Sabrina Westfall

I attribute my success to seizing opportunities in the trades through a union apprenticeship, gaining hands-on experience through practical on-the-job learning, consistently applying persistent problem-solving, and intentionally investing in myself both personally—through health—and financially.

The best advice I've ever received, from different people in different ways, has been about taking care of myself. I actually did a safety talk recently, and my theme was 'Put your oxygen mask on before helping others.' I've gotten advice through the years to take care of my health, don't get overworked, don't get overwhelmed, prevent burnout, and to take care of myself financially when I'm able to. Of course, having your own business is not always as profitable as you plan, so it's important to make sure you're not putting all the eggs in the basket - keeping some for yourself for a rainy day if something goes bad. The best advice from several people who have tried and failed and tried again and succeeded is that the thing they wish they had done the first time is just invested in themselves a little bit more.

I would say the best advice I could give is don't let fear influence your decision. I think you should definitely do your homework, do your due diligence, research the mess out of whatever venture you want to get into, but at the end of the day, don't hold back, don't delay just out of fear. I try to encourage people to think of the worst case scenario, play it out in your head, and if you do that, the worst case scenario is probably not that bad. You'll lose years off your life if you live in fear. So I would encourage young people to just take a step out on faith and the things that they know, and own it, and be experts at it, and take that leap.

Being a woman, the biggest opportunity is just thinking about things a little different, because I don't have family in the trade, I wasn't raised with a family history in construction like a lot of people have. Not having that, I think it's given me some insight that some people may not go to naturally. The biggest challenge is just proving myself. A lot of times you walk in and you are looked at as a woman, so you have to quickly encourage people that I am the expert at what I'm doing, that I do know what I'm talking about. Even after doing it for so long, I feel like I'm still finding my place in this world, and maybe always will a little bit. The more women business owners there are, that helps create validity for our reputation, but it's always a challenge.

For both work and personal life, I'd say honesty and transparency. Being in construction has really helped me get out of my shell and not be so shy and reserved. There's this skill or a balance to being able to speak up comfortably and confidently without offending people. That's something that I've definitely learned over time, but I've come to embrace a little bit of healthy confrontation. I feel the more hard conversations we can have, that's how we start to break down walls and barriers. Both personally and professionally, I try to be very transparent, I try to be honest with people, and I encourage people to be honest with me, even if it leads to a challenging conversation. If we're handling it correctly and responsibly and maturely, we're going to come out better on the other side. That's probably my biggest value.