Her Story
About Bridget
Bridget Scalissi serves as Area Director for a property management company, where she oversees seven multifamily housing properties comprising 1,255 units in Madison, Wisconsin. Her responsibilities include managing on-site teams of up to 27 employees, handling resident and associate issues, negotiating vendor contracts, and maintaining budgets across properties of varying ages and clientele. Scalissi entered the industry 25 years ago after a friend offered her a part-time role while she was a stay-at-home mother taking nursing courses at night. She quickly grew to love the dynamic nature of the work and the opportunity to care for people by providing safe housing, advancing from part-time to her current leadership position through dedication and guidance from mentors such as her former manager Missy. Prior to full-time property management, she built customer service skills through restaurant industry roles starting at age 14 or 15. Scalissi credits her professional growth to outstanding leadership and a strong home support system including her husband and children. She encourages aspiring professionals, especially women, to be themselves, recognize varied career paths, and persist through challenges such as staffing shortages and team conflicts.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Bridget
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say mostly, is just fantastic leadership. There are so many people that I look up to. I had a manager at that time, her name was Missy, and she taught me everything I knew, and I just always aspired to be like her. And just with our new company right now, too. And just, like, besides, you know, like, the work industry, I just have a really, really, really good support system at home, too. Like, my kids and my husband have always been super supportive of my job.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think the biggest piece of advice is to just be yourself, you know, and understand everybody has a different path that they take. It might not always be the same path. But I always like to try and remind a lot of my team that I started where they were at one point, and a lot of it is just, like, perseverance. You know, you just have to keep pushing through, and you get more creative the longer you're in this business, and yeah, I would say to just keep plugging away. There's nothing that you can't do.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say mostly the challenging part of the industry, I guess, would be, like, in this role that I have, because I deal more with employees than residents at this point, a lot of times it's just Communication and making sure that your understanding, like, people a lot of times, people just want to be heard. We have challenges all the time. Like, right now, we're experiencing just short staff. So I would say that's probably my biggest, I guess, you know, Roadblock at this point is just finding good staff and keeping them happy. I'd say that's probably my biggest challenge, is just dealing with, like, you know, associate other associate conflict, too.
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