After 35 Years in Business, Dot Wood Shares Her Success with her NAWBO Peers

When Dot Wood got her degree in Home Economics, she didn’t envision herself owning and operating a commercial construction business for 35 years, yet that’s exactly what happened. She attributes a significant amount of her success to NAWBO where she has met countless women who’ve given her valuable advice during her 15-year membership.

“I worked as a teacher half days and I really wanted something that I could do and be proud of when I finished, like a needlepoint project,” she says. To get started though, she needed to visit the local bank for a small business loan. While there, she filled out all of the paperwork and returned home with a check. Not long after that, the bank called asking for her husband. It seems they had ‘lost’ the papers for her loan and needed him to visit the bank to sign them. “This is what we faced, it was just awful,” she shares. “Having women to share these stories with has been a great support.”

Today, Dot and her team construct buildings from the ground up, working on fast food restaurants and medical offices. She’s even constructed buildings for fellow NAWBO members. “Sometimes, you see people get really competitive, but it’s good to know we’re all in this together,” she says of the relationships she’s developed in her chapter. “Look out for each other, especially in business, because if we don’t, we have nothing.”

It’s not to say that business hasn’t been challenging for her this past year. “I’ve had to cut my salary and cut my employees. I’ve even had to lay off some employees, which is really sad,” she shares. “But thank goodness I’m still in business, I’m not going to succumb to a downturn.” Having been in business for a long time, Dot has weathered tough times before. “We’ve seen this before, although not this intensity, especially in commercial real estate,” she says. “But, I keep reminding everyone, we’ll all get through this and in 10 years, we’ll forget it.”

Focusing on the future is just one of the reasons why Dot remains active in her community where she is taking time to mentor other businesswomen in and outside of NAWBO. She is a founding member of CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women), co-founder of the local Meals on Wheels program, a former city planning commissioner and a key fundraiser for the city’s Sandler Center for the Performing Arts. She was recently featured as one of the Top Women in Commercial Real Estate in Virginia Business. You can read more about Dot in that article here and her business here.