fit personality-wise for your company. And if you think that they'll work hard and, you know, just kind of like challenge yourself to think outside of just like, okay, well, yeah, same skill set, same pay, but actually like take that extra step to do it. Because honestly, if you don't, then A, women won't be coming into the industry as much and they definitely won't be working for you as much.

So you, you can't necessarily do that, but you can have diversity initiatives within your company. Right. And so you are able to also go out and I would say, reach out to, if you're looking for entry level people, reach out to like. high school guidance counselors, see if there's any of those types of programs. There's a lot of high schools now that actually have trade programs where there are women that are enrolled. And then honestly, when we posted, I got a lot of women that replied more than I expected that. I mean, they didn't have necessarily carpentry experience, but that were interested. One of the, the one that I wanted to hire got snapped up before I even, she didn't really have that much experience, but she was really interested. And like I'd done a bunch of things to develop her knowledge and she got snapped right away. And then we actually met the crew. It's another husband and wife crew. They're about seven years younger than Will and I. But we met this crew that now subcontracts from us through that job posting as well. And let me tell you, she's about five foot nothing and 90 pounds. And there's a video of her carrying like an eight foot pre-hung solid four door, just like it's nothing. I was like, I don't even know if I knew that. That might be a little heavy for me, girl, but okay. I mean, I could do it, but you're making it look easy.

Oh my goodness. None. To be completely honest with you, none. I read a lot of articles, but also I watch a lot of how-to videos and stuff. Or like if I'm looking for business advice, I find people like you that are talking about it. It's just a way that I absorb information better.

To actually like find a position or...

And that's, that's why I think those exposure programs are so important, right? That said, when, just because it provides opportunities to do that, go, go do a Habitat for Humanity build. See if that's something that, you know, I will tell you the coolest thing I did. with professional women in building is we did a women's build. I was the only tradeswoman, but the women worked in the industry. We did hardy board and it was awesome for me to watch them because, you know, you have that big kind of intimidating looking coil nail gun, you know, and it's real bad, real crazy. And so after it was like, you could see the hesitation with like the first shot. But then after that, it was like this like spark, you know, light bulb went off in their head, spark. lit up in their eye and like, oh, wow, like I can do this. And like, actually, like, it's pretty fun, you know? So I would say get involved in those type of programs if you can. There's even like, you know, makers and creators type, you know, wood shops and things like that. I would say, again, reach out to your local home builders association and just, I mean, apply to the jobs and follow up and be persistent.

You know what? I mean, Habitat, at least one that we did, had a construction manager and actually it was a woman. And she had worked in the construction industry before she worked at Habitat. So it's probably a good networking opportunity there as well. Oh,

And I'll tell you, in my experience too, people just working with other, having the opportunity to work with other carpenters from time to time. I mean, that one ceiling that I did that you saw that you had duetted, we were on that house for... almost a year. We did over 20 ceilings in that house. They were all super intricate. So we were able to bring in, you know, a couple of people that subcontracted from us, but they basically worked for us full time at the time. And one of them was this carpenter Dale and he was in his seventies. And I mean, there are days he kicked Will and I, but I don't know how he did it. He also had a farm that he ran, but it's just from what I've learned, the point of all that is from my experience at, you know, even the older treatment who you would maybe think would be less open to women in the trades or whatever. A lot of them are fine with it and actually are excited about it. They want to pass down the knowledge that they know. It's probably the first generation of tradesmen who don't necessarily have a second generation after them that are getting into the trade. So they also may not have someone to pass down all of the knowledge that they know. And so, I mean, a lot of people, of course, there's going to be terrible people everywhere in every job and every situation, right? But in my experience, most... people, most tradesmen, they want to help and they want to help you learn.

Thanks for having me. Yeah,

So my TikTok is that's what she sawed. That's probably the social media platform that I'm the most involved in because I got on that one specifically to talk about women in the trades. So that's probably the one I'm most responsive on. We are also on Instagram though, at bold city builders with an S. And then, you know, you can email me at Elise at bold city builders. com.