hi i'm judy murphy this is down to people in princeton community television thanks for watching you're going to love our today show because we've got in the in here who's the author of an thornton's insider guide to home improvement book and she's a tells all about everything she's been doing this book is professional tips to maintain your home she's also a successful and award winning business leader here in the state of new jersey she owns m s i plumbing in remodelling and she's what i call mrs one hundred and counting involved across the state with all types of initiatives and nonprofit goodwell but i just want her to tell you herself though and it is my absolute pleasure to have you here today it's absolutely wonderful to be here all right let's let's start from the beginning tell us about yourself oh ok well i'm a former teacher and i actually started teaching in a vocational school have a master's in vocational counseling and i down south from arkansas you know it's been little convoluted story but i always thought that i would be the superintendent or principal of a vocational school and then i needed to make a life change and that life change happened in the eighty's and i moved from little rock arkansas to new york city to being you know just a little things just a little change and that's where i started working in business i started working for new york telephone and it's funny because i think i always wanted to be in business but you know women in my generation are sometimes funneled into other careers if you're even going to have a career right teaching nursing that kind of things so i was thrilled to finally be able to be yes and while i was in new york city i met my husband who lived out in hundred county and that's how i found her in koa yeah yeah and he was an executive with a t n t but had started a little condo management company at the time and at that time on the side but back then think about it in the late seventy's early eighty's most people didn't even know what a condominium was right that ran like that idea of and we started our business we had one part time employee he and i had the management company and another business and you know just like any entrepreneur we just grabbed on to any opportunity that came our way and we're both really curious people so we like having lots of different things going on so out of the property management you know you do financial management you do administrative management you you manage the board of directors you manage the subcontractors etc and you know you just couldn't find one carpenter to come and fix something at a condo association so we hired our first you know our first guy a part time guy and then his name was jack and then you know then you hire another guy and they're on a condo property and you know some owner says hey do you guys and we still manage condos and office buildings in and around flemington and central new jersey and then i own and run m s i plumbing remodeling and it's kind of like having a vocational school really better and we just grown a you know we grew out of the condos we still do a large amount of condo exterior building maintenance for associations in central new jersey tons of carpentry and then about eleven ten eleven years ago we had license plumbing so now we do full on plumbing  we do the you know the rough and final plumbing for our remodel jobs and then we also do daily plumbing projects customers you've got a water heater you've got a clogged toilet hugo boss it's not working you need water conditioning that's a big deal around here it's a whole tell that's a whole show i know it is just just for the sake of some people out there wondering because i know you are always when we go in home depot or something they say hey do you want to tell your daughter you know you got your should be yes yes tell it tell fellow yeah especially in fact it will especially on the  in the wells you know it's in hundred and i'm sure here in mercer county to have a lot of people right here on wells right and actually you should be testing your water every year most people don't want to do it it's expensive but everything changes underground affect our company m s i plumbing and remodeling we teamed up with a rare headwaters i'm sorry the name escapes me but anyway we do we help them to do testing they provide a lower cost for years and years and years kondo newsletter articles town newsletter articles and then of course when the internet came on and there was blogging and websites and base book at link you know all those things i just had hundreds of articles literally that i had written over the years just for whatever topic right then so i thought well when i when i decided to write this book a year and a half ago i went to all those i literally printed all those out and then i literally with scissors cut to you know everything and then i took all those little tips and literally put them in file folders and i had to reconstruct it all because it was easier to type it all back in than it was to find move you know that kind of thing right in a word program so i literally typed this whole thing myself yeah and yeah and i feel really good about it because so many of my customers are are women and men who don't know things about their home sure but i know with women in particular they really feel like they can be taken advantage of and yeah and it's an and it's a lot of it is just they just don't have the basic information so this book not going to tell you how to you know model your bathroom right but it's going to tell you give you things to look for to make monitor throughout the year you know when you should look at your water heater when this can go wrong well i mean you should really be looking at it probably at least quarterly if not monthly would take a trip down there look people just don't get out of their basements i don't think about in the you know the years go by and i'm like oh my god what's wrong right exactly yeah not only that with an old water here you're just like three let's just throw this money out the window because they're less efficient there's new rules that just came from the federal government through the kinds of tips have to save water out to save energy you know tips that to for really anybody to to look at and we tried to i tried to make it and i think this probably goes back to my teaching days i tried to make it as user friendly as possible it's thing totally perfect so i'm hoping that people will receive it that way you know that i skip the congratulations on this but i do also want to mention to you all out there watching if you do recognize her face it's because she's on television commercials all the time giving morristown is that swath they have you know comcast has area so you kind of by and i can't even tell you how it's brought us a lot of business and one of the reasons is because people mostly women even men will call and they will say and so they look at me you know hopefully they see me and i think well she's i want to go yeah i want to call here and i'm going to coleman's company and i mean i have people who have been with me for years and just really great staff we have twenty two employees we have five and carpenters and office staff and they do they they put duties on before they come into your house they're trained how to speak to customers to respect the customers home and give us much information as possible so much of what we do is really educating our customers you know we really don't want to come out there on saturday night right because you didn't check your water heater along the way right now you have no hot water and you have grandma grandpa coming tomorrow right we'll you know really want to come home you're in charge of all that money to have it perfect when they leave because you have that you know i've certainly had employees that didn't do that right they clearly don't work for me anymore because of you would get the phone calls you know again i got another we were just there why is you know  and you want them to know that your name is on this and that you want these you know who are your customers to return forever right and to just support you would you support them right and you know we do have customers but they can hardly do that you know i think everybody a lot of these organizations let's talk about your words here were ignited and you will busy even though i wanted to be in business i'm kind of i'm not really that that kind of business person yes of course we have to make money and we have to cover our expenses and all that stuff but when my husband i came into business together it was really  more about creating a lifestyle for us and you know how we related in beautiful hundred county but we did and thank goodness because it was able you know we had two children a little later in life and  and we wanted the business we do want to be a slave to the business what the business right to work for us rice what we wanted how we wanted to live and i do a lot of speaking engagements i tell young entrepreneurs all the time especially as we still live in the same house it's a little ranch i mean it's pretty nice now i have a new kitchen no doubt but well you know i want to remodel yeah but you know i tell young young entrepreneurs don't spend your first you know paycheck and because the reason why am i in business for thirty years because i live small i understand i want to be in business i know it takes you can't just you know just spend right spend you have to save you have to reinvest in your business and your people in training all that stuff so for me because i didn't come from business i never had one business class i mean i didn't know a debit from a credit that's not even you know i couldn't even balance my own checkbook and because i never learned how to do that right so for me the most important thing i ever did for my business was join the chamber of the it was later and i just love that group because they did they've done so much for me over the years and you know it's like you know again when i talk to young entrepreneurs you know you have to get involved in your community my customers are thirty miles from me my customers are in california yeah or even in new york city my customers are within a thirty mile radius of clinton new jersey and i want to be involved in that community and and i needed to learn i mean i really i had no idea what i was doing i was i'm very i'm pretty bold so i would just pretend like you know what i did and i still do that but you know i put on a good face and pretend but those organizations have been so important to me and just give me so much joy and i wanted to also be able to for my children to you see oh no this is this is how you can have a good life right right you put it out there yet for others and those things come back to you yeah but the business thing has been really big for me because i could have done it without the chamber and not only in the classes in the seminars that they would give but you know i fall into bionic committee and then we founded the women's business for you know twenty something years ago twenty years ago twenty one years rather on a board of directors you are a county chamber of commerce so then i got invited to do that and then oh i just you know i'm in a room with all these you know business people from merck and you know exxon and other small businesses and a hundred and and you learn from those experiences  d you build your network yeah and you know you just do that every day to show up every day you work hard every day try to put it out there and you know after year and a half hopefully it's going to come back what about like tell us about the was a wonderful award beautiful even and the liberty house and they do i mean that was the other twenty four women were amazing and that was a big honor for sure and then the chamber gave me award an award this year the catalyst award again we founded mean a couple of other women in twenty years ago founded the women's business forum and that group gave me which was totally surprised usually you know you're going to get these or i'm sure but that was a total surprise and it was lovely and just wonderful to get that yeah  working in the community one of the things i do because of my vocational background i'm i know of course the honey polytech program and i work with them and i talk to their apprentice program every occasion and stuff well they have a new training program  they got a grant for this going on at the women's prison you know new jersey's only women's prison is in hundred county it's in brighton and there's a thousand women out there i know you never know right you never know why they're prison so they're now you know i mean there this is our community right you can't you know you don't have a double standard if you're going to be i don't know i don't want to go there i live here i love that right so to speak and so polytech is doing a great job out there teaching women who are within a year or two of release  trade skills you know and if nothing else it just teaches them you know safety and construction that they actually build a shed but they get their certification and they just learn how to use power tools in this and that so maybe when they get out they have a chance to make it a little more money or being in a nontraditional kind of environment knife and so they've asked me the last year i've gone out there several times i'm going to go out again these two semesters i go out to talk about what it takes what it means how to be a good come up with three one being about the book and it's a lot of fun because i have this really cool red wagon and i bring all these show intel items you know like a clean air filter and a really dirty air filter some people don't have and they don't know t clean their air filters you should see some of the air filters that we see is very new to a new homeowner i didn't even know there was a filter for a ten year as you know really yeah you know or you know pipes with roots going through them or you know again interactive i don't really give speeches it's more of a conversation yeah yeah you some you know we have on our mind yeah and then the other two topics one is because i'm a i'm an entrepreneur and i've started all these businesses and etc etc was how it like for a big corporation come and talk to people about how to take entrepreneurial skills and ideas and turn and use that in your corporate corporate job you know to make you that intrapreneur the one that is going to you know get what you want out of that job so i can certainly speak to that because i'm you know i've built these companies and i you know i want to add i know that from the radio interview we had they were talking about dealing with the wrote back because i also go into you know about communal living and condo associations what that means what permits mean municipalities that kind of stuff and he was like wow you don't have anything in there about renting or leasing oh my gosh yes know to look at it and that was something i didn't see right you know but even in the speaking they when you were talking about how you you as a business leader with the upcoming millennial growing population and their ages that you were saying to me which i love this to get it was another one of those  things and leaves me thinking for weeks you said they need us and we need them oh god oh my gosh yes you know when you said that you know he to when i see them he does and they need us you know interesting intersection yes what you're speaking about business is and so i know you have so much information to share that note and then you also are a woman business owner and you have another topic that you talk about you are yeah he's turning the kid had to change the name of that speak to that for different groups get in touch or customize something of course you know i'm a former teacher i've got all these experiences so there are lots and lots of things that i could speak about and i don't do love to do it and i'm you know in a way i'm trying to transition and my daughter is going to be coming back into the company to you know start to maybe take things over to you know a family business things so you can speak to the more of the world and i know you're going to be doing a tour unity banks and that's coming up and starting october so look if you were around avid hunter twenty one he's a farmer came from illinois you know grew up on a farm is whole life and he founded a group in new jersey he and a couple other hunters called hunters helping the hungry and in twenty years i mean it's just really grown and so we run it out of our office is you know it's a nonprofit we just do it you know and we raise money because it does cost money to pay the butchers there and they pay all the butchers charges a reduced rate to process the venison and basically it's a program where you know there's that so many deer in new jersey right many of them need to be gone because just because there are too many right and so hunt the hunters you know they love to go out and hunt but if they kill three or four or five they don't need that right many deer so they donate them into this program and all the meat is made into hamburger so it's easy to process and distribute and it goes into the food bank system and in twenty years we've served over one and a half million meals one and a half billion meals author me it's unbelievable how great so every year i mean i think the first year the first year maybe you know fourteen deer and at rideau but now it's hundreds hundreds and what about like it to someone's watching and they want to be involved with that how do they get involved one way or the other yeah hunters helping the hungry dot org that's all you need to know go to the website all the contact information is there you can donate a lot of people just make donations of you know twenty whatever they can write just to help with the product has all the money there no one gets paid you know we have our expenses can you know mailings that kind of thing comes will come out of my books i would donate every everything else and i run their facebook page so if you're on facebook and every week i do a lot of fun things on the facebook page for  hungry it's a great organization i mean so many people and families in new jersey who need our help with and you know there their food insecurity is how the people in the business call it and what we're able to do is give them protein meat credit very little of that right venison is a high protein you know excellent source for you know adults and children and it's just a great program we're so proud of that i mean to and then my husband gets a whole lot more here i heard him say the other day because there's a lot of hunting that goes on sure so anybody interested in it and they need volunteers on the board or you know committees etc so please reach out to herself in the hungry dot org and so you've got about a minute ha tell us about what it was and what's the future for you and schwartz in the future well i'm so happy this this book just came out this week so i'm hoping to really get out there and do some speaking engagements and getting people excited about it to turn off the water you need to find out how somebody show you call a plumber google it whatever figure it out and it's not hard it is not hard and teach everybody what you need to know where it is you to know where yes teach everybody in your house how to do that the second piece of advice i'd like to give everybody is to go right now into your behind your washing machine and look at your hoses there's really only one hose on the market it's called blood check and you can only buy on the internet that have virtually never had a failure ok