Her Story
About Jayne
My professional journey has taken me through two distinct but equally rewarding careers. I earned my degree in education in 1986, then completed my master's degree in 1992, and taught elementary school for 12 years until 1998. During that time, I learned the value of hard work, discipline, and perseverance while balancing the demands of teaching with raising my small children. In 1987, my husband and I started our own construction business in our local area south of St. Louis after he had been traveling back and forth to St. Louis for 7-8 years and experienced burnout. Our business blossomed from there, and we kept our reputation up and became influential to people in our community. We built a motel in 1998, developed extensive rental property including apartments and homes, and at one point leased two Dollar Generals and had about 9 stores. Between 2002 and 2006, we built three restaurants in the area. We've built a lot of homes and expanded into commercial buildings, particularly Dollar Generals. Now we've scaled down to focus on land development for Dollar Generals and subbing out the building part, using our heavy equipment for that work. We've sold the motel and two of the restaurants, and I help run everything - the construction business, the remaining restaurant, all the rental properties, and the Dollar General projects. Being from a small town where everybody knows everybody, we've enjoyed the camaraderie and being able to help our town build up by providing places for people to stay, eat, and live.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jayne
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute a lot of my success to my husband and I working well together - it takes a lot of compromise, perseverance, and having the end goal in mind so that you will be able to not only prosper, but make people happy. Our goal was to give people the opportunity to have a place to stay, have a place to eat, and have a place to live. Being from a small town where everybody knows everybody, we enjoyed all the camaraderie with all the people in our area and being able to help our city in building up the town. I attribute it to a lot of hard work - it takes a lot of hard work and discipline as well.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
First of all, I would tell them to learn as much as you can about the business. Don't be intimidated because it sounds like it's an all-male business, because it's not. You can perfectly go on job sites and check things over just as well as a man can. Maybe the physical strength may not be as predominant for a woman, but I think that they need to just continue to hold strong, persevere, and know that they can have just as much entitlement to working in construction as a man can. Women need to stand up and show that they can work just as hard as a man is, and that they have the knowledge. They may not have it in that particular field, but they have it in so many other different fields as well within the business. I know that women can do the physical labor and run machines just as much as any male can - I've seen it happen.
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