Today we’d like to introduce you to Jackie Hall.
Jackie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in a small town of approximately 50 people and obtained a high school education. Won a scholarship but had no idea how we could afford college. I started my life as an executive secretary and have climbed the ranks to where I am today a Business Owner. I found myself divorced with two small girls to raise and no college education but read in a Little Rock Newspaper about a new career for legal secretaries to becoming a Paralegal to assist attorneys. It was the up and coming career. I researched and found you had to have a four-year college degree.
I researched and found The National Paralegal Center in Atlanta, Georgia had a program for a paralegal degree by having a sponsorship law firm. I met with a very rich family there in my neighborhood and found they had a son in law who was an attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas and was willing to sponsor me to attend the school in Atlanta if I could come up with the money for the school. Another block as I did not even have the $25.00 to pay for the initial application. My dear friend, Donna Mitchell said I will write the check apply.
I applied and once accepted I was blessed by reaching out to Women Organizations in the State of Arkansas who sent me scholarships, my own local church paid the $5,000 tuition and the Arkansas Methodist Women’s organization supported me. I left my two young daughters with my mother and headed off to Atlanta, Georgia where I completed my training and set out to find my first Paralegal job as I knew I had to make enough money to support myself and my two daughters. I had to leave Arkansas in order to find a Paralegal Job and came to Duncanville, Texas to live with my brother and within a week I was hired as a Paralegal and spent the next ten years serving the City of Dallas as a Paralegal.
I spent 25 years in the legal field of which ten of those years were in the Dallas market. During the 10 years in the Dallas legal field, I was working for a very large law firm where Wang Laboratories brought in a product called Electronic Imaging.
I was in the litigation department of this law firm and was asked if I could look at this technology and see how it would work in the legal field. I immediately saw litigation support. They had a programmer brought in and he and I developed Litigation Support package out of this technology. I left that firm and was hired by a very high profile litigation firm known as Rambo attorneys where Wang introduced me and I installed and utilized the Litigation Support application where I took a large litigation case to settlement within four months. I had a team of 100 paralegals producing documents and imaging them from across 35 states.
I was recognized in a magazine for implementing the electronic imaging litigation support into a major law firm in Dallas. I also wrote an article which was published in The Technology book and only available in England. I was the only woman among all the men who wrote technology articles. I received the prestigious honor as International Woman of The Year in 1992/1993 from the International Biographical Center of Cambridge, England. for my contribution to the Legal Profession. I decided I had accomplished as high as I could go in the Legal Profession and wanted to expand my knowledge in another field.
I then became a Contract Negotiator in the telecommunication industry in the Richardson, Texas telecom corridor for MCI. I received the Certification from Karrass for the Effective Art of Negotiation. I used this to make history on partnering with Power Companies. I won the Ring of Champions award which was the highest honor by MCI due to my success as a Contract Negotiator with power companies.
I negotiated a win-win contract between the power companies and the telecom company to build the local infrastructure. I was then hired by a power company out of St. Petersburg, Florida to come help them build a telecom company. I spent 2 years in St Petersburg, Florida which included use of a private jet and helicopter to negotiate and develop relationships with all US Carriers in the Telcom industry. I was the individual who developed a relationship with Telefonica’s company called Emergia.
Emergia was the company who built underwater fiber around South America and delivered the data out of South America to the landing station which was located in Boca Raton, Florida to hand off to the US Carriers. Emergia needed a US company to place telecom equipment in the landing station to receive the data traffic from South America and then hand it off to all US carriers network. Also, the US traffic could be handed off to Emergia to be delivered into South America. I spent two years there developing relationships between US telecom companies and International telecom companies.
After two years with the company in St Petersburg, Florida I then moved to Miami, Florida and spent a year and half working for Emergia to introduce them and handle Contract Negotiations between US carriers and Emergia. After setting this part of the business up I moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and worked as Director of Southeast for 360 networks and XO Communication. I was at this time realizing I wanted to get back to Texas where my family was and do something different. My oldest daughter worked for a company called SERVPRO.
SERVPRO is a fire and water restoration company. My daughter advised me there were two franchises coming on the market for sale. I saw my way to not only get back to Texas but to own my own business and build something for myself. In January 2005 I started my company, J&K Professional Services, Inc. d/b/a SERVPRO of Lake Arlington and SERVPRO of Southwest Fort Worth as I purchased the two franchises that were for sale. On March 21st of 2005, I took the company from a $400,000 company to a multi-million dollar company in its first year of business.
My oldest daughter was a big part of this adventure and she, later on, purchased her own SERVPRO and I continued to move forward in this business. SERVPRO is a fire and water restoration company. In 2008 when Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area I became the largest SERVPRO in the State of Texas with $5.7 Million during Hurricane Ike as I took on five schools. One of the schools I actually built back and got into the rebuild business and became a one-stop-shop for the Insurance Industry.
I am entering my 15th year and am ready to turn this business over to the younger generation as I have enjoyed meeting all of the customers, helping them through disasters and taking care of my employees. I have had a wonderful life and am looking forward to more traveling and seeing what the next adventure for me will be. I truly am an entrepreneur when you look at my life’s adventure and what I have accomplished. It has been a fun ride and I did it without a college education but hard work and persistence. I am now looking forward to enjoying life!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, the road has not been smooth. However, you must remain confident in your abilities and always put one foot in front of the other and move forward. One of the biggest obstacles occurred when my daughter left the business and I was completely alone to run this multi-million dollar business. I just bit off that large elephant one bite at a time and grew it back to what it is today. You always have struggles in life, its how you handle them that makes you successful. You just keep going with a positive attitude and don’t let anything stop you. I am living proof Persistence and Confidence is the key to a successful life.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about SERVPRO of Lake Arlington and SERVPRO of Southwest Fort Worth – what should we know?
My business is a Fire, Water, and Rebuild Restoration Company. There are over 1700 franchises across the country and the company is also International as SERVPRO is in Canada. We also do Mold and Hazardous clean-up.
I am known for handling large losses since I managed large litigation projects in Dallas during my paralegal days working in law firms. I am a woman-owned business running a multi-million dollar restoration company by myself whereas most have a husband and wife team. I consider myself a workaholic and entrepreneur. My entire career has been spent taking on new jobs with no experience in that field. I have the confidence to believe you can do anything you want to just have the confidence to figure it out.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My entire staff is responsible for my success. You only are as good as the people who work for you. You take care of your employees and your employees will take care of your customers. My youngest daughter was a lifesaver when she moved down here to help me and run the office part of my company.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2951 Suffolk Drive, Suite 680, Fort Worth, TX 76133
- Website: servproofsouthwestfortworth.com and servprooflakearlington.com
- Phone: 817 460 7766 and 817 557 6895
- Email: office@servpro9221.com
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