Kathy Metts of Battlefield Homes looks over plans at a work site in Spotsylvania County. MIKE MORONES/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Jerry Cantrell (left), superintendent, and Alan Nobiling, with Lewis Aquatech Inc., go over plans for the location of a pool with Cantrell Builders president Helen Cantrell. She's owned the firm for eight years. MIKE MORONES/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

In the Fredericksburg area, a handful of women are making their mark in the building industry

Date published: 4/30/2006

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.

Date published: 4/30/2006