Advanced Home Improvements News

April Tatur ‘Proves’ Herself in Construction Industry

April Tatur summed up a work model for women in business: “You have to constantly prove yourself in a male dominated industry, in my opinion, which makes it oddly more exciting.” News

Tatur is the co-owner of Advanced Home Improvements of Maple Grove and has made her mark and proven many nay-sayers wrong. Advanced Home Improvements motto is: “Large enough to handle your needs, but small enough to care.”

Family owned and operated since 1993, it is committed to serving its customers throughout the Twin Cities, Northern Minnesota and beyond with quality products and construction at competitive prices.

Tatur and her husband Jeff run their business out their home office in Maple Grove. They also previously had another office location in Osseo, but just sold the building. There is also another location in northern Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in marketing. Previously, she was modeling and selling real estate.

She said Jeff had started the business in Brooklyn Park, out of his house. “We got married,” she said. “I helped join him because in the first year of marriage, my husband donated a kidney to his brother.”Tatur said she got out of her career to help her husband with the business. “I said ‘I don’t want you on roofs anymore,” she said. “He could fall and damage his one good kidney, then I don’t have a husband.”

So Tatur jumped into the business. They expanded what they did from just roofing, to include siding, decks, gutters, build additions, remodeling of home interiors (bathrooms, kitchens, windows, doors, etc.) and tile work. Tatur said her husband was the manager for much of the outside business, where she was manager for the inside of the business.

“I was our first tile guy,” she said. “I would redo showers and things in the house. The guys [on sites] would scratch their heads and couldn’t believe I was doing that. I was literally hands on at point.”She said she learned all of the business aspects. “I know enough that I can jump in and assist in different areas,” Tatur said. “I’ve been at commercial projects. I’ve been on roofs with a hard hat. I’ve done what we needed to do, but I did grow the inside of the business.”

Their former Osseo location had 13 employees at one point. The markets changed in 2008 and the business suffered a fire, and the business downsized its employees.