Building Better Homes Starts With Better Construction Culture

In this episode of Women at WIRC, we sit down with Gena Hoyt, co-owner of New Brunswick, Canada-based Big Dog Construction, to talk about her experience building a thriving construction business. Gena shares how her background in agriculture and business administration shaped her approach to leadership, design, and project management, while also uplifting and opening doors for other trades people through her role as executive director of BS & Beer Canada, an initiative focused on promoting building science education.

Welcome back to Women at WIRC, where our editors from sister media brands—Pro Builder, Pro Remodeler, and Custom Builder—sit down with standout women across home building, remodeling, and design. We share their stories and business insights, and explore how women are reshaping the residential building industry.

Tyler Rhyan: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Women at WIRC. I'm your host, Tyler, and today I'm joined by Gena Hoyt. Gena is the owner of Big Dog Construction in New Brunswick, Canada. She runs it with her partner, Aron, who serves as the site supervisor. Gena's role in the company is multifaceted — she handles design work, installation, scheduling, and social media, just to name a few. We're so glad to have her here with us today. Welcome to the podcast, Gena.

Gena Hoyt: Thanks, Tyler. Happy to be here.

Tyler: So, to get started, just give me a brief rundown on the origins of Big Dog Construction and how this whole thing came to be.

Gena: Aron and I came from very different backgrounds, but life brought us together at one point. He had a previous construction company that I was helping him try to manage and do the books for, because he was basically drowning. At some point, we just said, you know what, let's start fresh. So, we started a new company — we started Big Dog Construction. The name came from him having big dogs. He had Newfoundlands and a Great Pyrenees at the time. We were on a job site one day, and he turned around and said, "We'll just call it Big Dog Construction." He laughed and thought it was a joke. I looked at him quite seriously and said, "No, that's what we're going to do." It was part of his identity at the time in the area we worked in, and it's become a big part of our identity now as we've grown the company over the last, oh gosh, fourteen years.

Tyler: So, how did your educational background prepare you for this line of work? Did running the business come naturally to you, or were there things you had to learn along the way?

Gena: A bit of both. And also, you know, how I grew up played a role. I grew up on a fruit tree farm, so I was around tractors and equipment and different kinds of construction. You were taught how to fix things — you didn't always call someone to come do it for you. That led me into my formal education, which actually started in agriculture. I finished that after two years and then did a Bachelor of Business Administration at UNB here in New Brunswick. So I already had some formal education in running a business — project management, HR, accounting, all of those things. That set me up really well to work in construction, because I'm able to run the business side and do all the things that Aron doesn't really care to do. At the same time, I'm happy to jump in and help out, learn new things, try new things. That's led me into being able to do custom tile work and more finish carpentry and painting. I was really never afraid to just step in and do it.

Tyler: Well, it sounds like you juggle quite a lot of roles within the company. I'm curious — how do you go about balancing all of that work, and what aspects of the job do you find the most rewarding?

Gena: Honestly, most days it's a dumpster fire. You have to be really good at triage and deciding what's important to do today and what actually needs to get done today. Sometimes my procrastination gets in the way of that, because there are things I don't like to do that I sometimes don't prioritize — which just makes the dumpster fire worse. But I love getting into a new project with people. I love meeting new clients and learning about them, learning about their lifestyle, learning about what they want from a new home or renovation, listening to their needs and how they're going to live and use the space, and then designing around that. That's probably one of the most fun parts of my job. And then of course, being part of the social media world, getting to go to trade shows, and the sheer number of people we've been around over the last few years — that's been amazing.

Tyler: What has your experience been as a woman working in the field of construction? Have you run into any challenges or setbacks?

Gena: That's a big question. I am an atypical personality, and on top of that, I have red hair, and I'm very stubborn and very confident — so that has allowed me to deal with a lot of the conflicts and issues that some women face. I have friends who are in construction, boots on the ground, who are not as confident and not as outspoken as I am, and it affects them differently. There are some areas of construction I think are more challenging than others. The commercial and industrial world is a lot harder for women to break into than the residential sector. In residential, you typically have people running companies who are more inclusive and more open to women being in the field. But I've still had challenges — tradespeople who didn't accept that I was the boss, who didn't accept that I was the one telling them what to do. I've had suppliers and others with complete shock on their face when they learned that I'm the one who owns the company and not Aron. But there have also been great people who helped me along the way, and great women I've looked up to and become friends with who helped me get through some of those harder moments.

Tyler: Do you have any advice for other women who are looking to pursue a career in the trades?

Gena: It's hard to work in any field that's male-dominated. Some women can feel intimidated by being the only one, and I think a lot of companies — small to large — do a really bad job of making people feel included in their culture. That goes for anyone who feels a little different, but I think with women, it's just a little bit more. Women need to understand and accept that we are different. Sometimes we do need more help. Sometimes we aren't as strong, and sometimes we can't do the things that men do — and that's okay. You need to be comfortable in your own skin and look yourself in the mirror every day and say, "I can do this." That's the biggest thing most women struggle with: accepting the fact that they do belong. Normalizing women in the trades is really important, and being confident in the fact that you belong there will get you a lot further than almost anything else.

Tyler: You also serve as the executive director and co-founder of BS & Beer Canada. Could you explain to our listeners what that's all about and what you set out to achieve with these monthly webinars?

Gena: The BS & Beer movement is not new — it was started by a group of architects, builders, and people in the construction trades in the New England states. During COVID, when they couldn't meet in person anymore, they moved it to Zoom. We were all glued to our laptops once a week, watching their BS & Beer Zoom show. It grew like wildfire — they started with just a few people, but everyone was sitting at home, so the audience exploded. They did the show once a week throughout COVID and then partnered with Fine Homebuilding, which gave them the support to make it even better. One of the members of that chapter also started the BS & Beer symposiums — in-person events held all across the US. We're fortunate enough to know a lot of those people personally and consider them friends. So, three years ago, a group of us in Canada said, "Hey, we could do this here." It's sometimes hard with our population base to hold in-person meetings on a regular basis, so we do a Zoom show just like they do, and we also hold an annual in-person symposium. We've done one in Vancouver and one recently in the Halifax area. We took the model they started in the US and just brought it here. Our focus is on education — getting information out to our builder community, making people feel welcome, and encouraging them to ask questions. It's the only way our industry is going to move forward and the only way we're going to get everyone on par with building better homes for people.

Tyler: I know from talking with Aron a few months back that building science education is a topic of passion for Big Dog. Between your social media presence — which is largely educational content filmed on the job site — and BS & Beer Canada, what inspired you to use the internet to become a voice in building science education?

Gena: Apprentices — that's another hot topic at Big Dog Construction. Most of the time, we are fully invested in hiring and training apprentices and newer people who want to come and be part of the trades. Aron had a couple of apprentices over about a two-year period who kept saying, "There's this IG thing that just came out, and it's really cool — I'm learning all this neat stuff from people posting on it. Did you know you could do this with a table saw? Did you know you could do that?" And Aron was like, "Yes, yes, I'm aware. I can do those things with the table saw, too." But then his daughter came to work with us in 2019, and she challenged him. She said, "I come to work with you every day, and you're teaching me all these things, and you're great at it. You should be filming it and putting it on Instagram — I bet you'd have a thousand followers within a month." She bet him he'd hit a thousand followers in a month, then helped him learn the technology and the platform. I think it took a little longer than a month, but he still honored the agreement — when he hit a thousand followers, he bought her a bottle of wine as a gift for spurring it on. Over the last five years, the account and the community have just kept growing. It's been great.

Tyler: And finally, is there anything else you wanted to add that we didn't get to? Anything you want to let our audience know before we sign off?

Gena: I think it's important for people to understand that getting women into construction is not as easy as they might think. A lot of companies have a problem with their culture, and they don't understand what it means to be equitable rather than just treating people with equality. If you want women to come into your company and stay — and honestly, if you want anyone to stay regardless of gender — you have to create a culture that's inclusive. You have to give everybody a fair fighting chance to perform their job despite their weight, their size, their height, or their strength.

Tyler: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today, Gena. We really appreciate it.

Gena: Thank you, Tyler.

Thanks for listening to Women at WIRC. This podcast is a spinoff of our annual Women in Residential Construction Conference, which we’ve hosted since 2016. You can learn more about the conference and see when we’ll be in your area by visiting womensconstructionconference.com. Women at Work is a production of Endeavor Business Media, a division of Endeavor B2B. Until next time, keep up the good work.