THE WILDES: Theres’s No Place Like Home

By Melissa Karen Sances
Photos by Nikki Gardner Photography

Published In Northampton Living May 2025

Sasha Wilde has lived all over the country, but Northampton is where she has felt most at home. About two years ago, she and her husband, Tim moved here from New Hampshire after acquiring Sexton Roofing & Siding in West Hatfield. Now Sasha, Tim, and their sons Desmond, 3, and Emmett, 18 months, are proud to be part of the community.

Though Sasha and Tim had lived in the Bay State before – they met while attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute – Northampton was like another world.

“I love western Mass and I will sing its praises forever,” she says. “The people have been so welcoming and supportive. They are excited to hear about you and your ventures, and genuinely interested in you as a person. I have not experienced this elsewhere.”

It was a brand-new venture – owning their first business – that inspired the Wildes to move. After working side-by-side for years in construction project management, Sasha pursued a master’s in business administration through Colorado State University. When she finished the program, the pair moved to Illinois, where they were gut renovating their house and became pregnant with Desmond. “We don’t do one thing at a time,” she says with a laugh. “We’re happiest when we’re busy.”

Soon they and Desmond relocated to New Hampshire to be closer to Tim’s family in central Massachusetts. That was when Tim floated the idea about buying a business. Sasha, who considers herself more set in her ways than her husband, didn’t reject the proposal, but quietly reflected on it until she was ready to dive in.

Sasha read “Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Buying a Small Business” and listened to a podcast called “Acquiring Minds.” She created a spreadsheet of about 100 businesses she was interested in, and quickly honed in on Sexton, founded in 1985 by Everett Sexton, who was now looking to sell. Then she took on her biggest challenge: convincing her parents it was a good idea.

At first her mom was unconvinced, warning Sasha about the stress and uncertainty that come with owning your own business. So Sasha “went to the numbers,” she says. “I showed her that these are the financials of the business, this is how I would run it, and this is why I would be able to sleep at night.” Her parents got on board.

Soon Sasha was the president of Sexton Roofing & Siding, and Tim was the sales manager. With two other employees they made up a four-person staff – and they were also pregnant with Emmett. But expanding their family and growing a business seemed to go hand in hand.

“I was really excited the whole time,” she says, “maybe naively so. I just had a blind faith that we would figure it out. In retrospect that’s definitely a big risk, to leave your job and pursue something new.”

The Wildes found that developing their core values for the business – like always doing the right thing – helped steady them through some sleepless nights. One tough call they had to make was to refund a customer for a roof installation they weren’t happy with. “It was a difficult but easy decision to make, because it was the right thing to do,” says Sasha. “These are the things that force us to grow, and they’re the mistakes that will never get made again.”

As their third year overseeing Sexton approaches, Sasha and Tim hope to grow their customer base within Franklin and Hampshire counties and expand their staff to 10 people.

The couple has been together since college, when they met while playing on Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Ultimate Frisbee team. “We kind of grew up together in a way,” says Sasha. “We were technically adults when we met, but we’ve done so much learning and growing through our 20s and 30s, especially owning a business together. It has been the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”

As the two continue to grow Sexton, Sasha is working on Invest Local Mass, an initiative to bring in other “sister companies.” She’s happy to mentor young entrepreneurs and pay forward the kindness that has been shown to her.

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