At the 2023 Self Storage Trade Show in Las Vegas, among roughly 3,000 attendees, 100 were women, and Larendee was one of them. For many years before that, she was often the only woman in a boardroom. She can rightfully be called a “black swan” — rare and positively impactful in this space. What can we learn from her story?  

The Path

Larendee’s path to the construction world is a serendipitous and winding one. She started her career as an executive assistant at a single-family home development firm amid the housing market boom of the 1980s.

 

Then Black Monday happened. On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 22.6%. A housing market crash followed, the housing division of the firm closed, and most of the employees were terminated.

 

But homes come with warranties. A home warranty is a residential service contract which covers the cost of maintaining household systems (electrical, plumbing, pools, etc.) or appliances (HVAC, refrigerator, stove, etc.) for a set period. Someone must keep track of the warranties and handle home-owners’ complaints and repair requests. The CEO asked Larendee if she would be that person to say yes, a quality she long held a belief in living up to –especially if most people would say no.

 

The construction world had quite the impact on her.

 

For a few years, she took calls from homeowners and found suitable contractors for each. Whenever a call came in, she would immediately call three or four subcontractors from the Rolodex left behind by the superintendents to see who was available at the time. 

 

“I learned so much by shadowing the contractors.”

 

As time went by, she built a list of solutions to typical problems homeowners have. She realized that some issues might have been avoided if the contractor had done the job differently.

 

“I fell in love with it. It’s problem-solving.” 

 

The experience sparked her later commitment to improvement, not only to homes and buildings but also to organizations. It’s a natural progression considering how often we use the home metaphor when we talk about a company or a management team. Eventually, Larendee was asked to work in the accounting department, and was ultimately promoted to Regional Manager for the self-storage division in the northeast. 

 

“I saw [operations] from the ground up and worked with our teams to build the standard processes that improved operations, our teams, and the bottom line.”

 

 Like an intuitive anthropologist, she considers participation and hands-on learning the best education.

 

“My mentor, Ken Woolley, saw some abilities within me and was willing to give me the chance to learn and grow on the job. It’s been invaluable to my professional and personal life.”

 

 She kept on building on the initial experience and became an executive herself in a world that is, and has always been, dominated by men. There are lots of discussions about gender equality in the workplace. Larendee’s journey is the silver lining. 

 

“For all those years I was the only woman in the room, I was fortunate because the men in that room didn’t expect me to behave like them. They valued a feminine perspective. As a woman, whether a contractor, an engineer, or a leader, work for companies that are open-minded and flexible. They exist. Not only do they want you in the room, they recognize it’s important for you to be there because you have a different perspective. If we expand further, there is no need to have gender identification. We bring the best minds to a workplace.” 

 

That is one of the things Larendee has been striving to do for twenty years.

 

In 2003, Larendee decided to make a bigger impact. She founded Roos Advisors, a consulting firm in the construction and real estate spaces. Today, we have offices in California, Utah, New Jersey, and New York.