Making her mark in a man's world

It isn't often that you find a woman at the helm of a successful home builder, but Denise Higgins makes it look easy. Higgins and her husband Tim own Blue Forest Homes, which builds high-end custom homes in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

"The only thing I ever wanted to do when I finished school was either interior decorating or something to do with houses," says Higgins. "I didn't know what that was going to be and I certainly never thought I'd be building homes."

After going to school to become an Architectural Technician and study Marketing, Higgins made her first foray into the building industry as a secretary. Her role quickly grew and it wasn't long before she was running the sales and marketing department. From there she became more involved in sales and eventually was selling homes for other builders. Along the way she married Tim, and about nine years ago she began to wonder why she was doing such great work for other people rather than herself. In 2002, Blue Forest Homes was born.

"When I started I had the dream and the vision, and it was probably more the financial aspects that were the biggest challenge," says Higgins. "But I just sort of grew into it instantly. I loved working with the customers to design the homes. Tim was in the customer service profession so he's very good at management. We were just a really good team together."

Part of what makes their partnership work is that Denise and Tim are responsible for very different aspects of their company's success. Denise takes care of sales, marketing, design and land development, while Tim handles finances and construction. Customers work with Denise to design their homes and then deal with Tim during construction.

"There's nothing that I would want to do other than what I'm doing," says Higgins. "It's very stressful and it can take its toll on both of us sometimes but I love what I do and wouldn't want to do anything else."

For Higgins, the fact that a home is so much more than bricks and mortar is what makes her job so satisfying. She loves that she is helping families create the kind of lifestyle they've always dreamed of.

"One of the things that I enjoy the most is building that dream with the customer and coming up with different ideas for things they've always wanted to have and putting it all together on a piece of paper. It's actually really exciting to watch the whole process. It's wonderful."

Despite her company's success, Higgins still encounters people who are shocked and even incredulous to find a woman in such a leadership role.

"I often get, ?oh are you the homeowner?' or ?can I speak to the man in charge?' I get that all the time," says Higgins. "The one that I get the most is, ?do you do the books?' I'm fine with it, it's funny but I get it at least a few times a week. People always think it's my husband's company that I work for as opposed to us being a team."

Higgins says that about 98% of the people she encounters in the industry are men. She believes this may be because of building industry's foundation in the trades, which are traditionally male-dominated. While acknowledging that hers is not an easy business to break into, Higgins hopes to see more women taking on leadership roles.

"I love design and I love building home," says Higgins. "At the end of the day we build a great product and we have happy customers. I'd say that's our biggest challenge, making sure that we succeed with that every time."