Christy Richardson Clark wanted to be an artist.
She graduated from the University with a degree in English, a minor in psychology, and a master’s in fine arts – but today, this 32-year-old is a licensed residential contractor and owner of Richardson Homes, where she oversees the construction of houses in a male-dominated field of work.
About 20 women attended the Non-traditional Business Owners panel on Friday, hosted by the E.J. Ourso College of Business, to discuss the experiences of women who own businesses in traditionally male fields including construction, plumbing and trucking, and to encourage other women to open their own businesses.
These female entrepreneurs agreed that trying to break into male-dominated work fields was difficult because of stereotypes people hold about the roles women should fill.
Clark, who has no formal business or construction education, said she never thought she would be a contractor, but her father, who was a reputable contractor, died several ago with three unfinished houses.
“I found myself with a rare opportunity,” Clark said. “I was a struggling painter.”
Clark said her brother gave her “crash courses” in construction between her art classes, and she passed the test to receive her contractor’s license in the first try.
“Proximity has more to do with your career than what you prepare yourself for,” said Bennie Payne, president of her own plumbing business and Central Plumb It Yourself, a retail plumbing company.
Payne, like Clark, fell into an unexpected career opportunity.
Payne was studying to be an accountant in college and said, “if you told me when I was young I was going to be a plumber, I’d look at you like you were nuts.”
She said when she was younger, there were several plumbing strikes, so her husband, who was the son of a plumber, asked her to help him open their own plumbing business.
“I used my business skills, and he used his plumbing skills,” Payne said. “I knew the inside, and he knew the outside.”
Sandra Thompson is another female entrepreneur who opened her own trucking industry after she found herself $20,000 in debt from campaigning and losing Secretary of State in 1980.
Thompson said at that time the oil industry was booming so she approached Amoco, an oil industry, and asked them how she could go into business with them.
She became the owner of a trucking company that transported oil and made $2.5 million dollars in three years.
Carol Carter, assistant director of the University Institute for Entrepreneurial Education and family business studies, said women traditionally go into fields including retail, real estate and education.
These women said they have dealt with people who had difficulty accepting their non-traditional roles.
“A lot of people think I’m the secretary,” Clark said.
Clark said buyers are often skeptical of her abilities.
“Some are scared to buy a really expensive house from a 32-year-old girl,” Clark said. “They think that it might not be structurally sound, or they wonder if it’s a decoration project for me.”
Payne said after 20 years of heading a plumbing company, people no longer question her abilities because she has become well-known in her field.
But she said when she first tried to get the start-up money for her business, several banks turned her down because she was a woman.
Thompson said her truck drivers, who were all men, did not take her seriously when she first started.
“A whole group of guys just died laughing when they found out they would be working for a woman,” Thompson said.
Thompson said she used to read the sports pages of the newspaper so she would have something to talk about with her drivers.
She said eventually she gained their respect by rewarding them with cash bonuses for staying out of accidents and keeping their trucks clean.
Clark said that while there have been some problems with her all-male subcontractors respecting her, most have been receptive to her.
“It’s like having a lot of big brothers,” Clark said. “They look out for me.”
 
Contact Rebekah Allen at [email protected]