Thanks to Jeanne Koruga’s father, the 47-year-old Woodinville resident got involved in construction at a very young age.
| For more information on the construction company West Tier, call 425-486-9825 or log onto www.westtier.com.
For information on The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish counties, call 425-451-7920 or 800-522-2209 or log onto www.mba-ks.com. |
Koruga’s dad was a teacher and a painter on the side. The first family member to wash his paint brushes got 50 cents, and Jeanne Koruga often picked up the four bits.
“He led by example,” Koruga said. “You picked up the broom if you wanted to talk to him.”
Koruga’s dad, now retired, still helps his daughter from time to time. Lately, he drops in at a site in Bothell where her company, WestTier, is building 26 contemporary homes, some selling for $600,000.
Construction companies led by women aren’t common in the home-building business.
The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties doesn’t track the gender of its 4,000 members, said Dan Klusman, communications director.
But this year is only the second time in the organization’s 96-year history that it has a woman president, Donna Shirey.
If buyers are surprised to see a woman running the show, Koruga doesn’t see it.
She’s too involved with work crews, kitchen designers and inspectors to hear what people think when they find out she’s the one in charge.
“Fifty things are going on throughout the day,” Koruga said.
There’s only a difference between men and women builders if people let there be one, Koruga said, adding that there isn’t anything she’d tell anyone to do that she wouldn’t do herself.
And Koruga has done it: installing sheet rock, framing and setting trusses.
But there is no way of tracking whether women involved in the business is a trend.
“It has certainly grown, but putting a number on it is tough,” Klusman said.
The builders’ association has a women’s council that supports women in building. About four years ago, Women Building Hope, an official council of the association, was formed.
The association has two categories of membership. About one third of the membership is comprised of general contractors, land developers, builders and major remodelers. The rest are a variety of workers, including plumbers, tilers and those in the insurance and financing trades.
“There’s probably more women at senior levels in that group,” Klusman said.
If it wasn’t for the men in the building trade who helped Koruga on her path, she might not be where she is today, she said.
She started by asking them a lot of questions.
“They’d say, ‘You keep asking, asking, asking,’ ” Koruga said.
Koruga had to learn what she was doing and how to do it.
“I’ve been hot and sweaty and used the port-a-potty,” she said.
The building site is a far cry from where Koruga started, on the 32nd floor of a high-rise downtown building. She was a CPA who prepared budgets and cost breakdowns for builders. Pretty soon she was thinking about the people she was helping.
She and her husband, the other half of her business, bought a piece of property in 1983 in Woodinville as an investment.
They spent 70 hours a week developing it. She was still working as a tax accountant and coming home to work on the house, which was built in 1929.
There were ditches all around as they worked. Koruga remembers coming home one night with a six pack of Heineken wearing her high heels. “I tripped in the ditch,” Koruga said.
She soon swapped her high heels for a uniform more suited to a building site and believed she should have been doing it all along.
“You’ve got to like pressure and change,” Koruga said.
She works with clients when they want changes or some design to suit their taste.
“I know it’s expensive,” Koruga said. “Tell me what works. Is it two windows? Is it a French door?”
When she talks about the floors she puts in her homes she mentions kids arriving home from school with their backpacks. Where do they go first? Where do they dump their bags and take off their shoes?
Every home is different. The plans come from an architect.
“But then we put ‘Jeanne touches’ on them,” she said.
The “Jeanne touches” are part of what Tom Koewler and his wife like about their new home, built by Koruga.
Koewler, a family practice doctor at The Everett Clinic, said that his wife was a little surprised that the builder was a woman.
“I figure she has to do a better job than the guys in her market,” Koewler said.
The tub in the Koewler’s master bedroom not only has a faucet but it has a spray nozzle so that it can be more easily cleaned.
There’s also an outlet for a television on the wall above the end of the tub. Koewler said Koruga told him that’s when she gets time to watch television.
And the smallest considerations sometimes get the biggest raves; there are shelves in the showers at the right height for a woman to shave her legs.
“It’s $200 to put in. It’s a small fortune,” Koruga said. “But I shave my legs every day.”
The alcoves above are big enough for Costco-size shampoo bottles.
One thing that Koruga doesn’t do is wait until all her homes are occupied and drive through the neighborhood and pat herself on the back.
“Do you know: A lot of actors don’t see their own movies,” Koruga said.
She’d rather have memories, such as the one when she sold a $100,000 townhouse in Seattle to a 60-year-old man. It was the first home he had bought.
Koruga was pregnant and did the walk-through with him.
“I spent as much time with him as a million-dollar client,” she said.
She later received a note in the mail with a $35 gift certificate from the man.
“That’s the best compliment I’ve ever had,” Koruga said.
Christina Harper is a Marysville-area freelance writer.
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