Obituary: Dorothy Bolander paved way for women in Twin Cities construction

Dorothy Bolander believed anything was possible.

So when she wanted to get a commercial pilot's license, she just did it. When her 62-year-old sister wished aloud that she had gone to college, Bolander told her to do it. And, in helping run the family business — Carl Bolander & Sons — she helped more women get into the construction business and succeed.

"She inspired people," said her daughter, Susan Bolander of New Mexico.

Dorothy Bolander, who also founded and operated SKB Environmental, a construction and demolition waste disposal facility in Inver Grove Heights, died Aug. 26. She was 83.

Bolander was born headstrong and independent, said her sister, Linda Malone of Montana. "I thought it was comical because our father was an extremely strict and stern man and he couldn't do much with her. She was stronger willed than he was."

So in 1947, when Bolander graduated at age 16 from high school in Sandstone, Minn., she insisted on remaining in Minnesota rather than moving with her family to the next town for her father's job. Her father was swayed only because she was accepted into Abbott Hospital's nursing program.

Bolander got her nursing degree but fell in love, got married and stayed home to raise four children. "It was the '50s," her daughter said. "Everyone did that. You didn't go to work unless you had to."

"I said, 'No, I'm not letting you out of my grasp. You're too smart,' " said David, her husband of 63 years. "I put her to work with me in the construction business." And in 1980, she ran the business while her husband recovered from throat cancer. She oversaw the relocation of the company's headquarters from Minneapolis to St. Paul, and when her husband returned to work, she took charge of the company's affirmative action and equal opportunity efforts.

"She immediately recruited more female heavy equipment operators," her daughter said. "She wanted to know whether women didn't want those kind of jobs or whether there was something stopping them from getting them."

"She just thought if anyone wanted to do a particular job, even if wasn't traditional for their gender, they should be able to do it," Susan Bolander said. "Even though it's dirty and it's physically difficult, she knew there were women who could handle those challenges. She just wanted to make sure it wasn't a hostile workplace. They would still have to work hard and do everything the men had to do, but she didn't want them to be picked on."

"She believed in everybody having a fair shake," said Rick O'Gara, a longtime Bolander employee and now a co-owner. "She was a dynamic woman," he said. "We're in the construction industry, which is made up of mostly men, and she could hold her own at any meeting. She wasn't intimidated."

As head of SKB Environmental, she oversaw the design of the first state-of-the art, clay-lined landfill in Minnesota, O'Gara said.

"And that's why, at age 69, Linda Malone will get her college diploma this spring. "I'm sorry she won't be here to see it."