2026 Women in Signs: Heather Kincaid

Heather Kincaid
Owner and President, Kinly Signs dba
Signarama River Cities (South Point, OH)

HEATHER KINCAID’S SIGN industry story is an uncommon one. She started out in marketing, then taught business in high school for 15 years. After her husband Bernard was laid off from his job, he fell in love with signs working for a friend who owned a signshop, which the Kincaids tried to acquire. When their bid fell through, they turned to Signarama.

Kincaid continued to teach even as they were running their shop, while also completing her graduate degree and looking after six boys. She did bookkeeping remotely while at school, and once classes ended at 2:30, she headed over to the shop — only 5 minutes away — oversaw HR and marketing until evening, then finally worked on her college assignments at home.

The team at Kinly Signs dba Signarama River Cities (South Points, OH).

“I was a professional student for quite a while and was extremely addicted to it and loved going to college. I would go back again but I’m not allowed!” says Kincaid, who holds four degrees. “I just wanted my kids to know that just because you have all the training for one job doesn’t mean you’re tied to it.”

Kincaid loves sign people. Every day she gets to work with her husband and son, their installation manager, to see custom projects through from start to finish. “I absolutely love it when we get a really cool sign in here and we all get to put our minds together and figure out how to make it,” she adds. “Even though I’m not a fab person, it’s still fun to be in on those conversations and to watch them plan it.” She brings her sewing skills to the table, turning materials into something beautiful.

For this reason Kincaid looks forward most to seeing her team excel at their jobs and push the company along with the industry ahead. “I love taking them to the ISA show and watching their faces light up with all of the new things that are coming out,” she says, adding that the exponential development of technology, AI in particular, is changing the industry by leaps and bounds. “I think we’re right on the cusp of an incredible growth and how we build things with AI — it’s almost like the Industrial Revolution where everything kind of burst all at once,” she continues.

But it’s people that pose the greatest challenge for Kincaid. “Trying to keep a team of 18 together and on the same page, getting along and enjoying working together is very challenging,” she says, adding that she particularly sweats over having to fill an opening with a candidate who not only has the skills for the job but also fits in with the company culture. “It’s like a family. There’s always some friction somewhere that’s difficult to get over.”

The friction is all the more pronounced in the rural area where her company operates: a “good ol’ boy town” as Kincaid calls it, where her credibility as a business leader has at times gone unrecognized despite nine years of experience. She recalls an interaction with a participant in the Master’s Academy Training Series, in which Signarama franchisees with notable abilities offer training to other location owners — Kinly Signs’ specialty being vehicle wraps.

“I had a couple guys come in from an area that was extremely chauvinistic and did not think women needed to be in any kind of leadership role in Signarama, let alone the sign business,” Kincaid says. “That was extremely challenging, to the point where [one guy] and I had to sit down in my office and talk about it.”

At the time, the shop’s wrap installer lead — a very talented woman — was teaching, and the participant in question refused to take instruction from her. When Kincaid discussed the issue with him in her office, she told him about the close attention to detail that makes women great at wrapping, and about her wrap installer’s skills and qualifications: “There’s a reason corporate sent you to this class: We know what we’re doing, and you should listen.”

Kincaid concludes that education is the best way to overcome the gender bias that is not especially prevalent yet still present in the sign industry. For other women in signs, she encourages understanding and preparation. “Those stereotypes and those interactions — be prepared for them because you have to have them more than a few times in your career,” she explains. “My husband and I are really great at respecting each other’s roles here, and I think that is the most difficult part: developing your own ethos, coming up with your own credibility and worth, being able to portray that and share that with people who have an issue with your gender.”