Tampa Business is Raising the Roof for Women in Construction
Build it Brit, Inc. of Hillsborough County
Founded with a mission to break barriers in the construction industry, Build It Brit, Inc., a Tampa-based licensed general contracting company is proving that women can lead and excel in a traditionally male-dominated field. Over the last five years, business owner, Britney Mroczkowski, and her team have steadily grown the woman-owned business’ reputation in commercial and municipal construction while building strong partnerships across the region.
“I really wanted to start a construction company that was 100% women-owned so that I could show the next generation of women that they could also excel in a male dominated field,” said the business owner.
Together with director of construction, Larry Mattacchione, the company combines expertise in commercial construction, development, and luxury real estate to deliver high-quality projects for clients throughout Florida.
As the company expanded into municipal construction, they turned to the Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County for guidance. Working with business consultant Retta Parsons, the team refined its business planning efforts and strengthened internal processes. “Retta’s consultation has been extraordinary,” Mroczkowski shared. “Retta was our guide to opening our eyes to how we expand further and truly started thinking about things like policies and procedures — what we need to start asking our subs that we were not currently asking.”
Since receiving consulting support, the company has secured more municipal projects, including courthouse and election supervisor projects, while also cultivating valuable industry relationships. “We’ve worked on jobs everywhere from courthouses, dealing with exterior work, and also into a couple of different election supervisor projects right now. Retta has been instrumental really in helping us navigate those waters. Now we’re developing these relationships to do additional and even more jobs down the road,” Mattacchione said.
One of its biggest accomplishments has been building four Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming franchise locations for different franchise owners nationwide. “I think one of the biggest successes we’ve had so far is that we’ve cultivated relationships with several brands and several companies. We are now building our fourth Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming franchise, which is a national brand. And even though we’ve done such a good job for them that we’ve won four different locations. Each of those locations had a different franchisee and a different owner. So, we still had to qualify, win the job, and show our excellence to them. We also have worked extremely hard for a large national general contractor, and yes, we are a GC ourselves, but this national GC has really taken a relationship with us to be one of their subcontractors in the area,” Mroczkowski said.
Moving forward, the business owner expresses how they will continue using the Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County for various services. “As we continue to grow our business, we’re always going to be partners with the SBDC in Hillsborough County,” Mroczkowski said. “Retta consistently tells us about events we need to go to, people we should meet, other subcontractors, and she is very well connected in the industry to where she’s just happy to make connections and let us take it from there and we’ll continue to have that relationship going forward,” she added.
When asked what advice she would give to small business owners looking for business help, Mroczkowski said, “Take advantage of this free program. It costs you nothing and it’s so valuable. The knowledge, the steps, the ideas, even if you’re an existing business like we were, she opened our eyes to things we had not thought of and really pushed me as a business owner to start working on things for the next steps and expansion. She not only worked with me, but worked with our entire team, including Larry, our director of construction, and Pam, our project manager, to help cultivate that and grow our team for the next level of success.”
“In addition to that, I would say that they’ve really helped us really navigate through some of the potholes and speed bumps that would normally have taken any company years and probably a lot of money in mistakes and expensive lessons. The SBDC has helped us to kind of shortcut some of those and I don’t see how anyone couldn’t benefit from this as long as you put the work in to really benefit from it,” Mattacchione added when speaking about their experience with the Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County.
Today, the thriving company continues to expand its reach, strengthen partnerships, and pursue new opportunities with confidence, crediting the Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County as an important resource in its continued growth and success.
