Hey y’all (in true Southern fashion), we have been slow to start up after creating our social media pages due to a few reasons but the top two being:
Outage Season is upon us! Which means we are both swamped and working long hours. This means building a website or writing a blog hasn’t made the top of the list as a routine habit quite yet. But don’t worry, that won’t last long!
I, Candice, have little to no skillset as a web designer, so I’ve procrastinated getting this website vision down the way I want it so please be patient with me!
Let’s start with a basic introduction and later we will each post an “About Me” to give you more detail into who we are as individuals and professionals. There are three parts to our base introduction:
1. Balancing Hard Hats & Heels (B3H)
B3H is a concept that will act in the form of a blog and podcast to provide guidance, information, entertainment, discussion opportunities, interviews, and job-related information to women across both the field and corporate roles of the Industrial Construction world. We want to talk about all things that we as women face, the benefits, growth, changes in the workforce, challenges, hardships, and everything in between that each and every woman in this industry may encounter whether you are a Laborer, Safety Representative, Administrator, Analyst, Purchaser, Manager, or any other role in between.
A great friend/coworker and I have teamed up to offer a dual perspective on concepts between both of our roles within the Field and Corporate worlds of Industrial Construction. (Knowing her and I, this combination will surely offer a touch of drama and entertainment!!)
2. The Logo
My vision with the logo was to tell a story of my goal with this concept without ever having to speak a word. To have you all a complete part of our journey I’d like to offer the background behind my thought process.
i. Scales: represent the balancing of two worlds
ii. Building on the Right Side: Representation for the corporate world of this industry and the people that are directly connected to those roles.
iii. Plant on the Left Side: Representation for the field employees, I geared specifically toward a power plant due to my personal work experience.
iv. White Hard Hat: Representation of Leadership and Management roles as well as commonly required PPE for field-based roles.
v. Red High Heels: Representation of the Sexy Powerful Women we all are regardless of if we wear heels daily or a hard hat and boots! Come on ladies, we all know red heels are a power statement while feminine and sexy!
vi. The Name: Balancing Hard Hats & Heels is that exactly, it’s finding the balance between being a woman and maintaining everything that makes that such a blessing while also being women in a male dominated industry and being an absolute badass at that too!
3. The Faces Behind the Scenes
Candice Troyer:
I am the visionary behind this concept and it’s already “my baby” so I’m super excited to see where it leads us to! I am the Field concept of this dual perspective. My current role is a project-based Field Engineer within an organization that specializes in boiler maintenance and repair within power plants. I spend around 7 months of my year onsite at these facilities during the Spring and Fall projects; the bulk of my time over the past couple years has been spent in Kentucky and Indiana but I have several years’ experience in other areas of the country as well. I got my start in this business in 2007 when I reluctantly accepted a position as a confined space attendant for one week as a favor to someone that I knew so he didn’t have to pull one of his higher paid hands for the remaining duration to this fill this role. Long story short, here I am still with the same company 14 years later! I’ll give you more insight on that and my personal story another time!
Sydney Everett
Sydney is my favorite “Pain in the Ass” ever since I was sent to train her in West Virginia in 2018. She started with our organization as a Project Coordinator which is very similar to our Site Administration roles. I spent a week with her and due to both of our strong personalities it was thought that we would not get along well. They were wrong! Here I am 4 years later, and I cannot (nor do I want to) get rid of her! We have built a relationship with a lot of growth and mentoring that helps us both along our journey’s. Sydney has spent the past couple years as a Supply Chain Buyer for the same organization I work with. She is the representation for the corporate roles within our dual perspective vision. Sydney is the artist for this vision and such a valuable insight that I can appreciate while also have the full ability to debate without any hard feels when we disagree. She will also provide an about me posting that will give you more insight on why she got into this industry and her own personal story.
