Kimberly Black didn’t start in the construction industry. In fact, she was about as far from it as one can get. With a degree in international agriculture from Florida A&M University, Black worked with some of the top chicken producers in the U.S.
“I wanted to do more, so I started a property preservation company,” she said. She worked with banks and mortgage companies to get abandoned and decaying properties up to standard and back on the market. “One day someone said, ‘You should just go into construction.’ I didn’t see women in construction, so I didn’t think that was possible.”
With additional encouragement, Black started Trusted Field Services in 2017 in her home state of Texas. She moved to Knoxville in 2020.
“All during COVID, work suffered,” Black told the Knoxville News Sentinel in 2023. Business was booming in Knoxville and developers needed crews. “And after a lot of back and forth, I came up here and haven’t stopped, haven’t looked back,” she said.
Black starts most of her days at 4 a.m., checking on jobsites and ensuring projects are on track and clients are up to date on timelines. Some days are spent in meetings with prospective clients and writing bids for new projects, as well as processing payroll and invoices.
The bulk of Trusted Field Services’ work is concrete, but the company also does asphalt paving. Black said she was drawn to concrete as the housing market started booming during the pandemic.
“There was a need for driveways, sidewalks, curbs, gutters and dumpster pads,” she said. “Cities needed to upgrade their sidewalks and transit authorities needed to update their bus stops to be ADA compliant.”
To that end, Black’s most memorable project to date has been upgrading and making bus stops around Knoxville compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
“That was very fulfilling, being able to pour concrete and create bus stop pads that were expanded to be accessible via wheelchair,” she said. “It brought so much meaning to me and my team to be able to help, to ride by and see people in our community that we didn’t see before at certain bus stops. It’s good to see that our little bit of work is helping someone be able to go about their day.”
Trusted Field Services has worked with other municipalities on similar projects, and Black said her team has upgraded hundreds of bus stops to meet ADA requirements.
Black attributes her success in the construction industry to her willingness to put herself in others’ shoes and listen to their needs.
“I can work with you to achieve a common goal,” she said. “That’s proven very beneficial, to listen to clients when they tell me what they want. It’s not up to me to come up with an idea, but with my expertise, I can walk you through it and see if that’s the best fit for you and your project.”
Mentorship has also played a big role in Black growing her business. She said Wes Stowers with Knoxville-based Stowers CAT has provided advice and knowledge on scaling her business and what projects to take on. Other women, including Nikitia Thompson of Nikitia Thompson Realty, Avice Reid of the Knoxville Urban League and Jan Brown of the Tennessee Valley Authority, have helped her learn the administrative side of construction, from bidding to liability to taxes and payroll issues: “Those things a lot of small business owners don’t know when we’re first starting out,” Black said.
Black passes that mentorship on to other women in construction, sharing her experience and expertise. She also makes sure women’s voices are heard by decision-makers.
“[I want to] show there’s a place for women to be decision-makers. We’re capable, we’re knowledgeable,” she said. “When I’m in rooms, I’m speaking up to make sure women are included. You get better results when there’s inclusion. When you teach girls and women leadership skills, they go out and make the world a better place.”
Black is active in the Knoxville community, sitting on the board of directors for multiple philanthropic organizations, including the Junior League of Knoxville, the Tennessee Valley Boys & Girls Club, and the Knoxville Rotary Club. In 2023, Trusted Field Services won the Diversity Business Enterprise Award from the city of Knoxville and was a 2024 nominee for the city’s Minority Business of the Year. Black herself received the 2024 YWCA Tribute to Women, Business and Industry award from the Knoxville and Tennessee Valley YWCA. The award recognized her efforts to create and sustain jobs in the Knoxville area, particularly for former felons.
“Ninety-nine percent of my crews are nonviolent ex-offenders,” Black said. “They want a change. My motto is, ‘If you want to work, come see me and I can train you.’ I have an open-door policy, and people catch me in the Dollar General and tell me they want to work.” Black’s work and mentorship to this group has resulted in a 0% recidivism rate among her employees.
Black’s driving force behind her business is to be a blessing to her employees and others in the communities she serves.
“We want to make our clients happy and obtain their goals,” she said. “We want to make sure every community that we’re in, we leave it better than we found it. That may be offering training, or it may be just being an example of a woman in construction. … I [ask potential employees] ‘What do you want out of this?’ And to be able to help them with what they want to accomplish so they can be the best that they can be improves our communities and our society.”
