127 | The Future of Women in HVACR | Jane Sidebottom on Leadership, Growth & Opportunity

Welcome back to another episode of Freedom Blueprint podcast. I am your host Justin Deese and today we are getting to hang out with Jane Sidebottom who is the newest president of Women in HVACR. So we're going to talk a little bit about her journey and what the future holds for women in HVACR. So Jane, appreciate you coming and hanging out.

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

So now you're officially, when do you officially start as the new president of Women in HACR?

Officially it's January 1st and Kristen Knapp and I, who's our current president, actually are just working through the transition now. Just came off a call with her. So the great thing about women in HVACR is that our president stays on as our past president. And so I'm super excited that the leadership dynamic that we've built together, we get to continue on doing that together next year. Just the roles flip a little bit.

Very, very awesome. And I'm excited to get into more about that. But before we talk about women in HVACR and some things to look forward into the future, let's back up a little bit. So tell us a little bit about your journey in the trades.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ thank you. So I think out of fairness to my dad, my journey started before I wanted it to start. My father was in the trades, but he was in the facilities management side of the business. He worked for companies that managed government types of facilities, military types of facilities. And he was a big advocate ⁓ for me to not take a traditional path.

I was allowed to get pulled out of school to go to work with my dad. And one of my favorite memories is that he didn't park me at the typing station with the secretaries. He put me in front of a big table where back in the day when they would be designing ⁓ renovations for buildings, the big schematics where they used to draw all the piping and everything, he parked me there with some templates and I'm pretty sure I ruined a drawing.

one day ⁓ using those templates. So I got exposed very early on to facilities, design, engineering, ⁓ all of those things. And after college, I went to work for a trade association in Washington, DC called the American Consulting Engineers Council. They represented engineering firms from all over the US. And ⁓ after three years there, working on some policy things in Washington, DC.

I went to work for an engineering company in Chicago doing sales, marketing, business development, types of things. And from there I got recruited by Trane and had seven great years of development at Trane Commercial out of La Crosse, Wisconsin. ⁓ I joke that ⁓ I, like many other people from Trane, we get tattoos. We don't really have them, but ⁓ we recognize each other from our Trane development days.

I then had a fantastic opportunity to go work for Carrier. They were redesigning the residential split system product line. It was a massive project under a major time crunch. And so I got to go in and work on the residential side of the business ⁓ for about, I'm just shy of four years before I started my own company. And I've had that company for 18 years. I've stayed in the industry. work across the industry. love it. And I, and I'm pretty sure that my dad's looking down with pride because ⁓

maybe this was his grand plan all along and let me find my way into it on my own.

Very cool. So tell us a little bit about your business. does the business do?

Yeah.

Yeah. So my husband and I have a kind of a boutique consulting company. We work with ⁓ mostly manufacturers, but it can also be distribution companies, software companies, service companies across the industry. Generally our phone rings when people are looking to grow their business. So they're either looking for new markets, they're either looking for new partners, new geographies. One of the things that we found after the last housing recession was that

when the industry had to downsize, a lot of that tribal knowledge around how to go build markets for new products or new services kind of retired and went away. And we fill that gap. So over the last 18 years, we've worked with almost 60 entities across the industry to, and usually it's pretty confidential stuff, which is why you never see me talking about it, to help guide those companies on how to scale those businesses and grow and deliver revenue. And I'm really proud of something.

We a very high repeat client base number and we've impacted as of last year approaching a billion dollars of new revenue. So that's my company. Yeah.

So now,

do you guys work with the manufacturers or do you work with companies and service providers?

We do both. about 60 % of our, 60 to 65 % of our client base are manufacturers. ⁓ And they could be US based or they could be companies coming over from Europe or Asian companies. We do very little with the Asian companies. We worked fairly strongly with some of the European market entrants. ⁓ So about 60, 65 % of that. And then the other 30 to 40 % are

companies that are in the software space or the services space or their distribution companies that ⁓ are looking to grow their business. And our scope can also include ⁓ &A analysis. So sometimes we get brought in to help ⁓ an acquirer evaluate a potential target.

Very cool. Okay, so that's a ton of industry experience and it's not the traditional, which is kind of neat. So how did, how did you become the new president of women and well, before we, before you answer that walk us through what women in HVAC, what is it?

Mm-hmm.

So Women in AHER is a 20 plus year old organization that was founded by a couple of women that ⁓ I think, you know, at an AHR meeting about 21 or 22 years ago, one of the more well-known members that founded it is Ruth King, that is very active across our industry. ⁓ And the organization really kind of grew out of women who worked in the industry kind of getting together on a regular basis.

Mm-hmm.

And over the last, I would say the first 20ish years or so, it just kind of slowly grew and they kind of drew more and more women into the organization. And then in the last five years is where the growth has really taken off and the structure in the organization. We represent women from across the industry, from technicians in the field to women that are in executive positions in some of the larger companies.

And we provide really the tools and resources that we think women need to be successful in this industry. ⁓ Relationship building, networks, education, mentorship, ⁓ the knowledge and the resources to develop professionally and personally that helps them confidently grow in their careers and in what business goals they have in their personal life. ⁓

really nice mix of women who own and run contracting businesses, ⁓ women who are active in the distribution channels, providing services to the industry, whether it's marketing or business development or financial services, ⁓ even some private equity company members, and then right through to some executives from the manufacturers. ⁓ That mix challenges us.

to be able to meet their needs as we continue to grow. But it's a challenge I embrace because I love seeing how many women are thriving in our industry.

It's ⁓ there's a lot and it's pretty amazing.

Excuse me. It's pretty amazing to see how many women play leadership roles in our industry. I can remember, you know, my wife was in the business and one of our businesses early on, and I remember like even customers, like she would answer the phone and they're basically would say, can I talk to a guy? And I'm thinking, you don't want talk to me. She's smarter than I am. But it is really cool to see because most of the trades businesses

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

They start out with the husband being the technician and the guy in the field and the wife is the person answering the phone. And so it's nice to see now that there's a place where they can go. And I will say, I actually did not know that women in HVACR had been around for 20 years. It definitely has been the last five years that it seems to have really grown and taken off.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You know, and that was my, huh, that's, and I was so excited because, you know, I think part of me, even though I'd had a very successful career through the industry, like I wanted that network and I, you know, and I was so excited to see it. I started to get involved first as a mentor. You know, I figured that, ⁓ you know, somebody out there would be entering the industry and had been in my shoes as I had been.

all those years ago where I'd walk into a room full of men and I was one of five women in a room full of 500 men. And by the way, I'm still friends with the other four women to this day. You know, I thought, well, there's gotta be other women out there that would just like to have that woman they could talk to and say, hey, how did you navigate this? Or do you have any advice on how I can approach that? So my first four or five years involved in the organization was really just through the mentorship program. And...

Mm-hmm.

I got to know a couple of the board members who being involved in the mentorship committee. ⁓ I might have elbowed my way a little bit onto that committee because it was such a strong passion of mine to, ⁓ I'd been through some very impactful coaching and mentoring myself and I thought this was really a great thing that the organization was doing. And from that, they asked me if I'd be interested in applying to the board. And I almost said no.

And the reason why was because I really wanted to be able to, you know, do my very best in being involved in the board and being a business owner. Um, as I think you, you well know here, Justin is that it's not a nine to five job. It's a 24 seven job and trying to figure out how I was going to make the commitment and deliver against it and still, you know, um, continue to, to lead my company and make sure that we were taking care of our team.

And my husband looked at me one day and he said, said, you know, why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you go do this? You've been talking about this for, you know, the last four years. And I said, well, I just don't know if I can make the time. He said, we will make the time. And, and that's how I joined the board. I certainly didn't envision when I joined the board that one day I would be president. ⁓ In fact, my reasons for being there was to just help strengthen what the board was doing.

And truly just through the growth of the mentorship program and the relationship that I built with some of the other board members, this came about. And I'm not going to lie to you, I'm a little nervous about it. Not because I'm nervous about taking on the leadership. Again, it's the time challenge, right? Which all of us that are business owners have. But I have a great partner, my husband. And he's the one who says, okay, we'll figure out a way to make this work and we make it work.

Yeah.

Well, and I think it's, I think it's a good sign that you're nervous, right? Like you get nervous about things that you care about. It's, you know, I always tell my kids like cool stuff doesn't happen inside your comfort zone. It happens outside. So, I think that's fantastic that you're a little bit nervous because it is a big responsibility. ⁓ and I, and I'm sure you are up to the challenge without, ⁓ any doubt. So, so now you're taking over January. So what, what are some goals? Like, what are some things that you

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Obviously, I know there's some things you can't talk about, from the things you can talk about, what are some some things that are coming down the pipeline?

And so we will be starting in January with ⁓ looking at our five-year plan and making sure we're making good decisions that are going to impact the members and the organization five years from now. I'm very excited about that because I think ⁓ organizations not just survive, but they thrive when they have really good leadership. And good leadership comes from having a good team. And I'm really excited about the team that we're going to have.

The other thing that we've done, which is really important for women in HVACR going forward, is that this year we brought on a professional association management company to work with us. The organization is now, you know, over 1,400 members and public information we have over a million dollar operating budget. And we would be the ones constraining our own growth if we continue to try and manage it ourselves.

What's ironic is that we as an association have run into some of the same issues that business owners run into, which is that decision you have to make to let someone else come in and help you run it so that the organization or the business can continue to grow. And we found a great partner in Partners in Association Management. they've already, even though they've only been with us a couple of months, have delivered some fantastic value. ⁓ But outside the operational things, there's a couple of things I'm super excited about.

The first one is that as we as an organization looked at ⁓ the impact we were having on the industry, we realized that we were attracting women. They were finding us. The programs have delivered incredible value. I mean, I don't know if you're aware of this, Justin, but just in the last year between our conference

our monthly masterminds, the things that we do with our partners and our sponsors, we deliver over 75 individual educational opportunities, which I think is remarkable through a mostly volunteer, well, a completely volunteer board that we've been pretty much running ourselves. I love the fact that we have that content and we're having that kind of impact and we're gonna look for ways to continue to grow that.

You know, we did something this year that I think is super important and we created a contractor advisory panel because we didn't want to run the risk of assuming we knew what our members needed from us and to get those voices of the people that were benefiting from our programs. And that contractor advisory panel has really caused us to stop and think about, okay, you're doing the scholarships, great, you're getting these young women into the trades.

or into a four-year university to study engineering or computer science. And you're out there and you're promoting what women are doing in the companies and how they're impacting the industry. But what are we doing to help them get into these companies and stay in these companies? And they challenged her thinking around a couple of ⁓ examples I'll give you just briefly. So you hire a young woman.

to come into your company and to work in the field, and she decides to start a family. How do you navigate being able to make sure physically you're supporting her ability to be able to do that with, how do you balance that with your need in order to be able to generate revenue and be able to continue to support your company? There's no roadmap for some of these things. And so this contractor advisory panel has challenges to say, somebody needs to help companies out there figure this stuff out.

Mmm.

Yeah.

You know, what are some best practices? What are ways that we can not just get these young women into these companies, but also keep them there and have a career path that kind of paces with where they are with their personal life and what they want to have happen. You know, and that happens also in the large OEMs and the service providers, which is how do we support these women through advancement, navigating some of the challenges that they have that might hold them back from advancing.

Women are notoriously sufferers from low confidence. And so sometimes what will happen is that they'll hang back and they won't pursue something because they don't think they're ready. And we're often reminded about the analogy that men will go and apply for the job where they're ready or not. Women will wait until they're super ready to apply for the job. So, you know, giving them the tools and resources that they need to be able to go do that. And then, you know, the other thing that that came up and it was reinforced last week with me at Hardy.

which I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go and attend, is that we had so many men come up and talk to us and say, well, what do I got to do to get these young women and, you know, young women, women in general into my organization? Just tell me what to do. And I thought, there's the gap that exists. You know, we help educate them. We give them a vision of what their career look like. And then to a certain extent, we go, good luck. Call us if you need us.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And maybe we need to do a little bit more work on road mapping and helping the employers and the employees both navigate that journey together. I think there's just a void of information there that we can go fill. And then of course, continuing to build out our mentorship program. We have over 140 involved in our program. It's grown dramatically, almost threefold in the last year. And...

Wow.

You

know, we and we track, we track what our mentors are doing with each other. So where we're able to track it, we know that there's about 450 mentor hours that have transpired between mentors and mentees that we're able to document through our platform. We know that there's countless of their hours. I know with my mentees, it'll be like, Hey, let's have a quick call. We're not actually on our platform. So I bet you if I were to go and tally that all up, it would probably be almost double that. And I love that.

Because I know that people are leveraging each other's experience and knowledge. I have been very public about the fact that I have a mentor. She happens to be a millennial. Because I got asked to write an article about getting more millennials into the industry. And I was like, I have no kids and I'm not a millennial. I need help. And I went and found myself a millennial mentor. And she has been enormously valuable to me because she helps me think differently.

Mm-hmm.

So I want that program to continue. And then our ambassador program, we've done some revamping of it. We've refreshed the materials. And this is going to be a top priority for me. We need to not just talk about getting women in the industry. We need to be out in the local markets, showing these young women, these girls, what careers can look like in this industry and give them the pathway to get there.

There's a lot of talk. There's a lot of talk about it. Our administration is talking about it. There's a lot of talk about filling the gap. And we get calls all the time from trade schools that are saying, hey, can you come in and talk to us about how we can get more applicants? I can provide scholarships and I can give you some advice on how you can get those applicants. But we need to get into the community to show young women. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

what that path into this industry looks like and why it can be so beneficial for them permanently. And I'll stop there because Justin, can ramble on all day.

No, you're good. And it's in my head. I'm thinking about, I'm doing the math of over the last 20 years of owning multiple home service businesses. I mean, we've probably had a dozen female technicians. I mean, hundreds of men, but yeah, there's definitely that gap. And I will say typically when we, the females were better technicians. they kept, they were more organized.

generally. ⁓ Their trucks were cleaner and neater, typically. ⁓ So yeah, I think there's a big opportunity to bring more women into the trades, ⁓ even from a tech level, right? I think most offices, that's kind of people's go-to, is they have primary females in the office, but getting them into the field and letting them understand that this is a really amazing industry, and it can give you a whole lot of amazing things.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ if you just have to make that leap and that step.

We have, because of this scholarship program that we offer, we get so many amazing stories. And I'm going to start with a non-scholarship one first, and then I'll talk to you about a scholarship recipient from this year. So a couple of years ago, when AHR was in Chicago, I had the opportunity to host a group of high school kids.

as we took them through the trade show floor and we'd set up different places for them to stop and to have kind of different experiences with the suppliers that were there. And I hung back, there were maybe 20, well, there were probably close to 100 kids total there, but the group that we had, there were about 20. And there three or four girls that were in the group and I kind of hung in the back, Becky Holcher, who's on the board with me and I kind of gave them that tour. And so I asked the girls, said, so.

Why do think you want to do this? And one of the girls said to me, she's a junior in high school. said, well, she said, I'm going to be a welder. And I said, you're going to be a welder welder or you're going to, you're going to do welding and you're just trying to figure out where. she goes, well, I'll go wherever they need me, but I'm going to be a welder. I said, how, why did you choose welding? She said, well, you got to be good at it and really good welders get paid well. And she said, and the girls in my class were better welders than the boys.

And I kind of smiled because I thought it's that attention to detail, you know, it's that wanting to do, you know, that not all girls are like that, but a lot of them are. And, and she said, and besides you can make really good money at, at welding. And I had already commented on her nails. She had fabulous nails. And, and I said, and she said, besides see these, they don't come for free. And you know, and it, and it just, thought to myself,

Yeah.

Right.

Ha

We just have to help them connect the dots. And it's not about having great nails. It's about having the life that you want to have and the role that being in this industry, know, as you know, Justin, you could come in straight out of high school. You could go to work as a customer service rep with no, you know, advanced education of any kind. And one day you could be running a business, you know, and with the right support and education and development. I mean, how many places can you do that anymore?

That's a fantastic opportunity, a fantastic runway. The second story I'll share with you is with one of our scholarship recipients. So this lady was one of the 10 we were able to award this year. And that's five more than we did last year, so that's huge for us. We're thrilled to be able to see that kind of growth. ⁓ She came to our conference in Las Vegas. She was...

I saw her walk in the hotel and walk up to our registration and she was just this bundle of nervous energy. And so, you she kind of stood and looked and looked a little scared and said, Hey, can I help you? and she just kind of went, wah. And it was, this is the first time I'd been on an airplane. I can't believe I'm here. I I'm so nervous. I'm like, well, let's, you know, let's welcome, let's get you registered. Through the next three days, she was engaged in

every workshop, in every event. She took full advantage of it. And then after she left the conference, we've done some follow-up things where we're inviting, you know, people who attended to share their experiences or to hop on a call. She's been on every single one of them and she's already started to put out there that she wants to, you know, start thinking about starting a business. She's probably in her thirties, Justin. She left nursing.

to go do this. She said nursing and a career in nursing was so hard on her and her family that she did this research and she thought to herself, this is where I need to go to because I have the ability to do what is necessary to do the installation work well. And now I just have to go figure out the business stuff. And she has a plan. And the plan is.

⁓

you know, for her to be able to grow a business that supports her and her family, you know, going forward. And I thought, what a great story. How do I go tell that about a hundred thousand times?

That's, that's pretty incredible. know, sometimes you just give people an opportunity and they'll, they'll run with it, man. we live in a day and age where there, there is a lot of opportunity, but it's one of those things where sometimes people don't know where to look. They don't even know where to go to find an opportunity. It's just, they, they feel like maybe those opportunities are for someone else and not them. So that's, that's pretty incredible work you guys are doing. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and have the courage to ask for help. I mean, how many

of us, you know, hold ourselves back because we don't want to reveal that we maybe not don't necessarily know the next step, you know, and her and her courage to ask for help has inspired so many people have heard so much chatter about it that it's like it comes up in a lot of conversations and it's like, bet you she doesn't even know she's actually being a leader, you know, to other women in demonstrating her own courage.

That's, that's amazing. So, ⁓ so a note that I wrote here that I wanted to share with you, ⁓ and you guys do incredible work and it's great to see the growth. It's cool to see what's coming down the pipeline, but I wrote down good leadership and good vision. And I think that's, that's kind of the path you guys have. You've got great leaders, great leadership in place, and now you guys are working on a really solid vision for the future. And man, it's, it's going to be awesome to see the impact you guys make on.

Mm-hmm.

and the industry and individuals lives, is a big, big deal. So for anybody who wants to find out more information about the organization, what's the best way for them to do that?

So first of all, ⁓ first stop always good place to go is our website, womeninhvacr.org. And Megan Maillard, who is our executive director, whether it's you're asking for information through the website or ⁓ you have a question, she's really great about responding. Our membership is open to anyone in the industry. It is not qualified. We don't put you through a test. We're open to anyone who would like to join, male or female.

It's not just limited to men. And our membership fees, at least for right now, are less than $200 a year. So as I like to put it, it's less than a really nice state dinner out. And that's access to all of our programs and information. If you want to just come talk to us, we will be at AHR. I don't have our booth number yet.

but we're always at HR and we're always incredibly busy. And so they can come up and talk to any of us. I will be in the booth, other members of the board, or they can reach out to me directly or any member of our board. We still manage to have those follow-up conversations with anyone who's interested or if they're a member and they're just looking for, hey, how do I get more involved? We find that the larger we get, people kind of struggle with like, where's my entry point? Like, how do I?

How do I meet more people? Please reach out and ask, because all of us on the board will be happy to individually have that conversation and say, hey, we were there once too. Let's talk about what your interest is or what your need is, and let's kind of figure that out together. So that's a good place to start.

Well, and then also you guys do an annual event as well, correct?

to our members in some geographic locations. The response we get back from these women spending a couple of days at our conference between the energy and the content and the networking is so strong. We'd like to try and bring that out more into a local level where we're reinforcing the building of our community at a local level. So more information on that to come. And then we're at most of the major.

is very cool.

industry events. have fantastic partners that include us in all of their events and it's just a matter of us being able to get people to be out and attend. And we try to have a little fun as well as look for ways to be able to share our knowledge and our content.

I saw the pictures from the last event you guys had and it looked like you guys were having a pretty good time.

Well, listen, you know, we've got some super talented people on involved in our organization, not just at the board, the marketing committee and then Kelsey Bergman and our sponsorship team. ⁓ I've told Kelsey she's ruined me for life because our trade show event was the most fun I've ever had going to any trade show event and I'm ruined. I come on. If you're not having a DJ.

with a signature drink and an acrobat on some spinning ball in the middle of the room, you're just doing a boring trade show event. They ruined it for me. I had a lot of fun at that event. I didn't want to leave it to go on to our next event. I'll just say that.

I know there's quite a few people that I know that were in attendance and they said they had a blast. It was ⁓ a good mix of fun and education and I know that they were certainly excited about next year's event.

Yeah.

I, you we have, we have great sponsors and, ⁓ and all of them deserve, you know, total recognition, through us, but I have to, I have to call out one in particular because they, they helped me out in a big way last week. ⁓ Hardy, which was a fantastic event comes at a very difficult time of the year for all of us. And last week I went personally and worked at our, our Hardy space and a lady from Breeze came and helped me.

And ⁓ they're one of our sponsors and she was there for two days. You her team was there supporting the the Hardy trade show area, but she came and she worked with me. And that's when you know that your sponsors are seeing the value and they're engaged because they made available someone for two days to be with me. And I'm really appreciative. I would have had no voice today if I'd been doing that all myself, because I would have left it in Vegas. I'm just so yeah.

Very cool. The conference next year, you said, did you say it was in Indianapolis?

It is in Indianapolis. Yeah. At the JW Marriott.

Well, listen,

okay, those are always nice hotels. Yeah, very cool. Well, I appreciate you coming and hanging out a little bit. I know you got a lot of work to do. You got a business to run. You've got an organization to keep driving forward. I know that I'm excited for the future with you guys. For anybody listening, I'll make sure in the show notes to put all the information we talked about and the links and how to get access.

to their website and go in there and check it out for sure. But I do appreciate you coming and hanging out with us today.

Well, Justin, thank you so much for the support that you give us as well. It is through programs like yours that we're able to get our message out. And I believe firmly that the growth that we've experienced in the last four to five years is not just because of our sponsors, but it's because of people like you through their podcasts that have talked about us and given us the opportunity to come on. So we're very grateful.

appreciate it and thank you so much.