Jennifer Hart, president and owner of Hartline Construction, LLC, and Suzie Aron, president of Aron Real Estate, joined moderator Asia Campbell, business development manager at Kansas City Area Development Council (KCADC), last week for a virtual discussion about showing up at work and in life, part of the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI) and CREW KC “Fearless Series.”
Hart worked as an architect for several years until she was furloughed during the ‘08-’09 recession. She went to work in construction because contractors’ work had not dried up.
In 2011, Hart founded Hartline Construction. According to Hart, education, perseverance and networking made her fearless in allowing her to move on from her job loss and not give up.
“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been told by a male, maybe someone above me, that I can’t do it. So right then that told me why not me? I can. You’ve got to turn what you might be able to do into action and make it happen,” Hart said.
When Hart opened her company she did not want any special favors because she was female and had always succeeded at her job before. Consequently, she resisted getting WBE and SLBE certified by the City of Kansas City, Mo.
Her company since has been awarded SLBE (Small Local Business Enterprise), WBE (Women Business Enterprise) and DBE (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) certifications. She admits that the certifications hove opened a lot of doors for her, for Hartline and for her team, including a contract to work on the Kansas City International Airport construction project.
“So don’t be afraid to go ahead and utilize that tool - because we, as females, as much as we don’t want to admit it, sometimes we’re underestimated and we want to show them how powerful we can be,” said Hart.
Hart encouraged the audience members to network.
“I cannot tell you how much has come my direction by networking out in the community and giving back to the community because they call me and say ‘hey, I heard about this project you might want to take a look at,’” Hart said.
Aron, who started out as a community volunteer, said the key to being fearless is figuring out who you are.
“I’m an extroverted person, and I also think outside the box. One way is to look as to what’s out there and where the opportunity is. For somebody like me, it’s looking around and deciding what kind of community do I want?” said Aron.
Several years ago, Aron, who had worked as a real estate broker for many years, took interest in the Crossroads District, then a neighborhood of empty buildings. She saw opportunity to build a community.
“All of our buildings were abandoned. Eighty percent of our neighborhood was blighted, and because of that, there were opportunities in terms of cheap rents, for putting in sweat equity, for how you might consider doing something that you wouldn’t have been able to do if it was a terrific, only healthy bunch of options out there,” said Aron.
Seizing on the opportunity, Aron was instrumental in developing the Crossroads arts, business and entertainment district.
Aron said the pandemic has created opportunities to make changes to our community, and she encouraged the audience, while everyone is on pause, to consider what kind of community they want going forward.
“I really think we have an extraordinary opportunity to build and come back and save and create the kind of community we want because we’ve all seen that we’re starting to look at things that we took for granted and say do we want to do things the same way. And, I would encourage us not to,” Aron said.