Wilson & Company
by Kevin Fritz
The construction business may be a male-dominated industry, but Oviedo’s Wilson & Company is changing that narrative one hire at a time.
Kinsley Elfand, accountant and business development manager for Wilson & Company, says the full-service commercial construction firm has hired four women in the past five years – including two during the pandemic – bringing the total female representation on board to seven out of 30 employees.
“It is unusual for a construction company to have almost 25 percent of its employees be women,” says Kinsley, who joined Wilson & Company in 2015. “And it’s not just administration. Stephanie Ellis, a project manager, has been with us for seven years. She started as an intern.”
In addition to Stephanie and Kinsley, the five other females on the Wilson & Company team include Sharon Hisey, administrative assistant (nine years); Lindsay Pieczynski, accounts payable coordinator (four years); Shana
Parks, project coordinator (two years); Juany Santana, project coordinator (one year); and Rachel Wiggin, accounting coordinator (six months).
Kinsley explains that the company’s growth was the impetus for the new hires. In fact, Wilson & Company has added 16 men and women in the past three years, more than doubling its staff. The company also opened an office in Tampa to partner on a number of projects with ROJO Architecture.
“Business has been steady,” Kinsley reports. “We’ve been doing a lot of medical work throughout the pandemic, including installing protective shields and renovating clinics.”
Kinsley credits the workforce shift created by the pandemic for helping Wilson & Company move forward with the times.
New Leadership
At the same time Wilson & Company was undergoing some fundamental changes, founder and owner Parks Wilson officially announced his retirement and named Barry Henderson to succeed him.
Marking 24 years with the company this year, Barry started out working summers at Wilson & Company while attending the College of the Ozarks in Missouri. The now-45-year-old worked his way up through the ranks, eventually becoming president.
Parks and his wife Amelia, who retired a few years ago, founded Wilson & Company in 1994.
Barry, who lives in Sorrento with his wife Liz and their two boys, Reese (15) and Jacob (12), grew up as a missionary child in New Guinea.
“Growing up in a missionary family and spending time overseas was a huge blessing – not just in life experiences, but also living a life of faith focused on others – and it really impacted my adult life and leadership goals,” says Barry.