Focus

As you know, NRCA has entered its first year with a female chairman of the board (though several female roofing professionals have served and continue to serve on NRCA's board of directors and as committee members). Although the changing face of NRCA's volunteer leadership may seem somewhat slow to some, NRCA (and the roofing industry) now are keeping pace with national trends in business ownership.

According to the National Women's Business Council, an analysis of 2012 U.S. Census Bureau data shows there were almost 10 million female-owned small businesses in the U.S.—a 27.5 percent increase from 2007.

The council says those businesses earned $1.6 trillion between 2007 and 2012 and 89.4 percent were sole proprietorships.

And as the roofing industry has seen more Latinos enter its workforce, the nation has seen more female Latinos managing companies. The National Women's Business Council reports the largest increase in business ownership was among Latino women—87 percent more businesses were owned by Latino women in 2012 than in 2007. That's a bigger gain than businesses owned by Latino men, which increased 40 percent during the same time period.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the term "Latino" "refers to persons who identified themselves in the enumeration process as being Spanish, Hispanic or Latino. Persons of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity may be of any race."

These trends shouldn't come as a surprise. Women have been incrementally increasing their business presence for decades, and we all know Latinos are a driving economic force in the U.S.

But the challenge now is to relearn ways in which we communicate. For instance, the "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" theory may cross over more often from relationships at home to relationships at work. And, of course, cultural differences abound between non-Latinos and Latinos.

As former Fiji President Josefa Iloilo said: "We need to reach that happy stage of our development when differences and diversity are not seen as sources of division and distrust but of strength and inspiration."

Ambika Puniani Bailey is editor of Professional Roofing and NRCA's vice president of communications and production.