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In the past couple of generations, for the first time in history, women have flourished in myriad careers that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago.

In this story, you will meet a private investigator who explains what her profession is really like, the CEO of an industrial product manufacturer who was once a day care provider, and the CEO of a roofing contracting company who deliberately doesn’t look for discrimination.

Interestingly, none of these women dwelled on the idea of working in a “man’s world.” For each of them, capability, experience and a good attitude are of much greater importance than gender.

Kathy Waesche, private investigator,
Black Diamond Legal
Investigations, LLC
Real-life private investigator Kathy Waesche says her job is nothing like what you see on TV. “I’m a professional,” she says, explaining that she has an undergraduate degree in psychology as well as a master’s degree. “My job is to search out the facts in the case, yet I must follow the law and the attorneys’ code of ethics.”

Her clients typically are attorneys, and her areas of expertise include civil and criminal cases, many of which are environmental or sexual assault investigations, and death-related cases, including searching for heirs.

After working as a paralegal for 20 years, Waesche was recovering from surgery in 1995 when she started her company, Black Diamond Legal Investigations, LLC. She thought she would work as a legal investigator part time, but demand for her skills quickly turned her new profession into a full-time job.

Although there’s no typical day or week, she spends a lot of time conducting witness interviews, researching proprietary databases, visiting libraries and courthouses, digging through old files, writing reports and testifying in court. Waesche works from home and often during odd hours.

She says no two investigations are the same. “I can work on a case for four years or a couple of weeks or sometimes even an hour,” she says. “I’ve worked on several high-profile cases, including work for some very famous people. One was a childhood idol of mine. That’s the good news, but the bad news is I can’t tell anyone who it is.”

Her favorite sort of work is genealogy. For example, an attorney hired her to search for kin of a man who had died with no known living relatives. He had lived in an institution since the 1950s, and no one knew anything about his family. Waesche searched genealogy Web sites and city directories and spoke to librarians.

She located the man’s sister after tying her to an old, forgotten document — the receipt of a headstone the woman purchased for another brother, who died in infancy — and informed her of an inheritance. “It’s such obscure research,” she explains. “It’s putting together a puzzle where the answers come from different parts of the country.”

Does Waesche carry a gun? “I’ve thought about shooting my computer a couple times,” she teases, “but no.” She admits she is frustrated by the glamorous and often ridiculous image of her profession depicted on TV shows. “People think we break into buildings and break laws,” she says. “They think you can solve something in an hour.” The reality is that she spends a lot of her time sitting in front of a computer and digging through ancient files in courthouses, which can sometimes be dull. But at its best, her work is intriguing and exciting and allows her to learn new things constantly.

Waesche, who is a former president of the Professional Private Investigators Association of Colorado, is detail-oriented, persistent and intuitive. She also explains that she is a good listener, a skill that is vital in this profession. But above all, she is knowledgeable about and respectful of the law, carefully following laws about privacy, witness protection, recording conversations and other things.

Karen McCormack, president
and CEO of Denver Rubber Company
As president and CEO of a family business, Karen McCormack is accustomed to some teasing on the job. “I got my hair cut this morning and my brother said, ‘It’s an interesting cut, but you better get some hair dye,’” she says. Unfazed, she told him that she likes her gray.

Working in a family business, you hear it like it is. Management meetings sometimes become brawls, but McCormack says, “We learn to put on the gloves and take them off at the end.”

Denver Rubber Company was started 34 years ago by McCormack’s father in the garage of their home. Today, the company occupies a 17,000-foot warehouse and employs 16 people. They manufacture and supply gaskets, industrial hose assemblies and pumps to industrial markets.

McCormack, 51, is at the helm; her brother is the chief financial officer; and her husband is the chief operations officer. The company also employs her sister-in-law and daughter as well as a niece and a nephew.

McCormack is a mother of four who ran a day care at her home for several years while raising her children. Interestingly, she says heading a rubber company isn’t a huge change from managing a day care: “You are dealing with people, money and a product or service. It’s really about giving customers what they happen to need at the moment.”

A member of the Gasket Fabricators Association, McCormack says that out of about 1,400 gasket fabricating businesses, only three or four are owned by women. But she believes that statistic will change. “I think we will see more of this happening as people in my parents’ generation pass on their businesses and recognize that women can and are doing things that men can do and have done,” she says. “It was always, your son will take over the business; now it’s your son or daughter.”

As a businesswoman, McCormack is decisive and doesn’t dwell on her mistakes. “When you are considering something, consider it well, do the best you can, and move on,” she advises.

“I think what really helps a company to be successful is if you can figure out how to put the right people in the right places, put the egos aside and work cooperatively with others whether they are family or not,” McCormack says. Her husband and brother are more detail-oriented, while McCormack’s own interests are the psychology of running a business as well as big-picture, strategic thinking and marketing. In fact, she’s in the process of re-branding the company from Denver Rubber Company to DRC Companies, which she believes is broader and better reflects the current product line.

In addition to tremendous family support, which she says has been instrumental in her success, McCormack also is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She believes joining the organization five years ago was one of the best things she has done. “I wasn’t looking for customers. I was looking for support,” she explains. “It has helped me personally and professionally and really expanded my network. I absolutely think I’ve grown as a leader, as a person and as a business owner.”

Beth Gloss, president
and CEO of United Materials
Although she once considered careers in teaching and social work, Beth Gloss says roofing allows her to pursue all of her interests: getting to know people, providing stable careers for employees and developing new technologies and techniques.

As president and CEO of United Materials, Gloss, 55, has been in the roofing industry for 31 years, although it all began accidentally. After earning a degree in forestry from CSU, Gloss worked for the federal government for a couple of years. She then was hired as a bookkeeper by a roofing company in Fort Collins, but instead of keeping the books, the owner asked her to be an estimator. “It was absolutely unheard of,” Gloss says about being a woman working in roofing. “They wrote an article in the newspaper about it the second year I was there.”

To her surprise, Gloss loved estimating and enjoyed the industry. “I went out and spent months with the crews learning to roof correctly,” she explains. “I don’t believe you can tell people how to do something if you don’t know how to do it yourself.” She learned the profession inside out and was hired 19 years ago at United Materials.

After rising in the ranks at United Materials, she bought the business a few years ago from the second-generation owner, William Kugler. Today she owns 90 percent of the company. “In our business the people you work with are treated as family,” Gloss explains. “Part of the buyout agreement I had with Bill Kugler is that I would preserve the culture of the company, which is valuing your customers and your employees above all else.”

Among Gloss’s 70 employees the average length of employment is 13 years, which is rare in the tumultuous construction business. The cost of health insurance and, in many cases, continuing education is fully absorbed by the company, which breeds a positive company culture and loyal employees. “We consider roofing a profession, not a job. You can make a decent living at it and send your kids to college. It’s a life you can be proud of,” she says.

United Materials, a roofing contractor, specializes in re-roofing, roof repair and roof maintenance among mostly commercial and industrial clients. “My poor mother has the worst time explaining to her friends that her daughter is a roofer,” she says with a laugh.

Otherwise, the only thing that’s been tough for Gloss is proving her competence when people first meet her. The 5-foot-tall Gloss says her size and gender are sometimes an advantage because in a heavily male-dominated field, she is memorable. “I think women encounter far more discrimination when they look for it than when they are not paying attention,” she says.

Gloss has an advanced business degree from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is proud that her daughter now owns a small portion of United Materials. “According to the National Roofing Contractors Association, we are the first company introducing a second-generation woman into a roofing business,” she says.

Gloss recently was asked by Congress to testify about the Small Business Administration’s lack of progress in implementing the Women’s Procurement Program to help women more successfully compete for government contracting work.