Construction Strikes the Right Note for One Woman
When Tonya Jones started her Nashville construction business 21 years ago, women were a rarity on building sites. Now a growing number of women, including Jones's daughter Mercedes, are starting up businesses in realms that were typically dominated by men, such as construction, trucking, and agriculture.
The number of female-owned businesses in construction rose 57 percent from 1997 through 2004, compared with 17 percent growth in service industries such as retail, according to a 2005 survey by the Center for Women's Business Research. Government rules requiring local, state, and federal contracts to hire minority-run businesses as well as more-open loan markets have spurred growth, says Sharon Hadary, the center's executive director.
Areas like construction can require huge upfront costs for equipment and subcontractors, making the availability of credit essential. Jones had her company, Mark IV Enterprises, for nine years before she could get a loan without a cosigner. The obstacle forced her to get creative, negotiating credit terms with subcontractors who were already wary of working with a woman. Even so, Jones managed to rack up $500,000 in sales her first year.
From there, she relied on referrals for new jobs, working with subcontractors. This year her sales will hit $5.5 million, and she can now obtain construction bonds, which ensure a project gets completed, of up to $1.2 million. "Today, women who show a propensity to do this have a wide berth," says Jones. "But I wouldn't change the way my deal went. ... It gave me passion and motivation."
Seeing those kinds of barriers made construction seem unattractive to Jones's daughter Mercedes. As a teenager, Mercedes and her sister worked for their mom, sweeping floors, filing, and answering phones. After college, Mercedes worked as a paralegal, then took database-programming classes and eventually started her own company in 1995.
But in 1997, after her Nashville data management company fizzled, Mercedes Jones began automating her mother's computer system. Soon she got sucked back into the family business. Tonya "told me to be careful because once construction got in your blood, it would stay there," says Mercedes. "Of course, it was there all along, just laying dormant."
Mercedes wound up managing a project while at Mark IV to build the Nashville Symphony's corporate office. That led her to begin consulting on the symphony's new Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Women are increasingly passing on businesses to their daughters, and as construction demand grows, more women are entering the field. "When I came into a room, everyone would change the way they talked because a lady was present," says Tonya. Now "Mercedes has 100 doors open that weren't there for me."
Once a woman breaks into construction, she is as likely to be successful as a man is. Businesses owned by women have about the same level of revenue and employees as their male counterparts, the 2005 survey found. About 80 percent of women surveyed said that being a woman was no longer a disadvantage in construction. "Women are definitely having to prove their mettle," says Mercedes. Construction is "not for the faint of heart. But once you see someone perform, it's hard to hold [gender] against them."
In 2002, Mercedes left Mark IV to join the symphony staff full time as project manager overseeing the $120 million concert hall. The 197,000-square-foot building is set to open next month.
This story appears in the August 14, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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