Pat Miller

So nice to meet you! First off, what’s your name? Tell our readers a bit about yourself—where you’re from originally and where you live now.

I'm Pat Miller, and I'm a born-and-raised Jersey girl. I grew up in a drafty farmhouse in Old Bridge, one of seven kids, hauling potatoes at the family farmstand before sunrise. We had cardboard patches in the windows and one box fan for three bedrooms. I promised myself I'd never be without air conditioning, and I've kept that promise every day since.

Today I'm based in Jackson Township, NJ, where I raised my two sons. I'm the Founder and President of Blue Diamond Construction, a certified women-owned commercial carpentry and metal framing company. I'm also the host of From Underdog to Entrepreneur: Building Dreams with Pat Miller, a top-rated Apple Podcast in Business & Entrepreneurship. And I'm the author of Kicking Karma's Ass and my brand-new book, Underdog to Empire.

If you want the short version: I'm a serial Underdog who figured out that being overlooked is the edge, not the obstacle.

Tell us one thing you love about where you live now.

I love that New Jersey people don't do fake. They tell you what they think, they show up when it counts, and they root for the underdog. That's my kind of town.

Tell us a little more about what your company does and how it started. How does it help your customers?

Blue Diamond Construction is a commercial carpentry and metal framing company. We work with developers and general contractors across New Jersey on hospitals and medical centers, office buildings, apartment complexes, retail spaces and the revitalization of Asbury Park. I'm a hands-on metal framer and value engineer, so I'm not just signing the checks. I'm on site, working with architects and engineers to find smarter, more cost-effective ways to build.

How it started is not pretty. I started in this business with my husband Ray and a $100 stack of flyers. Together, we built our first company, RPM Construction. Then in 2016 I lost Ray to cancer. In three short years I also lost both of my parents and one of my brothers. I was a quarter of a million dollars in debt, and plenty of people expected me to fold. Instead, I built Blue Diamond as sole owner and grew it into a multi-million-dollar operation.

For our customers, that history matters. They get a partner who has seen everything go wrong and knows how to keep a job moving anyway. We show up, we tell the truth about cost and schedule, and we solve problems before they become change orders.

That's also why I wrote Underdog to Empire, which came out September 22. It's a field manual for anyone who has been overlooked or forced to fight for every opportunity. Across 13 chapters I share what I learned about reputation, resilience, networking and telling the truth. And every week on From Underdog to Entrepreneur: Building Dreams with Pat Miller, I sit down with entrepreneurs who turned the odds into their advantage. The company is where I earned the lessons. The book and the podcast are where I hand them off.

If someone wants to start a business, what advice would you give them?

Stop waiting for permission. Nobody handed me a roadmap, a trust fund or a seat at the table. I started with $100 of flyers. You don't need everything figured out. You need to start, and then refuse to quit.

Three things I tell every new entrepreneur:

1. Your reputation is your real capital. In construction, people hire you because of what the last customer said about you. Protect your word like it's money, because it is.

2. Tell the truth, especially when it costs you. Bad news doesn't get better with age. The customer who hears it early is the customer who calls you back.

3. Being underestimated is an advantage. When people don't see you coming, you get to outwork them before they notice.

I go deep on all three in Underdog to Empire. And if you want to hear how other people did it, that's exactly what we talk about every week on the podcast. You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only option.

If I can do it, so can you. I'm just a girl from Jersey.

What is one piece of feedback from a happy customer or client that you won't forget?

A real estate developer that we have worked with for years recently told us:

"We're always searching for general contractors and subcontractors who deliver quality work. In this industry, it often takes sifting through a lot of thorns to find a rose. For us, Blue Diamond Construction – and Pat – is that rose.

She is responsive. No job is too big or too small. If we have an emergency, Pat says where do you need us. She and her team are knowledgeable, thorough and deliver quality every single time. With Pat, we benefit enormously from her wisdom gathered after working 30-plus years in the field."

I've had the same feeling from readers. After Kicking Karma's Ass came out, I got messages from people I'd never met, telling me my story helped them get through their own worst year. That's a big reason I wrote Underdog to Empire. Building a great project is satisfying. Hearing that your story helped somebody keep going is something else entirely.

Where do you see your company in the future?

Blue Diamond will keep doing what we do best: framing the buildings that New Jersey lives and works in, and doing it with a reputation people trust.

But my vision is bigger than one company. I want to help build the next generation of Underdogs, especially women in industries that weren't built with them in mind. That's what Underdog to Empire and the podcast are for. The book is the blueprint. The podcast is where we keep the conversation going every week. And through speaking, I get to look people in the eye and tell them, if I can do it, so can you.

The empire I care most about isn't measured in square footage. It's measured in how many people I can help get started.

What is the biggest misconception about your industry?

That construction is just muscle. People picture a guy with a hammer and assume that's the whole job. In reality, commercial framing is technical, problem-solving work. Value engineering, reading drawings, coordinating with architects and engineers, keeping a schedule alive when the steel shows up late: that's brains, not just brawn.

The second misconception is that women don't belong here. I've spent more than 30 years proving otherwise, and I'm far from the only one. The skills that make a great builder are communication, grit, attention to detail and the nerve to tell the truth when it's not what people want to hear. None of those come with a gender.

That's a theme I come back to constantly on the podcast and in Underdog to Empire: the spaces that weren't built for you can still be built by you.

What has been one of your biggest struggles building your business, and how did you deal with it?

Losing Ray. He was my husband and my business partner, and when cancer took him in 2016, I lost my best friend and half the brains of the operation on the same day. Within three years I also buried both of my parents and one of my brothers. I was a quarter of a million dollars in debt, grieving, and running a company in an industry where a lot of people were waiting to see a woman fail.

I dealt with it one Monday at a time. I went back to work. I told vendors and customers the truth about where things stood, and I kept every promise I could. My mother used to say "it could always be worse," and that got me through more mornings than I can count. Slowly, I rebuilt, and then I built Blue Diamond bigger than before.

Ray and I used to dream out loud about the life we'd have someday. He'd laugh when I said I wanted a Lamborghini. Years later I walked into a showroom and wrote the check. He wasn't there, but I knew exactly what he'd say: "Took you long enough."

I wrote about the loss in Kicking Karma's Ass. Underdog to Empire is the next chapter: what it actually took to rebuild, and the playbook for anyone facing their own version of that moment.

Where can our readers learn more about you and your company?

Website: www.patmiller.net

Book: Underdog to Empire, available now in paperback and ebook on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B0HFTQ68DH

Podcast: From Underdog to Entrepreneur: Building Dreams with Pat Miller, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube (www.youtube.com/@thepatmiller11)

Social media: @thepatmiller11

Blue Diamond Construction: www.bluediamondconstructionnj.com