Fairfax Business Owner Finds Rewarding Career In Title Industry

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Thursday is Women's Equality Day, which is good time time draw attention to businesses supportive of women and industries that provide opportunities for them to rise to leadership positions.

"Especially now, with the economic conditions that are shut down from COVID-19, it's left a disproportionate amount of women in America in search of new career opportunities," said Becky Taylor, CEO and president of Titleworks Inc. in Fairfax City.

In the U.S., 70 percent of the real estate workforce is made up of women and many of them, like Taylor, serve in leadership positions.

"It's exciting to be in an industry that enables women to start at entry level and move up through the ranks to increasing responsibility if they desire it and they want to do that," she said.

Titleworks provides essential protection for Americans in one of their biggest assets — their home. The company investigates titles of properties to make sure that everything is clear before a home sale goes to settlement.

One thing Taylor especially likes about the business she owns is most of its employees are women.

"The majority of my staff are female, I hire them without any experience," she said. "I train them. I mentor them. That's always a challenge of any employee what method is going to work best."

As a small business, Titleworks doesn't have a human resources department, so much of the mentoring and training falls in Taylor's lap. All three of the company's female employees are in their 20s and 30s.

"They all were hired without a college degree and without any title industry experience," she said. "One has been with me for five years and became a licensed title agent. The other one has been with me for three years and she's preparing to take the licensing exam. I'm showing them that there's a career path in the title industry, and that there's a career path at Titleworks."

Taylor's own career path can serve as an example for these employees.

"There aren't many business owners that can say that they started as an employee and became the owner after 11 years and have been at the same company that is going stronger than ever after 26 years," she said.

Growing up in Manassas, Taylor admitted running a title company was not her first career choice. After graduating Clemson University with a degree in political science, she had her eye on a legal career and began working for law firms. One day, she found herself in the real estate department working for real estate attorneys.

"Then an opportunity presented itself from one of the title companies that we were working with," Taylor said. "They're the ones that said, 'We need good people, detail-oriented people in the title industry. Why don't you take a look?'"

This was 1995 and Taylor was looking for a change.

"My son was six weeks old, so I was a working mother his entire life," she said. "I just love everything about it. I love solving problems that we have with title searches, trying to coordinate schedules with people. There's just a lot of variety in this work and no day is ever the exact same day."

Taylor also enjoys helping first-time homebuyers understand what's in the documents they are signing.

"I like knowing that when people leave a settlement with me or my staff, they know what they signed," she said. "You'd be surprised how many people come to us for settlement and they're like, 'I didn't know this meant that they had a lien on my property.'"

As a working mother, some years proved to be more challenging than others for Taylor. But he saw them as worthwhile years too. Her job offered enough flexibility, so that she could be there for her husband and go to all of her son's sporting and school events.

"If I wanted to come in and work on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, I could do that so that I could be available for my son's event so that he knew that he was a priority," she said. "But most importantly, especially as my son just got married in July of this year, I showed him that a mother can work outside the home, and not only work but run a successful business, and be a good mother at the same time."

For women who are at the very beginning of their careers, Taylor offered some basic advice.

"If you work hard and you do what you what you're supposed to do, focus on your family, but also make sure that when you're on the job that you're present, and that you're going to pay attention to the job," she said. "In any career, but specifically in the land title industry, if you work hard, you're going to be rewarded, because you're going to see results."