Kelly Lee wants to make sure other families never have to deal with the electrical issues she experienced. Moving her family into a new home a few years ago, standard home inspections hadn’t revealed any issues, but she wanted to be sure. When Lee checked the home for electromagnetic field frequencies, she found that something was terribly wrong. “There were really high emissions,” she says. “It was unacceptable. The problems were missed on standard inspections, yet my home had all these code violations.”

Links have been suggested between high levels of electrical and magnetic fields (EMF) and cancer, particularly leukemia and brain tumors, so Lee knew the electromagnetic fields present in her home posed a threat to her family. Setting out to find an electrician that could fix the issue proved to be another hurdle because they had never worked with EMF before, and she was forced to use an out-of-state engineering company to solve the problem.

Lee went back to school, earned a degree in engineering, secured OSHA certification and underwent training to become an electrician. She launched WDR Electromagnetics, LLC with the mission of making homes, schools and workplaces safe for families and especially children. She is a member of the International Association of Electrical Inspectors, and WDR Electromagnetics was recently certified as a Woman Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. She is continuing her training to become a licensed master electrician.

WDR Electromagnetics takes on projects ranging from repairs and restoration to new construction, and Lee approaches each job with the same high standard of safety. “I vowed that once I became a contractor, there would be protocols in my work to make sure what happened to me never, ever happens to anyone else,” she says. “Sometimes with new construction, you’re on a deadline and you get sloppy work; we don’t do that.”

Lee knows her field and specialization can be complex; the average homeowner or buyer may not even realize that invisible risks could be present in their home. It’s her job to educate them and make sure electrical systems are updated correctly or installed right the first time. She says the best thing people and corporations can do to ensure the safety of their families, employees or anyone else that spends time in a building is to do thorough research before hiring an electrical contractor.

“Don’t always just go with the cheapest bid,” she says. “This isn’t something a lot of people think about. Just because the lights come on doesn’t mean things were done correctly behind the walls, and it doesn’t mean there’s not danger there.”

WDR Electromagnetics, LLC is located in Harrisburg. For more information, call 717-877-9379, or visit wdrelectromagnetics.com.