“Success has its satisfactions”

September 8, 1994 – “Real estate developer Erin Weidner* of East Layton absolutely loves her job and doesn’t feel the least bit guilty about not being a full-time mother.  In fact, she doesn’t understand a lot of the complaints of other working women.

“I’d love to see more women avail themselves to the opportunities that are out there,” said Weidner.

The 32-year-old Weidner is a rarity.  The owner of the Egan Group, she’s a licensed real estate broker, one of the very few female land developers in Utah and one of just a handful of female licensed contractors in the state.

She helps people buy and sell homes and building lots, hooks people up with home builders, is building her first “spec” home in Kaysville — meaning someone better buy or rent it or she’s stuck with the mortgage — and is selling lots and contruction jobs for her first development, the 23-lot Sunset Ridge project in Layton.

“It’s half-sold,” she boasts.

But success wasn’t handed to Weidner.  She has three children, two with spina bifida.  She recalls nine hard years of building her business with the help** of her husband, Salt Lake Tribune photographer Rick Egan.

It takes years to build a business.  For a long time, it took everything we had at the end of the month,” she said.

“Now I work four days a week, 45-50 hours, a lot of long days,” she said. “I set my own hours. I take Tuesdays off because my husband takes Tuesdays off.”

Weidner’s office, where she employs three assistants, is in her home.  Upstairs a nanny takes care of the kids and cleans while she works.

Weidner started out in Bountiful in property management.  One of the builders she was working with had a model home at a subdivision he was developing in Layton.

“I said, let me bring my kids and move in,” she said. “I had it open seven days a week for a year.  It was a pain — I had to clean the house every day. I got my real estate license because I wanted a house for my family to live in.”

Two years later she received her broker’s license and over the years developed contacts with many builders and a reputation for knowing the fast-growing East Layton real estate market inside and out.

With spina bifida challenging a 4-year-old son with crutches and braces, and to a lesser extent affecting an 8-year-old daughter, Weidner found work to be a positive, creative diversion.

“You do your best with what’s on your platter,” she said. “With work you can do your job and have an outcome — so work was very good.”

“If anything, it’s probably helped me,” she said of the childrens’ disabilities.

But the disabilities also put Weidner’s career in perspective.  Her children spent a lot of time in the hospital.”

The Egan’s*** are active Mormons.  Despite church teachings that full-time motherhood is the calling of women, Weidner feels no guilt and says no one from the church gives her a hard time.

“It’s fine,” she says of her church.

Weidner says that over the years she’s experiences a little sexism — “Sometimes men at the construction sites that don’t know me well, will whistle.” In another instance, she quit a job and was emotional. The male boss told her, “It was a monthly hormonal thing.”

But she’s seen a lot more discrimination.

She recalled that at a meeting of Ogden-area real estate brokers some time ago, the leader looked at her and said, “This meeting is for brokers only. Everyone else should leave.”

“I stayed.” Weidner said.

When she applied for her contractor’s license this year, a state clerk insisted that she needed four years of hand-on experience like hanging sheetrock or pounding nails — experience Weidner doesn’t have.  Weidner knew of male real estate brokers who had received contractor’s license without such experience.  The clerk eventually relented and Weidner passed the Utah contractor’s exam on her first try, relying on the knowledge gained over the years working at job sites.

“I’ve never see it as a negative. I see it as a challenge.  It gets my dander up,” Weidner said.

So what about all the problems on the job a lot of working women are complaining about?  Weidner says it helps to find role models.

“They need to see it’s possible,” she said.  “I’d advise them to find some sort of a network, with someone who had a similar problem and fixed it.”

Weidner does as she says when it comes to improving herself and networking.

“I take at least one class a month. If I’m not staying up on job training or the market then I’m obsolete,” she said.  “If I’m not part of a team, I don’t get to have a life.”

“If you want more money, figure out how you can improve yourself in order to get it,” she said.

Besides working with the Utah Association of Realtors, Weidner is state president of the Spina Bifida Association and chairs a Utah Disabilities Project management board.

“I feel very strongly about volunteering,” she said.

Published September 8, 1994. Written by Steve Green – Standard-Examiner Staff

###

AUTHOR’S POST SCRIPT

*I use my maiden name here, rather than my married name which was used in the original piece.

**The male author (I must presume, a Utah Mormon) made the assumption that my business was ‘helped’ by my then husband.  My children’s father was, and still is, a newspaper sports photographer without familiarity of real estate, construction, land development or office/employee management.

***My married name was Egan. While I was raised Mormon, I no longer consider myself as such.

###

Postscript:  There is an entire additional discussion to be had here with regards to verbiage and cultural assumptions that were pervasive in Utah. They are queerly present throughout this article.  I can say,  that I was quite happy to leave Utah behind and move back to my hometown of Rancho Santa Fe in the great state of California.