Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamara Higgins.
Tamara, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born and raised in Chicago, part of a family owned silk-screen printing business, where I learned the value of working hard, the power of knowledge, integrity and trust. I saw great growth, as the family printed for large entities like the Chicago Cubs and Pepsi; however, I also learned about inconsistent monies as an entrepreneur. After high school, I got a job in downtown Chicago working as a data entry clerk for a company that reproduced old blueprints. At that time, AutoCAD was fairly new and I was given an opportunity to learn. They found I picked up on it very quickly and in no time I was the one that redrew over old blueprints for clients like the Chicago Art Institute and Quad Cities nuclear power plants. I couldn’t settle there, I started putting myself through school in the evenings to be an Engineer. I soon took a job for a manufacturer in the Engineering department, learning all the practices and communications. Over the next 8-10 years, I grew in the manufacturing industry, working for various plants, from an Engineering Assistant to eventually a Project Manager. My life changed in 2001, I was married to my 1st husband. He was a great support for me in my venture to success.
Almost immediately, he introduced me to a family friend who owned a glass & glazing subcontracting firm in the commercial construction industry. At that time, I was working for a window manufacturer, which had a construction branch, so based on my overview of experience, it appeared I did not have much of a learning curve. I was offered a job as a project manager and changed my focus from engineering to construction management.
In 2004, I became pregnant and thrilled to start planning our family, yet I continued to work long hours and go to school in the evenings, now for Construction Management. I took very little time off after the baby was born, but my husband, who had a recent back surgery did not return to work and stayed home with the baby instead. In 2008, my family and I moved to Dallas, as we decided a little sunshine would do us good. I immediately got a job as a Project Manager for a glass & glazing subcontractor, where I flourished…even a year later when the economy took a turn for the worse. The employees understood that in order to keep their jobs, everyone must go above and beyond their standard job duties. I took the initiative to join some industry organizations, I started marketing and doing sales calls and events, along with my standard project management in which I ran multiple jobs at a time. I also started a service department for the company with helped with their cash flow. At a time, where companies were going bankrupt, this particular company began to grow and gain capital.
In 2011, I decided to start a consulting firm myself, UNITY Commercial Solutions, in order to be a minority asset for our clients. The model of this firm was to assist the construction team on facade materials to be specified, generate competitive pricing and ensure building codes were being met. Although my career seemed to be secure and future looking bright, my marriage was severely struggling.
In 2012, my husband and I decided to divorce. I started to feel the repercussions of putting all my time into work. I blamed some of my marriage failure on my lack of involvement with my husband, but like anything, there are more reasons and more sides to the story. At this point, my only healing was burying myself in the business and in 2013 some wonderful things happened. I met someone who would eventually become my next husband and business partner, but not to fast-forward the story. Around that time, I was actually offered an executive position and potential partnership with a small glass & glazing firm. The intention was to help them build a more lucrative portfolio and grow financially. I believed I could be part of something great that I could finally take some ownership in. I bought my first house by myself and a very nice car that I felt indicated I had reached the next level in life. In 2014, I was approached with an innovative product for facades that I really wanted to promote and install, but it didn’t fit the glass & glazing industry. After much thought and evaluation, I made the tough decision to leave the potential partnership and evolve UNITY Commercial Solutions from a consulting firm to a subcontractor, focusing on wall panel systems (facades, instead of the openings), with me being 100% minority owner. I believed I was taking control of my own destiny and I knew that if I continued to work hard there’s no way I couldn’t be successful. I brought in a few guys, that seemed to be like minded and good assets to the growth of the company, who took on sales, estimating and field operations. My significant other, who I had been dating for about a year, also wanted us to start an education-compliance company together (SECTOR Consulting Group), which would compliment the safety, regulations, training and human resources of UNITY, as we grew. The education was his background and the construction-engineering was mine, so we saw quickly how each company could compliment the other and quite frankly would become successful at a faster pace with the other by its side. UNITY seemed to start off in the subcontracting world just as I had planned. We promoted various innovative panel systems and worked with construction teams to help facilitate the proper systems in order to meet the budget and design intent.
At the end of 2014, UNITY finally started its first project with the expanded vision. Theft and collusion came to the surface with one of the guys I brought on board and the company lost a significant amount of planned profits. This didn’t slow anything down though. I replaced that loss with an investor and we continued to gain relationships and contracts as we moved into 2015. By the end of that year, we were working through $2.5M worth of contracts and I had established an internal and external workforce, in which we were looking to double in size, including revenue, in 2016. Unfortunately, the drastic growth brought on a desperate need for employees, and a difficult time in finding ones who were truly qualified, loyal and experienced. Although many were smart, their lack of experience in their role created many holes in the company’s communications and finances. The high demands in scheduling left us little to no room for proper training, even with a partner company that specializes in this! One of every three employees were fraudulent or thieves, from check fraud, theft of tools, kickbacks on 2nd tier labor subcontractors, stealing clients to do work on the side, lying on time sheets, etc., etc. We suddenly had very little chance to be successful, as the growth was too much, too fast, with a poorly produced team. I found myself working in every department, helping the team and losing site of managing the business itself…and definitely not spending my time with SECTOR in which I also shared ownership with. Finally, it was all too much. One of UNITY’s large clients decided to start slow paying and UNITY couldn’t afford to keep the workforce on the jobsite or manage vendor payables. In November of 2016, right after I accepted the “Rising Star” Luna Award on behalf of UNITY Commercial Solutions, the domino affect happened. One client not paying affected the entire field workforce and cash flow. Other clients would begin to not pay, due to our inability to keep men on site and everything began to quickly crumble, yet I still had hope and desperately tried to hold on, believing I could regain control with some creativity in the workforce and successfully completing a few more projects.
Unbelievably another large client started to slow pay…worse than the previous. By February 2017, reality was setting in, I couldn’t do this on my own and I needed to change my vision altogether. I had a buyer for UNITY! I was excited and ready to move on, as I officially tied the knot (married) with my now husband, and could truly focus on our business together. I realized that if I put in 1/4 of the energy into SECTOR that I had in UNITY, we could absolutely be a dynamic successful team. The difference was, I suddenly wasn’t alone. This was my life partner who not only supported my dreams, but was truly a partner in business and in life. In March 2017, I was disappointed to find out that the Buyer of UNITY would most likely not happen. Over the next several months, I found myself losing just about everything that was material to my success with UNITY; however, what I did gain was insight, knowledge, submission and a hard humbling. I realize now that no one has control over their destiny, only their choices and decisions made. I sometimes wish many of my decisions would have been different in the past, but the past is what makes me who I am today and I am wiser, stronger and ready for Gods plan. My husband and I are now enjoying a place in our lives where we have very few neighbors, the dogs can run, the boys can fish and we enjoy the sunsets every night. I am predominately working from home (unless I’m training construction courses for SECTOR), as I help SECTOR sustain a healthy organic growth with a few other partners in the business, who are all loyal, honest, selfless, creative visionaries. The energy I now put into my work is directed toward the workforce, from employers, employees and job seekers to the people that just want self improvement or mindfulness. My primary focus though is my work in our home and work for my family. I am finally feeling restful, peaceful and happy.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the SECTOR Consulting Group story. Tell us more about the business.
SECTOR stands for Safety-Education-Compliance-Training-Operations-Resourcing. Our partners have a variety of backgrounds from manufacturing, engineering, construction, staffing, medical, human resources, K-12 learning to higher education, corporate education and compliance…all before teaming up with SECTOR. We train and certify skills trades and all kinds of compliance courses, dealing with OSHA, ANSI, EPA and ISO. We also train leadership, mindfulness, soft skills and a diverse healthy culture on all levels of an organization, which we tend to automatically incorporate in even the most rigid of programs utilizing dynamic facilitators of education that really make an impact. When SECTOR was initiated, we designed a credentialing system that incorporates an individual’s education, certifications, accreditation’s and CEU’s all on one ID card, to be accessed with a QR code. We have recently partnered with a company that had already developed software to manage finances, registration and much more. This will provide the end user a well-rounded management system for any company’s employees, individual or industry. What we are known for is the same as what sets us apart from others, being able to create and deliver a dynamic presentation for any topic, as well as maintaining all credentials for an individual no matter where taken.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We can stand on our own or act as a vendor for a community college; therefore, we are able to provide companies with grant funding opportunities, creating training resources for the workforce even in a struggling economy. I see us doing more online training across the board, but for the workforce and job seekers, we are incorporating videos or live web with live trainers on site. We will continue to grow with the technical desires of our population, but will always provide “old school” training, as required in certain scenarios. As the world evolves and workforce or human race continues to have needs, SECTOR will be right there with it.
Pricing:
- Level 1: $150 and below (per person, per day); introductory level, basic skills, compliance.
- Level 2: $150-$250 (per person, per day); enhancing professional development skills, compliance, leadership.
- Level 3: $250-$350 (per person, per day); mid-level management, culture change in work environment.
- Level 4: $350 and up (per person, per day); upper management, intense skills trades with labs.
Contact Info:
- Address: 103 E. Virginia St.
Suite 207 - Website: www.sector-team.com
- Phone: 972-734-5353
- Email: tamara.higgins@sector-team.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamSector/
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
