Don’t think it’s just a dirty job. You gotta actually get involved and see it before you can really judge it. There are different departments you can look at. It’s not just service.”

Kjerstin Neumiller

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A few weeks ago, Kjerstin Neumiller went out to a home where she discovered a drain held together by a piece of duct tape. “Yeah, that’s definitely going to be a problem here soon,” she thought.

But she knew she could handle it. Neumiller has spent the past four years calculating pipe sizing, mastering brazing, and installing fixtures at Ackerman Plumbing, where she completed her apprenticeship in March. Now a journeyperson plumber, she has the confidence to tackle whatever the day’s service calls might throw at her.

As a woman in a profession that remains overwhelmingly male, Neumiller stands out. Today women make up just 3.5% of working plumbers. Even Barbie, who has dabbled in professions from firefighter to president, has never been a plumber.

“At least in this area that I know of right now, I’m the only female,” Neumiller confirms. “So I kind of get recognized quite a bit.”

Neumiller suspects there aren’t many women in the plumbing industry because they aren’t familiar or didn’t realize it was an option. She was fortunate that her high school construction class took a field trip to Ackerman Plumbing, whose main offices are in Williamsburg, which gave her that exposure.

“Sometimes kids just need a little direction, so we’ve always been passionate about that [outreach],” owner Corey Ackerman says. “We’ve always spent a lot of time with that, in high schools talking to kids, having high schools out here a couple times a year.”

That passion stems from personal experience, Ackerman says. He ended up working for a plumber two days out of high school, “Just kind of on a whim.” Before making that connection, he didn’t know what he wanted to do for education or a career.

For both Ackerman and Neumiller, plumbing clicked.

Plumbing is a skilled trade that pays well; plumbers in Iowa earn about $30 an hour on average, according to Indeed. So why isn’t work in this industry an aspiration for many of us?

For one, we may not believe we have the aptitude. Plumbing involves spatial reasoning, problem solving, and basic math skills. But a lot of this can be learned in the course of training, Ackerman says.

“In this day and age, the soft skills are more what we look for when we’re hiring,” he says, and Neumiller agrees that communication skills are “definitely a big thing” when it comes to daily customer contact.

For another, we might think plumbing is a dirty job. Both Neumiller and Ackerman agree that it can be, but also that it isn’t always; about 40% of Ackerman Plumbing’s business is new construction, which is clean work.

“Don’t think it’s just a dirty job,” Neumiller says. “You gotta actually get involved and see it before you can really judge it. There are different departments you can look at. It’s not just service.”

Always looking to learn and improve, Ackerman has tested some novel approaches in the hiring process, such as asking applicants to read “Who Moved My Cheese?”, a book about positive approaches to change, before the interview. In fact, the entire team has read and discussed books together in the past in order to up their game.

Ackerman’s goal is to position each employee in a place where they will succeed and thrive.

Along these lines, every team member takes the DISC assessment; their photos and profiles are posted on the meeting room wall. Seeing how everyone behaves in terms of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness helps them figure out how to best communicate with each other.

Internally, Ackerman strives for a positive culture and cohesion. Employees have the resources they need – everything from a workout room to showers to tools and supplies – and once a month, the entire team meets on Monday morning for breakfast, which Ackerman cooks for them.

This respect cultivated on the inside makes for a better customer experience on the outside.

“I’d say what really sets us apart on the outward facing side is our communications with our customers, whether that be our new construction, or service, or renovations. We pride ourselves on communication and transparency, so we can get better at everything,” Ackerman says. “I would say we’re very, very good at organization processes and communication, which is probably not the standard for a plumbing company, I would say, or construction trades in general.”

Cultivating good relationships is one of Ackerman Plumbing’s core values, and it’s one that Neumiller appreciates as she moves from new construction to service jobs.

When asked for a particularly meaningful experience, she points to a recent job in Brighton where she connected with a homeowner who was anxious about the work being done.

“I kind of think it was also because I was female, and she wanted to hear about my story, and she just wanted to talk and learn all these new things, and I was able to help her with that,” Neumiller says. “[It was] kind of a good feeling.”

While Neumiller’s goal likely wasn’t to become an ambassador to the plumbing industry when she started out – “She hasn’t always liked the spotlight and she still probably doesn’t,” Ackerman says – she has “taken on a good leadership role with advocacy towards younger people, whether it be girls or not,” because she is good at it.

“She’s very involved with the Build My Future event. She’s participated in that the last three years and kind of spearheaded it this year for our company,” Ackerman says. “Then she volunteered with PHCC [Plumbing, Heating, Cooling Contractors of Iowa], and then she’s been kind of running and in charge of our involvement with the Iowa City Student Build House for the last two, three years. Just very involved with the kids, very active with trying to promote the trades.”

We often underestimate what we are capable of. But when we challenge ourselves, we often discover we are stronger than we thought.

“When I first started here, I definitely had that fear,” Neumiller says, “But as I’ve been here five years now, I can definitely say I’ve lost a lot of that fear. . . Now that I know that I can, I really don’t think about it as much.”

Ackerman Plumbing

319-463-3888

ackerman-plumbing.com