PEOPLE OF INTEREST
The
Belly-Dancing Contractor
BY GLORIA TAYLORWEINBERG
PHOTO BY ROBERT P. DUDLEY
Heads turn when Port St. Lucie building contractor
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Yvonne Dudley walks onto a new construction site.
Even in steel-toed boots, pants and a T-shirt, the lithe
30-year-old belly dancer is not your average contractor.
“In the beginning, being really young and female, I had to
build up confidence,” Dudley says. “But once they saw I knew
the business, it was not a problem.”
After 10 years on the job as vice president of VillaDelta
Homes Corp., Dudley has confidence and more. She is a
fourth-generation builder, with an associate’s degree in
building and design technology from Indian River
Community College.
“She’s intellectually very smart, very polite and easy to get
along with,” says Brian Rypma, a Jupiter subcontractor who
has worked with Dudley for seven years. “But she can present
an argument and back it up with knowledge and
straight-forward talk.”
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN INDIAN RIVER MAGAZINE