diff --git a/builtin/providers/pagerduty/resource_pagerduty_user.go b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/resource_pagerduty_user.go
index 02948283c..33b7e80c8 100644
--- a/builtin/providers/pagerduty/resource_pagerduty_user.go
+++ b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/resource_pagerduty_user.go
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 package pagerduty
 
 import (
-	"fmt"
 	"log"
 
 	"github.com/PagerDuty/go-pagerduty"
@@ -35,7 +34,7 @@ func resourcePagerDutyUser() *schema.Resource {
 				Type:         schema.TypeString,
 				Optional:     true,
 				Default:      "user",
-				ValidateFunc: validatePagerDutyUserRole,
+				ValidateFunc: validateValueFunc([]string{"admin", "limited_user", "owner", "read_only_user", "user"}),
 			},
 			"job_title": &schema.Schema{
 				Type:     schema.TypeString,
@@ -223,14 +222,3 @@ func resourcePagerDutyUserImport(d *schema.ResourceData, meta interface{}) ([]*s
 	}
 	return []*schema.ResourceData{d}, nil
 }
-
-func validatePagerDutyUserRole(v interface{}, k string) (ws []string, errors []error) {
-	validRoles := []string{"admin", "limited_user", "owner", "read_only_user", "user"}
-	role := v.(string)
-
-	if !contains(validRoles, role) {
-		errors = append(errors, fmt.Errorf("%q must be one of %v", k, validRoles))
-	}
-
-	return
-}
diff --git a/builtin/providers/pagerduty/structure.go b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/structure.go
index b7a9d26ef..54601171c 100644
--- a/builtin/providers/pagerduty/structure.go
+++ b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/structure.go
@@ -2,17 +2,6 @@ package pagerduty
 
 import pagerduty "github.com/PagerDuty/go-pagerduty"
 
-// Checks if a slice contains a string
-func contains(slice []string, item string) bool {
-	set := make(map[string]struct{}, len(slice))
-	for _, s := range slice {
-		set[s] = struct{}{}
-	}
-
-	_, ok := set[item]
-	return ok
-}
-
 // Expands an array of escalation rules into []pagerduty.EscalationRules
 func expandRules(list []interface{}) []pagerduty.EscalationRule {
 	result := make([]pagerduty.EscalationRule, 0, len(list))
diff --git a/builtin/providers/pagerduty/util.go b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/util.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..661b7f9e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/builtin/providers/pagerduty/util.go
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+package pagerduty
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+
+	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/helper/schema"
+)
+
+// Validate a value against a set of possible values
+func validateValueFunc(values []string) schema.SchemaValidateFunc {
+	return func(v interface{}, k string) (we []string, errors []error) {
+		value := v.(string)
+		valid := false
+		for _, role := range values {
+			if value == role {
+				valid = true
+				break
+			}
+		}
+
+		if !valid {
+			errors = append(errors, fmt.Errorf("%s is an invalid value for argument %s", value, k))
+		}
+		return
+	}
+}