VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – Carrie McLeod makes sure new homes are built properly.
As a senior superintendent for homebuilder Taylor Morrison, McLeod spends her days touring home construction sites at a new development in Volusia County, inspecting the homes, making sure they’re built to the homebuyer’s needs.
Recommended Videos
McLeod said when she got into the industry 25 years ago, she would be the only one around a job site, and that was intimidating, not because her male coworkers made her feel unwanted, but because she felt she had to prove she could work in the field.
“Then it was a little bit harder,” she recalled. “I never felt like I would be able to recuperate from the mistake. You know what I mean? I made the mistake, it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing right? If I’m a female, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t belong here. So I put a lot of pressure on myself and I think a lot of women do when they first get into it.”
But McLeod says that’s not the case anymore.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
“It’s nothing to see several women in the houses daily doing different parts of the tasks,” McLeod said. “As a subcontractor from installing tile to drywall, painting, stucco, stucco owners that are female and run their companies.”
In 2020, women accounted for 1 in 10 workers in the construction industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with roughly 1.2 million women working jobs ranging from inspections to hanging drywall.
Taylor Morrison has been working to recruit more women in the company, and as such 44% of the company workforce is female, a company spokesperson said. The company’s chairman and CEO, Sheryl Palmer, is also the only woman to lead a publicly traded homebuilding company.
It’s not just about diversity and inclusion in the industry. McLeod says women bring different insights into the way homes are built.
“I think the construction industry has gained a lot by having women. We have different eyes, we have different details,” McLeod said. “I always say this is kind of a joke, you know, the men live in the house, the women use the house. So we do have very much of a detail of about, you know, is this right or wrong? Is that placement, is that really the good place for that?’”
McLeod also believes having more women in the industry also makes for a better experience for female homebuyers. She says she’s noticed in recent years that these women are getting more involved in the process than they were in the past.
“A lot of times they do feel more comfortable now having the conversation if they have a woman,” she said. “They don’t feel as intimidated by a male superintendent or a male inspector anymore.”
If you’re interested in getting into construction, the National Association for Women in Construction’s website has information on training, mentoring, scholarships, and other programs for women and girls interested in the industry. Some companies provide hands-on training. You may not even need a construction-related degree, depending on the field you go into.
Soft skills are also important: have a thick skin, be good at communicating, hone your people skills. McLeod said you’re not just managing customers, you’re also working with different suppliers, subcontractors and other third-party groups in any construction project.
“There’s so many parts and pieces, so many different people in the process and so many different personalities,” McLeod said. “That is a really big part of what we deal with. Yes, we build a home or we build a restaurant or something of that sort, but it’s really dealing with all the people you deal with along the way that can make the job difficult.”
But McLeod said the old stereotypes that might have scared women away from construction jobs are not as prevalent anymore.
“A lot of that stereotypical stuff, you know, the good ol’ boy type, a lot of that has gone out of the way,” McLeod said. “It’s because women did finally break into and, you know, they started working and showing, ‘hey, we can do it. We deserve to be here.’”
You can listen to every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate in the media player below: