We meet Terrica Ellis, a rental agent, and Mitch McNeal, an executive at a faith-based chain of assisted living facilities. Express Employment Professionals found them the perfect jobs for their next steps. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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| This is an iHeart Podcast. | |
| Music I think as an owner of a business, which I was for 20 plus years, I think that gives me a little different perspective. | |
| Maybe when I go to work for somebody else, I take more ownership in it, so to speak, because I know I've sat on the other side, you know, and had people working for me, and I always appreciated when people would go the extra mile. | |
| Sometimes the HR department shies away from hiring business owners. | |
| Someone who's independent and entrepreneurial might not fit with company culture. | |
| But Mitch McNeil of Grand Rapids, Michigan was a great choice to become a leader in a new job, even though he was working for somebody else. | |
| That's largely because he knew what it meant to have his own shop. | |
| As for Tereka Ellis, spend just five minutes with her, and you'll have no doubt she's all in, sure to make a success of whatever she tackles. | |
| I want to grow. | |
| And you're always learning new things. | |
| On this edition of On the Job, From Hired to Retired, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals, we meet two people whose work involves helping others find the comforts of home. | |
| I'm your host, Steve Mencher. | |
| And over the past 34 years, Express Employment Professionals has put millions of people like Mitch and Terrica to work in meaningful and fulfilling jobs and careers. | |
| If you're looking for work or want to grow your workforce, go to ExpressPros.com. | |
| I'm on my way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. | |
| It's one of the places in the Midwest that has been successful in reinventing itself for the 21st century. | |
| And it seemed likely that people at work here would be able to pursue their passions and interests. | |
| Meet Mitch McNeil. | |
| Some of his earliest childhood memories involve sports. | |
| Even as he was preparing for a career with an undergrad degree in public administration, a minor in business management, and then a law degree, he kept trying to discover how he could make a living in sports. | |
| His brother helped with the brainstorming, and the two of them finally figured it out. | |
| And basketball in the driveway was kind of the king for us year-round. | |
| And so we actually, just for fun, had started a three-on-three basketball tournament in our backyard, and did that during the summers one time a year, and then had an opportunity through an ad agency out of Grand Rapids and some sponsorship connections to actually take it on the road and do events in different parts of the country. | |
| We had a nice 10-page article in Sports Illustrated about our event, and ABC World News and Wide World of Sports, and all these people were covering our one backyard event, and we decided to turn what we were doing just for fun into a career. | |
| So that's what what we started doing. | |
| Did this benefit someone? | |
| Was it a charity thing? | |
| Tell me what how that turned out. | |
| How was it a business? | |
| Yeah, it really is uh a charity thing. | |
| We weren't a nonprofit organization ourselves. | |
| We were uh a for-profit business entity, but in we developed a program where in each of the communities that we would run an event, we would have a local charity that was involved. | |
| They would help us with volunteers and and they had opportunities to raise money through other means that we gave them. | |
| Uh but at the end of the day, that was the ultimate goal was this fun event for people of all ages, all playing abilities, uh, but also uh raising money for some local cause uh in each of the communities. | |
| That goes on for how long? | |
| It's still going on today, but I left there back at the uh end of 2009, so at about 20 to 25 years, did that full time. | |
| Maybe you've started or been involved in a business like Mitch and found that the record keeping, the organizing, the hiring and firing, All these things began to overshadow the reason you'd become involved in the first place. | |
| That's what happened to Mitch. | |
| At that point, he figured it was time to move on. | |
| The one thing I I landed on eventually in 2010 was working as a landman, an independent contractor, a landman uh on behalf of uh an oil and gas company. | |
| You may not have heard of this job. | |
| I know I hadn't. | |
| But CNN Money calls landman one of the best jobs you could have. | |
| A landman negotiates on behalf of energy companies, serving as a liaison to property owners who have oil or gas on their land, or who might be on the route of a pipeline. | |
| Almost immediately, this took a toll on Mitch McNeil's family life, since he needed to be in a remote part of the state for several days each week. | |
| So did that for a few months. | |
| The uh oil ran dry, so to speak, and and things uh kind of shut down pretty rapidly, so I was only there for a couple of months. | |
| About a month or two after that, got a call from the same company wanting to know if I'd be interested in going out to North Dakota and working as a landman out there and working on pipelines and and that kind of thing with uh with landowners out there. | |
| So they took that opportunity. | |
| Was that the height of the boom in North Dakota that's the height of the boom in uh Williston and in that area of North Dakota was unbelievable. | |
| Yeah, definitely an experience. | |
| But once again, it was an experience that kept Mitch from his family. | |
| He was growing tired of that, and there was more. | |
| Personal level was definitely uh the faith journey that I was going on at that time, I think. | |
| Obviously was unemployed for a while, obviously had those struggles and that kind of thing that go along with unemployment, had family that just you know meant everything and wanted to make sure I was a part of, you know, what they were going through at college or in high school and being available at their events. | |
| So on a personal level, those were the things that that was, you know, kind of driving me. | |
| On a job level, I was looking for something definitely back in West Michigan. | |
| Uh we knew that's where we wanted to be. | |
| And really was kind of focused on because I had worked, even though I didn't work for a nonprofit organization, worked with a number of nonprofit organizations through the basketball events, kind of had in my mind that that's the direction I wanted to take was uh maybe towards something involved in a nonprofit. | |
| Ideally would be a faith-based nonprofit. | |
| The drive to be part of something bigger than himself. | |
| That was the feeling Mitch used to have when he helped communities raise money with his basketball events, and all the jobs he'd held before gave Mitch a great story to tell about his flexibility and people skills. | |
| Being able to uh, you know, literally cold calling uh these landowners out in North Dakota or Northern Michigan and and trying to convince them that their land was going to be valuable to somebody and would they be willing to to part with part of it. | |
| So yeah, that that part of it I think was some skills, and then obviously through our events. | |
| The other side of it was through our events, they were all outdoor events. | |
| You know, you don't send people into panic mode if there's a storm coming through and and that kind of thing. | |
| So I think those are yeah, again, key ingredients. | |
| In the second half of our podcast, we'll follow Mitch to the job he found and does every day with commitment, humor, and unflagging energy. | |
| First, we're gonna meet Terrica Ellis. | |
| She's another Grand Rapids resident with an interesting work journey. | |
| And you'll see once we're done how her job is similar in some ways to Mitch's. | |
| While I was in college thinking about a career path, I've always liked finances. | |
| Um that's where I thought that I wanted to be. | |
| And that's because I am the finance chairperson at my church. | |
| So and I've been doing that for years. | |
| I started off as the assistant secretary, then went to secretary, went to treasurer, and now I'm the finance chairperson. | |
| So I've held different positions. | |
| And I won't give up that position. | |
| You will have to literally snatch it away from me in order for me to give it up. | |
| Um but I thought that I always wanted to be at finances, and for a person that does that don't really like accounting. | |
| I am very good at it. | |
| But going and applying to jobs at banks and you know, they want you to have so many years of experience when it comes to counting money and and all of that. | |
| It's just like sometimes being in a business, you have to take a risk. | |
| Banks, most of them anyway, aren't known for risk taking, and Terrica wasn't having any luck convincing a bank to take a chance on her. | |
| Besides, women have to make some decisions about work that men don't, especially as they're having and caring for their children. | |
| Terica, who married her husband in 2006, has tried to adapt to circumstances as each of her kids was born. | |
| I worked in between and while I was pregnant. | |
| And with my second child, I took off, I took work off. | |
| So I took a whole year off of work with my second child, because I felt as though with my first child, I felt as though I neglected her a little when it came to work because I worked all the time. | |
| And you know, it just wasn't right. | |
| I should like spent more time with her. | |
| And then my son, being that he was six weeks early, I nursed him for an entire year, just so I can make sure that nothing is wrong with him. | |
| So, you know, and he's just as smart as he wanna be. | |
| As Terrica sought help in finding just the right job, she had the advantage of certainty about what she wanted. | |
| Some tip agencies was just like, well, you know, it's gonna be hard to get you into customer service because you have so much factory experience. | |
| I think that you'll be better off by doing a factory, but that's not what I want. | |
| That is not what Terrica wants. | |
| Terrica is sitting here telling you that Terrica wants a customer service position. | |
| Terrica is not working in factory. | |
| If you cannot help me get a customer service position, then there is no reason for me to waste your time or you to waste my time. | |
| So I can move on to the next agency and see who is going to help me with that. | |
| Who's going to oblige my my demands? | |
| Who's going to want to help me succeed in life? | |
| You know, it's it's the one thing I liked about the agency that I went to is that they made sure that whatever position they put me in, it was going to be a long-term position. | |
| It wasn't going to be something where it's going to be continuously short-term and short term. | |
| Her goal for me was to start me off at some short-term positions and then get me a long-term position with the possibility of being hired in. | |
| You were starting to tell me before, and I'm really interested in this, the idea of knowing yourself well enough and knowing your personality well enough to know that customer service works for you. | |
| What is it about being across from the table like you are to me now that really feeds who you are and what you're excited about? | |
| What it is is that I have a very bubbly personality. | |
| I am not a dull person at all. | |
| I'm really calm and I'm very professional. | |
| And you know, my coworker, She was listening to me on the phone with someone, and she was just like, Man, you were really mean on that call. | |
| I was like, no. | |
| I said I wasn't mean. | |
| I said I was very professional on that call. | |
| It's just that sometimes you have to be stern, but be professional. | |
| And that's exactly what what it was. | |
| Okay, we're gonna take a short break now. | |
| Soon we'll find out where both Terica and Mitch landed. | |
| And here's a hint they're both helping people find the best possible home. | |
| You're listening to On the Job from Hired to Retired, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. | |
| Since we're in Grand Rapids, let's hear from Casey Cooperis, director of the professional group for the Express Pros office in Grand Rapids. | |
| One of the things we really strive to do differently here at Express is really get to know the applicant. | |
| Um, not just throw them in the first available job for them to get some money coming in, but really figure out what makes them tick, what their skill sets are, and really find that match with our employer so that it's a long-term fit. | |
| Our goal really is for these folks to find a career at the end of the day and continue to improve their lives through their through their work. | |
| So we also spend a lot of time with our clients as well, going on site, getting to know their culture, getting to know what that perfect match is gonna be. | |
| So at the end of the day, it's uh it's a win-win for everybody involved. | |
| That was Casey Cooperis from the Express Employment Professionals Office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. | |
| And welcome back to On the Job from Hired to Retired. | |
| In a moment, we'll find out where Mitch McNeil found deep satisfaction with a new direction in his career. | |
| But first, Terrica Ellis has found a job that completely meets her goal of being in customer service. | |
| She's a leasing agent at Oakview Apartments in Grand Rapids. | |
| Today she'll be handing over the keys to one of the apartments in the complex to two young renters. | |
| But first, there's her solo inspection. | |
| So before we move someone in, we always go and walk the apartment and make sure that everything is okay before the person moves in. | |
| Um and that's what I'm about to do now. | |
| I'm about to go and walk an apartment because we have a move in today. | |
| So she's gonna be on the second floor. | |
| What are you looking for when you uh walk through the apartment today? | |
| Making sure that all the cabinets are intact, that um there isn't any paint anywhere, it shouldn't be, making sure that everything is how I will want my apartment to look if I was living here. | |
| As we work our way through the apartment, it's clear that Terica wants it to be perfect for the young renters, and her careful inspection reflects her philosophy that nothing should be taken for granted. | |
| Now I'm in a position that I love. | |
| And with me having a b bubbly personality, it's awesome. | |
| And I love talking to people. | |
| So face-to-face interaction, it's the best thing. | |
| You can always have conversations on the phone and everything, but face-to-face is is awesome. | |
| Now I can testify to the bubbly personality. | |
| Terrica's enthusiasm and passion for her job shine through as she goes about her work. | |
| Okay. | |
| Um, well, I was just calling to let you know that you are able to move in earlier today. | |
| You don't have to wait till um 4 30. | |
| I just walked your apartment and it is awesome. | |
| If you were Terrica's boss, can you imagine how glad you'd be to hear this? | |
| I want to grow. | |
| I want to learn everything that I could possibly learn. | |
| Yes. | |
| You're always learning new things. | |
| Especially when it's a new job, or it could be something that you already knew. | |
| But then it changes. | |
| It's just like the little things make you excited, and five years down the line. | |
| I am quite sure that the little things are still going to excite me. | |
| Terica knew on day one that this job could be a winner. | |
| We all connected. | |
| Everyone that's here in the office today, all of us connected. | |
| We are a family here. | |
| We talk to each other every day. | |
| We have fun every day. | |
| It is not a boring work day when we come to work. | |
| It is not a boring work day at all. | |
| I love the people that I work with. | |
| And once I get hired in, I hope I didn't get moved. | |
| What's the timeline? | |
| When do you think you might get the good news? | |
| I don't know. | |
| Hopefully soon. | |
| I'm just waiting to be shopped. | |
| That's the one thing I'm waiting on, just waiting to be shopped. | |
| And when I say shopped, I mean someone coming in and um acting as if they want to rent an apartment. | |
| Even as going as far as them taking the application or even filling out the application and making sure that I follow all the guidelines when it comes to fair housing and um discrimination and all of that. | |
| So wow, so they send like a secret shopper in here. | |
| You'll never know who that person is. | |
| They really do that. | |
| Yes, they do. | |
| They really do that. | |
| Could you think you might be able to tell who it is? | |
| Sometimes you can tell, and sometimes you can't. | |
| Yeah, you just never know. | |
| You just never know. | |
| It could just happen any at any given time. | |
| I could be secret shop today. | |
| I don't know. | |
| It can happen tomorrow. | |
| I have no idea. | |
| So yeah, I'm just waiting. | |
| All right. | |
| Oh yeah, we're all set. | |
| The apartment is yours. | |
| Have fun. | |
| Oh yeah. | |
| Awesome. | |
| Now we also followed Mitch McNeil to work at Baruch Senior Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit that runs about two dozen senior living facilities. | |
| He found a great match there as VP of Business Development. | |
| So we are in 80 Bed Facility. | |
| Mitch introduces us to his colleague Jay Lindeman, the associate administrator of Georgetown and Cambridge Manors in Granville, Michigan. | |
| On the outskirts of Grand Rapids. | |
| This is an 80-bed Baruch facility with four distinct units, serving seniors who need a wide range of care from independent living to assisted living with early memory care available as well. | |
| So we pride ourselves on a more home-like feel here. | |
| What we're interested in is creating something that feels less institutionalized and more comfortable, more like what you would have at home, but at the same time recognizing that we still have to serve 20 people in a group setting. | |
| So our dining room here is set up more like a family dining. | |
| We eat together simultaneously. | |
| So you know, a lot of places you come down and you grab your seat, you kind of come and go as you please. | |
| We like to come down together as a group and eat together. | |
| Um and so uh all the dining rooms are set up similarly. | |
| There's a lot going on as we tour the facility. | |
| We're having our fingernails painted. | |
| Clip and see, do you come specially to do this the the nails? | |
| Is that uh something you do, or do you do lots of different things? | |
| I do lots of different things. | |
| I'm one of the activities directors here, so yes, doing meals every Wednesday. | |
| The strongest impression a visitor takes away from a Baruch facility is that every effort has been made to help residents feel at home. | |
| And as Mitch explains, that also translates into giving residents and their families a deep sense of security. | |
| One of the biggest fears that that families and and seniors have is running out of money. | |
| And we have a program that assures them that they'll never be asked to leave, even if they run out of money when they're in our facility. | |
| So as a nonprofit, we can offer those kinds of things and and feel good about it. | |
| And since Baruch Senior Ministries is a faith-based nonprofit, they have chaplains to minister to residents in their spiritual care department, and their non-denominational Christian beliefs infuse the entire organization. | |
| Over the past few years, Mitch McNeil has been key to the organization's growth. | |
| As the uh vice president of business development, I I wear a lot of hats. | |
| When I was originally hired, um I was gonna get involved in fundraising and volunteer development, again, kind of based on my my previous career. | |
| That kind of was short-lived, and they they found out that I had some other abilities through my you know legal days and uh skill set. | |
| So um been involved primarily in the acquisition part of our the growth of the uh organization, but also do get involved uh in licensing, still do uh a little bit of marketing type things. | |
| Uh we put together an annual report uh that I kind of am responsible for and and just a lot of other things, you know, smaller things, but primarily the acquisitions is is kind of where I've been involved. | |
| When it comes right down to it, there's one last question you almost have to ask someone like Mitch. | |
| Can he imagine his own mom in a Baruch Senior Ministries facility? | |
| You know, and I always look at him. | |
| My mom is is still around at at 82 and fortunately able to take care of herself right now. | |
| But if I was ever in a spot where I needed to show her, you know, uh options out there. | |
| There are certain places you probably wouldn't take her, but I'd feel very comfortable in ours, just knowing that really for these families, it's all about the buildings can be as nice and and all that kind of thing, but it all comes down to the level of care and the uh uh the workers that are actually taking care of these residents on a day-to-day basis and and the the pride that they take in that and and that kind of thing. | |
| So that really is what drives it. | |
| Family and faith, as you can tell, are what drive Mitch McNeil. | |
| And this is what he tells his three kids about work. | |
| Make sure you're doing something that you love. | |
| You don't want to go to work every day feeling like it's a challenge or a chore. | |
| That's great advice from the Heartland. | |
| And that's all for this edition of On the Job from Hired to Retired, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. | |
| Find out more at ExpressPros.com. | |
| This podcast is produced by Steve Mencher for Mensch Media, Red Seat Ventures, and iHeartRadio. | |
| Find us on iHeartRadio and iTunes, where we hope you'll leave a nice review. | |
| That helps other folks find us too. | |
| And of course you can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. | |
| See you next time on the job. |