- Women own almost 1 million businesses in Texas.

- Texas women hold about 45 percent of the jobs in the business and professional services industry, which contributed nearly $180 billion to the Texas economy.

- Women hold 28 percent of top-level executive positions in Texas.

- Some 733,000 jobs in the professional and business services categories are held by women.

- And every dollar earned by a woman in Texas results in approximately $2.05 in wages, salaries and other compensation.

These were just some of the highlights at a recent press event with Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar at Neighborly headquarters. You can read the full story about the visit in the Waco Tribune-Herald HERE. It was quite an honor to have our global headquarters be a stop on his “Good For Texas Tour: Women in the Workforce Edition.” And our own Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer Lisa Zoellner, who hosted our guest, was recognized as one of the shining examples of women making a profound and far-reaching impact in the workforce in her leadership role for our billion-dollar organization.

Women in the service trades are making strides too.

It’s not only an affirmation of the impact and contributions that women are making in Texas. For me, it’s also the larger realization of the great contributions we can continue to make across the country and around the world. And it was wonderful to see this event shine a spotlight on Neighborly’s Women in the Trades program too. See the Texas Insider story HERE.

I have long been a proponent of educating more women about career opportunities in the service trades. And at new owner business training across our Neighborly service brands each month, I witness first-hand that many of our franchisees are husband and wife teams bringing the best of their collective experiences to the services they are delivering on the front lines in their local communities. And they are the first to tell you that a female perspective is useful in our industry.

We need more skilled workers. And that includes women.

In addition, as Lisa shared at the press event, a very low jobless rate in the state and across our service industries has created a huge demand for more skilled trades workers. And why not open the possibilities to more women entering those trades.

It’s one reason I continue to champion our Women in the Trades scholarship program to provide support for continuing education across our service trades. And the success stories continue to grow as more women not only find jobs and careers, but also an incredibly high satisfaction rate with our core customers who are overwhelmingly the woman of the house.

So, as we honor the great contributions that women are making in Texas, I hope to see more of them in our Neighborly businesses as well. The opportunities are endless as customer service representatives, sales people, skilled service professionals and, yes, even franchise owners. For more about franchise opportunities with our Neighborly brands, visit: http://bit.ly/2OxDZuxNeighborlyfranchises.