In high school, Queena Johnson learned of a looming threat in the plumbing industry: ten plumbers were retiring for every one hire. That meant job security. So she took the apprentice exam and scored very high but didn’t accept a position until she graduated, eventually becoming a master plumber at 23 years old.

Her first job was at DSI screwing in check valves at the Great Wolf Lodge — it lasted two weeks and she was told, as a female, she was garnering too much attention from her male employees. After they “let her go” she moved over to Brandt (a mechanical, electrical, and plumbing service provider in DFW) where she worked the rest of her career in the Local 100 Plumbing and Pipefitters Union on high profile projects like Children’s Health and Parkland Hospital. In fact, one of her first instructors in the union, for the LEED AP class, was the expert plumber himself, Roger Wakefield. 

She excelled at reading blueprints. Her favorite classes were isometric drawing and soldering and brazing, and orbital welding as a 5th year. She enjoyed rigging class even though it was difficult.  Overall, Queena recommends going straight into the skilled trades out of high school, and if parents are pushing their kids to college, they’re most likely projecting their own aspirations onto their children.

Now she is the owner and operator of the full-service company, HER Plumbing serving the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex.