March 2nd – 8th is National Women in Construction Week. As a home repair nonprofit, we’re especially proud of the women who help move our mission forward. This week we’re highlighting just one of the few extraordinary women on our team, Brooke Perkins!
Brooke is a Project Manager on our programs team who helps see projects through from initial inspection to completion. She’s responsible for planning projects, determining what materials are needed, and overseeing volunteers and contractors in completing repairs needed for our homeowners. It’s a big job.
She may not always have been a “woman in construction,” but she was prepped with the necessary knowledge from an early age. “Growing up, I would go to work with my dad when I had days off of school,” Brooke says. Her dad was an HVAC contractor and all-around handy guy. “My mom also never was one to shy away from a physical challenge.” Learning valuable skills about hands-on work at a young age set the stage for Brooke to be an asset to any construction team, she just didn’t know it yet.
Fast forward some years later—Brooke and her husband get married and know they need to find a way to invest into their future, but neither of them made enough money to do much. With the help of federal programs for first-time home buyers, they were able to purchase their first home. Over the following years, and with the help of Brooke’s father, they worked to make that home fit for their growing family by adding a bathroom, replacing the HVAC, and repairing other, normal “old house” issues. After realizing how much they could do themselves with the right skills and tools, Brooke and her husband began buying fixer-upper homes to renovate and then sell. “I found I really enjoy home projects, learning, researching, doing, and problem-solving,” Brooke says. She and her husband are now in their sixth fixer-upper home.
However, years of flipping houses made Brooke realize there’s no way to deny that flipping houses prices low-income families out of their neighborhoods. “It’s just the basic math of the high cost of property and materials and services that makes it so,” she says. “The issue is real and was on my heart so I took some time to look at organizations in Greenville and see what they were doing to help provide housing for low-income families. I found Rebuild Upstate, loved their mission, and left a voicemail saying I would be interested in any job they had. They hired me!”
As for being a woman in a male-dominated industry, Brooke says, “We belong and thrive in the construction industry. Women are great multi-taskers, great problem-solvers, and great project managers….I mean isn’t that what any mom does every day?” She continues: “I’ve never felt unwelcome and I really enjoy my job. I have the honor of working with a good many females in the industry at both Rebuild Upstate and in our community as many of our contractors are run by great women that I really enjoy working with.”
She goes on to describe how she often gets very real opportunities to empower women, young and old, by showing them that they can do new things and hard things. “I love hearing, ‘I can’t wait to show my dad!’ or “Take a video for me to send to my daughter!’” Another rewarding feeling, she says, is showing women how to tackle simple repairs and maintenance in their homes. “Many homeowners allow problems to go unaddressed because of a lack of resources, yet the repairs are simple and totally something they could do if they were empowered to do so.”
