Pam Schawel
Director of Sales and Marketing
Lennar Homes
Raleigh, North Carolina

As Director of Sales and Marketing for the nation’s second largest homebuilding company, Pam Schawel is responsible for $120 million in business each year and directs a staff of 20. She’s been in real estate for 18 years. Her many awards include The National Homebuilders Association’s National Sales Manager of the Year award, but Pam is also well known among her peers for her quiet and authentic faith.

With each career advancement Pam has always brought her new employer impeccable sales credentials. But she also explains to them that God and her family are extremely important and, therefore, she is not willing to work weekends. Her employers are often stunned.

“At one previous employer,” Pam says, “I was told that for 46 years the company’s director of sales had worked weekends. But I explained that if I did my job well during the week, there would be no need for me to work weekends. I assured them I could train my staff to cover weekends effectively. But—for me to be a happy employee—I needed to be spend weekends with my family and at church.”

Pam is also known for her honesty and fairness, which she believes has contributed to her success. “I’ve had situations where a homebuyer has called to say they were about to lose their job and wanted out of their contract. As director of sales I could tell them, ‘We have a legally binding contract and I’m going to hold you to it.’ But if someone is suffering genuine hardship, I lobby my employer to refund their money if I think it’s merited. I’ve found if you treat people fairly they will refer us to friends and come back later and buy from us when they can afford it. I talk often to my staff about the value of following the Golden Rule.”

Pam admits that not all former employers have admired and supported her values or shared her faith. “When it comes to a place where I cannot live out my values on the job, I’ve had to make a decision whether it was appropriate to move on. An employer has a right to set the rules. But if it goes against who you are and what you believe in, then it’s time to ask if that’s where God still wants you to be.”

She says one of her biggest lessons learned was working for a previous employer who treated her badly and whose business practices were suspect. “I stayed in the situation, praying that God would set things right and rescue or vindicate me,” she says. “I kept thinking I was ‘trusting God.’ But I finally realized I was waiting for God to do the work that I needed to do—to leave the job because what was going on went against everything I believed.”

Today, her most satisfying moments on the job come when colleagues in the industry who know she’s a Christian call seeking her advice how to handle sensitive situations. “The construction business can be a rough environment,” she concludes. “But you can’t be intimidated. No matter what field you’re in, you have to decide who you are and what you believe and stay true to it.”