OCT BER 2019
On the
LEVEL The Quarterly Associations Newsletter of:
Construction Contractors • Sheet Metal & Roofing Contractors • Fabricators Erectors & Reinforcing Contractors
The Real Deal...
Charlotte Van Horn: Tri-State Drywall & Acoustical By Barry S. Lewis, Vice-President of Communications & Member Relations Charlotte Van Horn
She adds the issue
shares a story how
was
in
engineered
the
as
early
years
president
resolved
with
sketches
of
and calculations. These
Tri-State Drywall &
days no one questions
Acoustical
the
often
she
was
questioned
knowledge
or
ability of Van Horn or
about being a certified
Tri-State
Women
Acoustical, based in
Business
Owned Enterprise
know the business?
&
Sparrow Bush.
(WBE). Was she just a figurehead or did she
Drywall
The women of Tri-State Drywall & Acoustical are, from left, Deborah Davenport, Charlotte Van Horn, Rebecca Rivera and Christina Bennett.
The company began in
2005
with
three
partners mostly doing
Before finishing she excuses herself to take a call from
metal framing and drywall. Van Horn bought out one
someone at a job site. There’s a question regarding load
partner in 2015 and became majority owner of a 51 percent
bearing walls and the connection to structural steel.
women owned business. Four years later she bought out
Charlotte explains they were discussing the rolling force that is created when setting bar joists are set on load bearing walls and how to control the rolling force that is created. “In our case, we wanted cross bracing to transfer the loads back up to the roof deck while there was a conflicting detail that showed bottom cord bracing that
the third partner and now the company is 100 percent WBE and Van Horn, a graduate of Port Jervis High School who earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting at SUNY New Paltz, is the only woman on the board of directors for the Construction Contractors Association of the Hudson Valley.
welded into the exterior wall which would transfer the
“When we started to go WBE we’d fill out the applications,”
rolling force into the exterior wall.”
says Van Horn. “My husband (Clinton) actually does work continued...