Best Builders Bash

D Home’s annual Best Builders celebration is one of my favorite events because the builders are such affable people. I met up with our 2008 winners at III Forks last night, and among them were a handful of female builders including Kathryn Forney Sargent and Susan Tatum Brown. It’s a tough enough business without the added challenge of being a woman in a man’s domain. They’ve got guts and smarts. My grandmother Marguerite Doak was one of the first women in construction, and I told Kathryn Sargent this. When I mentioned she had been a plumbing contractor, Kathryn whooped and hollered with excitement. “Now that took guts,” she said. I like to think my grandmother helped pave the way for some of the women in that room last night, if even in a small way.