I AM WRITING this column just a few days before leaving for Las Vegas. It has been nearly 30 years since I have been to the ISA Sign Expo in Vegas. I have attended one in Orlando and often attend local sign conferences in Toronto. This time I am attending with my daughter, Chelsea, who was just a few months old the first time I attended. She, too, is now a sign professional and it’s her first time attending a sign conference. I couldn’t be prouder.
As I sit and write this, I am reflecting on the first time I went. I was in awe. The array of materials, processes and opportunities. Digital printing was just about to break into the market, and I was overwhelmed with ideas on the possibilities that ingenious innovation could accomplish. The one thing I did notice was that I was one of only a handful of women attending the show. Yes, husbands brought their wives and there were plenty of women hosting the various booths. How did I know this? By the reaction of those staffing the booths, all of whom would say, “Oh, so you are a woman in the sign business,” which would let me know I was a rarity. Words that have stuck with me to this day. Yet it was such a common comment that it breezed right over me as I then enquired about whatever product and service they were offering.
It is funny how I just ‘accepted’ those comments. Not just at sign shows, but also on site when measuring or installing the next sign job. For years, I did supermarket signage and the only other woman was one of the architects. The side comments, lack of support, insults and harassment — to me, it was all part of the job. There were no other women there for support, and men who took pity kindly would say, “They are just joking around.” Despite it all, I held my head up high because I loved what I did. I love making signs. I love taking something from nothing, taking the image in my head and seeing it come to life in 3D, 5-10-20 feet in the air and telling the world the message it was intended to give. No one’s comment could ever diminish my pride or passion for doing what I loved to do.
The world has changed, and I look forward to the evolving future. I love the fact that I can attend ISA’s Women Leading the Industry and have the honor of being one of the first Women in Signs award winners for Signs of the Times. With 30-plus years in the industry, I do still get called out, get questioned about my credentials, get pushed back that ‘I don’t know what I am talking about,’ when I prove that I do. Times are changing and I am most grateful that they are. I never wanted to take anyone’s job away from them. I only wanted to contribute to the world the ideas and skills I was blessed to have been given. For me, my contribution to this world is to the sign industry.
This time, however, I will have a different viewpoint at this Sign Expo. I do look forward to all that is new, yet what I look forward to the most is to live vicariously through Chelsea. I am eager to see what she sees. She is the next generation of sign professionals. I look forward to hearing her ideas of what’s next. I look forward to seeing her celebrated for her talents and not her talents and her gender.