Master Plumber & Woman in the Trades | Podcast Ep. 76 | Toolbox for the Trades

Jesse Cannizzaro, you are a master plumber and owner of Milestone Plumbing. Thank you so much for joining the Toolbox for the trades.

Thanks for having me, Jackie. I'm excited to be here.

I am so excited to have you here. It's not often that we get a female entrepreneur and a master plumber on the podcast. I can't wait to pick your brain. But I am going to start this episode the way I do every single one. How did you get into the trades?

So ironically, I grew up in the trades helping my father, who was a master plumber, still is a master plumber. Dad is 78 years old and is a very stubborn, hard headed Italian, hence the last name Cannizzaro. It's where I come from. And my dad still to this day will take a water heater in and out of a basement all by himself because he doesn't want anybody to help him because he's just stubborn. But dad used to take me along nights, weekends, summertime. So I got exposure to the trades growing up. But I grew up in a typical household that, you know, college was the way you get done with high school and you go to college. But I did have the benefit of growing up, being exposed. And so, like at the age of seven, I learned how to solder and my dad was so proud of me. You know, we joke now, like, had OSHA known he was doing that, it probably would have been an issue. But I got to do lots of really cool stuff. I mean, my job reward if I did a great job was we would stop for ice cream on the way home. And if we finished a really big project, I came from the era of Nintendo, I would get to pick out a Nintendo game. So I mean, that was payment, right? Child labor laws, that was payment for helping.

Amazing. I also got rewarded with Nintendo games. Great, great incentive for any parents out there, which you are, Jesse, and we're going to get to that in a second. But I did a little bit of Googling on you before we did today's episode. And my first question is, what reaction did your parents have when you decided to go into plumbing on your own?

They were not excited, if I'm being totally honest. And I still remember to this day when we sat down to really talk about it when I had a situation come up where dad had a stroke and my mom went back to school to go into nursing because being in a family that didn't have great health insurance at the time, my mom knew they needed something better. And so after dad recovered from the Stroke and regained most of his strength. He needed somebody to be there to give him a hand. So a couple days a week in between college classes, I would go and help him. And you know, being in early, you know, years of your adulthood, going to college and it was like I had this renewed passion for wanting to go back into the trades and my working with my hands. And at the time I was working in the restaurant industry at night. And as much as I enjoyed the clientele and the people I worked with, I didn't love the management end of the restaurant industry. It was like a never ending stack of paper. Right. You would just get some of that paper to go away and it would just replenish itself. And I'm like, this is just not for me. But I loved when we would fix things on jobs and I would help dad and you'd work on it with your hands and you'd see what you created and at the end of the day you'd go home and you'd have finished something and it felt great. And it was such a rewarding sense that it was, this is what I'm passionate about. This is what I need to get to. So we talked about it and my dad had, I think, fears that every father would have for their daughter. Number one, the world is not going to accept my child in an untraditional role. So I think that was the biggest driver. But then secondly, he was so scared I was going to get hurt or not be able to have kids someday. Which I mean, sounds so bizarre like you're having this conversation with an early 20 year old. I wasn't worried about having a family at that point, but he was so scared that, that labor intensive part of being a plumber, you know, dad grew up in the era of having cast iron bathtubs and huge heavy water heaters and every, you know, a threader to thread all of the piping. Right. They only used galvanized back then, so it was a totally different era to be doing this type of work.

That's really interesting. And speaking of him being worried whether it would impact you physically, just circling back, he's a 78 year old man who still insists on hauling water heaters on his own.

Yeah, he's, that's who he is, you know, and I've learned as I've gotten older that if I want to keep a good relationship, you just don't argue with him. You know, whatever he says, we joke around here because he'll come visit our shop and our team and he's gotten to know the guys over the years because he'll borrow tools here and there. And I always joke, here comes the HR nightmare. I mean, my dad is out of a different mold. He says things sometimes that he shouldn't say, but that's just who he is. My team luckily enjoys him and often jokes like, why isn't Tom invited to the company party? Why isn't Tom coming out on our outing? And so they've embraced him and always welcomed him. But he is definitely out of a different mold than today's plumbers are.

Tom sounds like someone who's great as, like a special guest appearance. You know, you never know when he's going to come through. It's always a delight. But let's just keep him there, you know, let's keep on the featuring roles.

Yeah, exactly.

So kudos to you for, you know, telling your parents, I really want to do this and them not being super supportive, but you going on anyway. Did you always want to start your own business?

So, not initially. I think that just kind of came as I went through college. I have a bachelor's in business and a master's in business from UW Milwaukee. Great school. And as I looked at, you know, here, I have this passion for learning new things and I love learning and reading and it's always just been kind of fueled, that passion. But I also love the trades. Right. And so it just seemed, after a while, kind of a common sense marriage of two different backgrounds and the right thing to do was to become an entrepreneur. I've always enjoyed management and working with people and growing the team. I mean, in the restaurant industry, even at the other plumbing companies I've worked at, I've always looked for ways to kind of, in a sense, improve things and always leave them a little bit better than I found them. And it just made sense to just start from scratch. In the beginning, it was just myself and I missed having that camaraderie and, like, people to talk to, love our clients and our clients have always been very welcome and sometimes they'll hang around with you while you're working and talk to you. So you've always had that relationship piece there. But in the beginning, I didn't have, like a helper and I didn't have, like, coworkers. And so if I needed help on a job, like a cast iron bathtub needed to go up to a second story, I was calling my sister, I was calling my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, like, hey, over lunch, can you come give me a hand with us? And I enjoyed that. And so it only seemed natural to go from a one woman plumbing shop to start growing that team and building on to have those people that essentially it's what makes Milestone work.

That's awesome. I'm going to get to your team in a second, but before we do, I would love to talk a little bit about your experience getting that master's license because were you a master plumber before you started Milestone?

So I was getting close to taking my master's exam when we initially started. Dad was actually my master plumber and helped me here and there on jobs and kind of oversaw the operations. And then I wrote my state master's test pretty quick right after the business was started and essentially been a master plumber in operations since then. In Wisconsin, it's a little different than other parts of the country that you have a five year apprenticeship to get your journeyman license and then you have another three years of work as a journeyman plumber in the field and then you can take your master's exam. So there's no additional schooling that happens other than keeping your license current with continuing ed. But it takes eight years from when you start the formal apprenticeship to the time that you could first apply to get your master plumber's test. So you can go longer. It doesn't have to be done in three years, but it's eight years minimum.

Got it. So dad came around eventually because he was the one that let you open up the business under his license?

Well, yeah, kind of. And so he was involved in the beginning and dad and I are extremely close. We just as time has evolved and he's gotten. Gotten older, he's retired three times since I've worked with him. So it's usually he goes away for like a month or two and then he resurfaces. But this last time of retirement, he didn't come back out. He's operating out of a pickup truck, so it's limited tools. Occasionally he'll call me on a Saturday and he always wants to work, Jackie, on Saturdays and Sundays. And I'm like, why do you do this? Why don't you work during the normal work week like everybody else? And then if you need a second set of hands, I can come help you. One of our team members can come help you. So often it's a Saturday or Sunday and I get a phone call, hey, I'm having trouble. Can you bring me a part? Or hey, I need a piece of equipment. So we, we've made a great team. He taught me a Trade. I mean, everything I know when it comes to service and repair has been from watching him, from the years that I worked with him. And I mean, he's the best service plumber I've ever worked with. As long as you don't argue with him.

Okay, so he came around. One of his first things for you was he was worried that what it would be like for you being a woman entering a male dominated field. Tell me what that was like, especially while you were working for other plumbing companies and getting your apprenticeship.

So it, you know, it was kind of interesting. I think I've been more concerned about it than it ever really has been an issue. When I worked for a different company out in the Waukesha area, which is just outside of Milwaukee. I had asked the employer that hired me if I could meet the team before I accepted the job. And I wanted to make sure that the team that I was going to be working in was going to be comfortable and willing to at least give me a chance. And they were. And a lot of those guys are very, very close friends. We do have a couple of them here on staff. I mean, they've become lifelong friends of mine. So it was the right move, without a doubt. But there has always been that little bit of surprise. I mean, you can see in people's eyes when you would walk up to the door. And I remember there was one gentleman in particular in the Waukesha area that I went up to the door carrying some boxes and it was two Kohler drop in sinks for the countertop and then two faucets to replace them. And I walked up to the door and I rang the doorbell and he opened the door. Very, very nice man. He was a German background, probably, I would guess like late 70s, early 80s. And he said, well, you're just here to drop the stuff off, right? Somebody else is going to come back and he will install it. And I was like, no sir, I'm here to bring this stuff, but I'm also here to put the stuff in. And in that moment, watching it was like, I either can be kind of persuasive and get my foot in the door and convince this man that I can put this stuff in or I can retreat to my truck, call my employer and tell him, hey, he doesn't want me here, he wants you to send a man back to put this in. And I was able to win that client over. And I think about him often and I think back to just. That was probably a pivotal moment in time for me of either if you really want to do this. You need to figure out a way to make this work, or you're just going to always feel like you don't belong here.

Yeah. And it sounds like you really did that. You just planted your feet on the ground and said, no, I am here. I am qualified to do this work. Please let me in your home.

Yeah. And he sat and watched me all day long. So it was one of those things. But at the end of the day, he handed me a wood clock that he had hand carved and gave it to me as a gift. And so in my mind, that clock has always been like, this sign of acceptance, of, I may have not trusted you initially, but, you know, at the end of the day, he was willing to say, like, things. We had become friends. I mean, we joke sometimes about the client being in your back pocket because they're watching over you all day long. He most definitely did that. But we were friends at the end of the day. And I never went back to that house after that. And that man probably has passed away since because it's been so many years, but he definitely shaped who I became, without a doubt.

Do you still have the wood clock?

I do. I still have that wooden clock. And my kids have not found it yet because it's in a bin. They destroy everything, Jackie. Because we are at that age currently, so we are very careful about what they have access to.

Sure. That honestly sounds like something out of a science fiction journey. You need to cross answer these riddles before you can cross the bridge kind of situation. You proved yourself. He gave you a clock and sounds like that really, that moment instilled a lot of confidence in you and gave you the strength to move forward and be like, I'm doing this career. I'm going to do it as well as I possibly can.

Yeah. It's looking back, I wouldn't change anything at the time. You and I both know we would have changed a lot of things, but it. It definitely shaped kind of knowing I belong here. And if people don't feel that way, that's okay, and that's on them 100%.

All right, so let's talk about how you got started with Milestone Plumbing. When did you do it and how did you do it? So just start with the when.

So 2011. So we were coming out of a housing crisis that had happened, and the economy was not doing great. Another difficult conversation with my mom and dad. At the time, Adam and I were not married yet. We are now, but we sat down at a restaurant in the village of Wauwatosa, right where I live and where our business has been located since day one. And we said, jess is going to quit her job and start a plumbing company. And I'll never forget the look on my dad's face. And he went in to explaining that he had had a business during a recession and how it was just an awful time and I didn't understand the way of the world and how hard it was going to be. And he just didn't want me to suffer through the heartbreak and just begged me not to. And I said, I'm doing this. I've already decided I'm going to do it and we're going to move forward with it and we're going to be careful with our spending and make sure that we can make this work. And I am so glad we didn't listen to him because we have. I mean, this business that has been built with the team has been great. And I would have had so many regrets if we would have just let the economy and that the world wasn't ready for a woman plumber, because that came up during that conversation. Again, if I had let those things that, you know, mental baggage persuade me out of doing it, I would have regretted it the rest of my life. And I knew I was kind of at an age where it was like a now or never. I wanted Milestone to start before I was 30. I made it by two weeks. So we cut sometimes and push boundaries slightly, but we did do it. So it was just a little under the wire. And part of the reason it's called Milestone is that was the goal. It was the goal to make sure I did it before I turned 30. I didn't want the business ever to be attached to me personally, so it was not going to be anything with my name. My dream has always been to build a company and a team that this will live on long after I'm out of the business and that the team will continue to run it. And so I wanted to make sure that there was a separation there.

Nice. A lot of people don't make that distinction right away when they start and they get 5, 10, 15 years into the business and they're like, can we really be Tom's Plumbing if Tom doesn't work here anymore and do that rebranding? So that's great foresight on your end. And from our first conversation, I remember you saying that you didn't want to lean into the woman owned component of the business. Is that correct?

It is. So I didn't want to have a Play on a name that in any way. You know, we joked around and I have close friends that were in on like the discussions and one was like, we should have hot pink trucks. And like, that would be such a great marketing. But what man that you hire wants to ride around in a hot pink truck? Right. But it was one of those things where I still that mental baggage. Right. That I had of, you know, we don't want people to know that I'm a female. Well, I mean, the truth is, the first time you walk up to a door, they know. So rather than embrace it, I chose to try to hide it. But it definitely was in the beginning what made the business so easy to refer because it was something memorable. You know, it was your unique selling point. Whether you liked it or not, that's what it was. And people talked about it in the word of mouth recognition that we got back then was incredible. It still is incredible to this day. The only downside now is when people call and they want, you know, the female plumber to come out. And my position within the company has changed over the years and I'm not in the field full time anymore. So sometimes people are a little disappointed and saddened that it's not me that's coming out to their house or a female plumber that's coming out to their home. But I still have a dream that we will be able to recruit women plumbers or women that are interested that want to go through the apprenticeship to become a plumber. It just hasn't happened yet, but we still got a lot of years left. Got it. Yeah.

Well, talk to me a little bit about that word of marketing and that community kind of sounds like that community virality almost. When you first started hitting the scene as it sounds like Wauwatosa's first female plumber, what was that reaction like and how did that kind of spark start a fire?

Yeah, so it's word of mouth has been incredible for us. And you know, you do a job at one person's house and then all of a sudden you're at like three different neighbors homes. And we live in an area where my home is 1923 Bungalow to Old Tulsa bungalow. They're old houses. They require a ton of repair. Eventually they need to be repiped. Eventually you need new shower valves and you know, primarily focusing on service repair and then remodeling. I mean we have this endless work supply that's inside of the three county area in southeastern Wisconsin. And it's, you know, somebody would refer you to a Family member, somebody refer you to a friend, a co worker. I mean, we've. We live really close to Froedter Hospital and Children's Hospital, right in Wauwatosa. And so once we got into the medical community, we were getting referred to nurses, to doctors. I mean, it just. You get into these pockets and it just, you know, kind of explodes. And tracking where those referrals come from so we can run a report and see. And, you know, so we get phone calls all the time from Yelp and all kinds of different big marketing firms that want us to advertise with them. And it's like we never have. We have so much work coming in that we turn away that we can't capture because we've been so blessed. It's hard because what we're doing is working so well. But I really believe, Jackie, that if you do what you say you're going to do and you follow up and you do a great job at it, you can't, you know, you can't be a plumber that's leaving a mess behind or not respecting people's belongings or, you know, we do the little things like putting the booty covers on, putting the tarps down. Right now with COVID there's been, like, a whole nother thing that's come into play with what we do as a team. If you show people that you care about them, you do what you say you're going to do, and you call them back, they will refer you, and they will continue to use you, and you will build a client base that may grow faster than you're ready for and ready that you have the manpower for. But, I mean, that's the great thing to have, right? Too much work is a much better problem than not enough work. So we joke sometimes that it gets really stressful when we get really busy here, but we all agree that it is better than the alternative. We will take that any day. That stress is the kind of stress you want to have.

I love that. And thank you for clarifying that part of your virality and part of that word of mouth came also from just the quality of work that you were doing and the way you were delivering an excellent homeowner experience. I worry that some people may listen to this and say, oh, well, she got all that word of mouth because she's a woman. No, it's because you did phenomenal work. And I also just want to call out the. May not have been intentional, but being able to get into those hospital communities, those really big, big communities where People visit every day and once you got in a couple times there, it's like, oh, yep, I know a plumber for you. I know a plumber for you. Her name's Jesse. She's great.

You don't realize that they have, you know, boards, right? And so our pediatrician actually always talks about me with this, the pediatrician for our two little boys, they have a board in their medical community. They put ads up for rentals and they put for different trade partners and they'll put business cards up there. And those doctors know that that is a trusted resource. Right. You can't buy a spot on that board. It has to be from earning respect and getting someone's trust that you get put on there. And I imagine every hospital community like that is out there. I mean, these are people that work a lot of hours and these last two years have been more than they probably ever have. They don't have time to call around and look for someone, you know, they want to go somewhere where the rest of their community has referred you. And so getting into those nooks is so beneficial to any service based business. The other thing too I wanted to touch on is, and it sounds so silly, but we talk, we have team meetings every Friday morning and we talk about usually safety. So there's always a safety topic. We start our meetings out actually in a really funny way we have an icebreaker. And I remember when I brought that to my operations manager and the look on his face of, you want to do what? To start these meetings out. And it's actually the favorite part now. And everybody wants to know all week long what the icebreaker is going to be. But we usually don't tell them until Friday morning. But we do a safety section and then we do a technical section. And just a couple of weeks ago we talked again because we read off our Google reviews, our Yelp reviews, Facebook reviews, and then we have a wheel that the technician gets to spin. Whoever got the review gets to spin a wheel. And, and I read one, not like two weeks ago, and all it talked about was how clean we left the space. We left it cleaner than when we got there. And I really believe that if you clean up after doing a great job, it is something so memorable they will remember you for this. And it doesn't take much effort. You don't even have to be a plumber to just clean up the area you were working in. Well, and one of the examples I always talk about with the team is, you know, if I go in to do a new Kitchen sink, faucet. And I noticed that as I'm leaving and I'm picking my tarp up, there's Cheerios inside of the toe kick. Yeah, I didn't put them there, but how much effort does it really take for me to clean up the Cheerios or the cobweb that's there and just leave it looking remarkably nice? I mean, it. Now, the faucet looks great, but the space that that faucet is sitting inside of and being showcased looks even better. And to the homeowner, it makes them feel really good about what they've purchased.

I love that. Thank you for calling that out. It's so true. Because even if it just takes you an extra five, ten minutes at the end of the job, that's five, ten minutes. You just be back to the homeowner that they don't have to clean up that area after you've been there, maybe. Oh, wow. They really left this area super clean. I maybe don't have to wash my bathroom this week. Amazing. As someone who personally hates. Hates cleaning her bathroom, dad and I.

You know, people always say, like, well, why didn't you take your dad's business over? And as much we work together, right. And we still, even to this day, he calls with, hey, I need help getting apart. And we always have just. It's been a separation of companies. My dad's method of cleanup was to sweep everything into one pile. So the client had one area to clean up after he was done. And it's not a fault. It's just somebody that age, that's what it was back then. That's how they cleaned up the service world. And the expectation being in somebody's home these days is so much different than it was 50 years ago. I mean, we are just in a very different time. People are busier. Most homes have two working people. It's not just, you know, one is home during the day. You know, back then when dad was doing this, it probably wasn't a big deal for somebody to clean up the one pile where today. I mean, I can only imagine the eyebrow raise if somebody had to go and clean up a big pile after somebody left, they'd never use them again. I wouldn't in my own home.

Exactly. And I forgot to mention that your dad did have a business. I know you mentioned it briefly. Did he do service and replacement as well, or did he do other types of work?

Yeah, him and I have always done the same. And I think just you. You do what you know. Right. And so I Was exposed to service repair, a little bit of remodeling when I worked for dad's company. But ultimately, the remodeling exposure came when I went to that company in Waukesha and got a lot more familiar with different remodels and how to lay out plumbing systems and venting systems. And that was when I really realized I love to remodel, but we are not a general contractor. We're strictly a trade partner as a subcontractor when it comes to remodeling projects.

Awesome. So what I want to get into now is where your company's at now. But before, I would love to learn a little bit about how you secured funding for Milestone, because, again, you didn't take over your dad's business. You started it all on your own. And you mentioned there was a really great program you were able to take advantage of.

Yeah. And so I took through UW Milwaukee. And it's funny, because I had a master's in business, and people are like, you took a class to write a business plan? Yes, I took a class to write a business plan. Why? Because every once in a while, you need a kick in the pants to get things done. And I do really well with deadlines. And so taking this class, not only did I come out of it holding the business plan that I probably Jackie would have dragged my feet, and it would have taken me five years to write. It took me less than a year to write it. But I also made some really great friends. And the people that were in that class with me, we do their plumbing now. And so I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. Took a great class. One of the guest speakers of that class was Mike Ward. Mike works with US Bank. He's been with US bank forever. He will retire from US Bank. Mike has become a great friend over the years. Mike was willing to sit down with me, look over the business plan, and he was honest, just like a bunch of other banks. We cannot provide financing for a startup again. The economy was not in a good place. Here you have a brand new startup business which was considered high risk. The traditional banks were not comfortable making that extension. But Mike said, I know a firm that can help you and a program that can help you. And Mike took me to wibbic, Wisconsin Women's Business Initiative Corporation, and introduced me to a loan advisor and their president, Wendy Bauman. And those two were willing to help me through the process. To apply for the loan, I went in front of a board to present the business plan. I brought my husband along with. Because he was also co signing on this loan. He was at the time we still weren't married. We dated for 13 years before we finally got married. Which my team thinks this hilarious. So. But we've been married for five, so I mean, we're doing good, right? I was busy. I didn't have time to settle down and get married during that timeframe. But we got approved by that board of directors. Many of those people on that board are clients that I've seen in the last month because we do business with them through their businesses because the board was a volunteer organization for them and they really, truly took a chance on us. And I remember when I met with Adrian, that was my loan advisor and we had put together kind of the revenue speculation of what we were expecting. And Adrian's like these numbers and he's crossing them off. He's like, they're too low. Your business is going to do so much better. You're way too conservative. And I remember he was upping the numbers on the revenue and in my head I'm like, there's no way we're going to do that. And it, you know, I look back and without wibbic, I don't know if I would have had the grit to keep going and looking for the financing. WIBIC took a huge chance on us and it has paid off immensely. We love working with their team. We're still very active with their organization and I advocate for them and any business that's ever looking for financing. We have always referred to them because we know they'll be very well taken care of.

That's awesome. Thank you for being so transparent about that because that's often not a topic that we get to discuss here. So I appreciate that and I can totally relate to. You know what, I already have a degree in this, but I really need to take another class because that's the only way I'm going to get this deadline done. 100%. I am the same exact way. Probably why we get along so well. So let's talk about where the company is now. How many team members do you have of today? And you hit your 10 year anniversary this year?

We did. So our 10 year milestone was this last June. So didn't expect Covid to be going on during it. So we didn't have the big party that I had once dreamed of. But we will have one when things settle down. But yeah. So we're 10 years in the making. We are up to 14 team members. We are currently getting ready to recruit for number 15. Every year we have a goal of putting one new person at least into our pre apprenticeship program. And what that is is it's something our team has come up with. They go through a year, it's usually nine to 12 months of being in our warehouse, being on the job site, running parts, doing ordering, getting familiar with the team, what our industry is. It's kind of that try before you buy period of. Do you love this? Because if you do, we'll put you into the apprenticeship program. But it's going to take five years to get through it. And so it's that period where they can kind of test the waters. Is this really what they want for a career? The trades are a great opportunity, but you have to love what you do. You have to be okay with getting dirty. Not every day is dirty. There are days that our team doesn't get dirty, but there are days that you go into homes. I mean, you're dealing with sometimes sewage. It's not always, you know, the roses and the fun stuff. I mean, there are. We had sewer cleanings yesterday that were on the books. We live in an area with old plumbing. You're cutting out plumbing that is full of grease. I mean, it's not a clean. You don't come home with your hands, you know, being ready to go get a manicure. That's just not what we do. And so we do that trial period. And so far it's been great. We've put several different apprentices through there. I think it's been six in total now. And so for 10 years. I'm happy with that number. It's probably not the growth that a lot of, you know, really people that want to grow fast do, but I've always believed in controlled, slow growth. So we can make sure that the quality is there. You'll hear me say to the team often, quality over quantity. We're not in a hurry. We just want to do it really well.

I love that. And you actually love the type of work that you get to do because all these homes you work on is so old. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

You bet. So what I love about it is every job is a puzzle. Every. And it makes you think. And when you're done solving the puzzle, that sense of pride and that feeling of being really excited about solving a problem or. I love coming into a job where somebody's been told that something's not possible. I mean, I welcome that because it's an opportunity for our entire team to shine. We had a situation in a condo complex downtown where they were told by a different plumbing contractor something couldn't be done. And it was like, well, we'll make it happen. And it required thinking outside of the box and getting, you know, some contacts and some relationships. I reached out to Kohler. We work with Kohler product a lot. I love Kohler. They had an engineer that was willing to, by phone, work with me on a way to tweak an existing system that they had so that we could do this legally inside of this condo. And now I look back and I'm like, well, that's something they should be putting inside of those manuals. And that's why the other plumber couldn't figure it out, is you had to think outside the box. You had to be willing to do some legwork and do some digging to find the solution rather than just simply shrugging your shoulders and saying something couldn't be done. And I, you know, our team has to love that, too. There's new construction is a big deal in our area as well. You know, like out in the suburbs, people are always building. And I did some new construction, and Milestone has had a couple of projects, but for me personally, it's just not exciting. It. I get bored with it doing the same thing repetitively over and over again. It's just not that same excitement as when you have a complex, complex problem that needs to be solved. And the sense of pride when you finish, you know, new construction isn't the same. Like you do a huge, beautiful renovation of trying to figure out where you're going to run the plumbing for that new bathroom without making it look choppy in the room down below. I mean, that's truly a puzzle, and it's something to be very proud of once you do get it nailed down.

I love that. That's so cool. And I definitely noticed that call out on your website when I was checking it out yesterday, how you were just showcasing all these lovely remodels, which is just sounds really, really cool. And also good on you for knowing the kind of work that brings you light and joy and knowing what doesn't. I think that's a big part to finding success in the work that you do. So looking back on a little over 10 years, what would you say is your biggest achievement at Milestone?

So, you know, and this is. There's been a lot of achievements along the way. And I think the biggest one, though, for me is, you know, people say, well, it's starting the business. No, it's not so much starting the business. I think it was more starting the business, running the business, and then realizing that at almost 40, I wanted to be a mom and figuring out how do I juggle, you know, taking good care of the team because the team still needs me. It wasn't in a position where I could walk away and press pause, but I still wanted to be a mom and have kids. And Adam and I were able to figure out a way to make it work. It's caused me to pull back the reins a little bit in certain aspects of the business. But I married a man that is extremely supportive and knows my passion and my drive and would never try to take that away from me. If you know us well and you get inside of our home and you see that he's the one primarily doing the cooking, the laundry, you know, taking care of our kids when I'm working those longer hours on some nights. And it works for us because he respects me and he knows that what I do is very important to me and he would never ask me to step away. And we both love those little boys. They are the biggest blessing that we've ever had.

That's amazing. Pivoting real quick because I don't get a chance to talk to many women in the trades, let alone solo female owners who have two children, three and a half and one.

And Fitzy just turned two, so three and a half and two now. We just had a two year old birthday party.

Oh my goodness. Okay, so how. So how did becoming a mother change the way you ran Milestone? You mentioned pulling back the reins. What were the things you had to put in place to make sure the company could continue running smoothly while you did this, while you became a mother.

So I had to trust my team. We have great people. They are very good at what they do and they needed to be trusted to be able to shine and do the things that they were put in those positions to do without me maybe checking over their work, without me overseeing things and allowing them that opportunity to show me that they can do it and they can do it very, very well. And we have an incredible team of very amazing people all the way from our. All the way out into our field. And it also required me to get creative with my hours a little bit. Right. So perfect example. It is not uncommon for me to be running at 5:58 through the parking lot at daycare, to get in the building before six to grab those two little boys. And, you know, I get home at night, you know, we eat dinner as a family on the nights that I don't have work requirements, get them bathed, get them ready for bed, and then I'm often pulling my laptop back open. So instead of being at work and just working a super long day, I take that break to be with my family and then I take care of those odds and ends that maybe I needed to get wrapped up still so that we could start the next day. I'm also often emailing right out of the gate first thing in the morning, getting things handled so that then I can wake the kids up. So I'm not coming into work as early and I'm not staying as late. But I've been able to leverage just with technology, working from home a little bit outside of those normal hours. We're kind of getting to that age where we're losing a little bit of the weekend time because it used to be when the kids would lay down for naps, I would get payroll done and I would handle those things. Well, that three and a half year old has stopped napping now, so that's creating a new curveball that I'm going to work through. But the two year old still needs a nap. They both very much need naps. Jackie, we're just a little bit of a negotiation stage with the three and a half year old.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

The three and a half year old is ensuing, no nap chaos. And you're trying to work around it. What advice would you give other working moms in the trades?

Go easier on yourself. I actually sat down with somebody from I'm a part of a BNI chapter and Lori and I had a one on one yesterday and the first thing she said to me is, how do you do it all? And I looked at her and I said, what do you mean? And she goes, you run a very successful business. You have two very little kids. And she's like, all the balls stay up in the air. And I said, oh. I said, I'm sorry that you think that they don't always stay up in the air. I said, it, you do the best you can and sometimes things aren't perfect and you just have to learn that that's okay. I know before kids, my quotes and the paperwork and everything, you know, a sharp pencil had made sure everything was perfect. And I am not as perfect as I used to be. I still make mistakes. I'm only human. I think it's good for my team to see that I also make mistakes and I'm just human, you know, I'm not perfect. And I think that them seeing that side of me trying to juggle things, and I share things with them. I'm blessed to work with two awesome office people that have kids of their own, and they're older than mine, so I get great advice, and they see the heartbreak, and they see how hard I work. And I think that they all know that I'm not perfect, but because we're a team, we're all willing to help each other succeed.

I love that. That's awesome. Thank you. I mean, I know that's a big thing that a lot of women deal with, not just in the trades, but elsewhere. How am I going to do it all? How am I going to maintain a career while raising two humans the best way I can? And again, thank God for remote work capabilities. Thank God for technology being able to make that happen. It sounds like you're doing the best that you can. Thank you for being open about it.

Yeah. And I think there's. You know. And I know I struggled with this. Right. I worked right up until the day I went to the hospital with both of my kids, and I went back to work way too quickly. And we won't say that, because most doctors would have been very upset had they known how quickly I went back. And looking back, that time is so important to spend with your family, and I wish I had handled it differently than I did, but I'm wired to just always want to help and always be involved. And I never want to let my team down. And I care so much about each of them, both professionally and personally. And it's hard. Right. Sometimes there's not a complete separation. That line gets really blurred. And just knowing that you cannot be expected to be doing everything perfectly and just giving yourself a little bit of slack to know that you're doing the best you can is my best advice. And not to be so hard on yourself.

Yeah, 100% agree there. I want to get into your team because you speak so highly of them. But before we do, I must ask, what was the biggest challenge you had overcome in the 10 years of milestone, and how did you do it?

We're still struggling through that a little bit. And I would say that it's finding people that has been. And everybody. There's a major trade shortage. Right. So skilled labor, there's people fighting over people. And it's not just our industry anymore. It's trickled into every industry. You know, there's. You cannot go anywhere without seeing offer for hire signature. I wish, looking back, that we had figured out a way to capture some of those people, even when we didn't necessarily have room for them. I've learned over the years that when you find somebody that's a good fit, you make a place for them. But I wish earlier in the milestone's history I had started to do that. I feel like we were always lagging a little behind the eight ball on that. But in the last four years, we have started doing it, and we hired our operations manager. He was promoted to be our operations manager about a little over a year ago. And I didn't know where he was going to go. I had no clue. We had no clue what his job description was going to be. But I had worked with him in another plumbing company, and he moved out of State for 10 years, came back, and we worked extremely well together. And I trusted him and had a good working relationship. And it was like, this is a really good find. I don't know where he fits into the puzzle yet, but I believe that if you find somebody that has that culture, has that passion, you grab them and then you figure out where they fit into the team structure, because otherwise you're going to risk hiring somebody that may not be a good fit when the time comes, and there may not be people out there. So I wish we had started doing that a little bit sooner, but I'm glad we did kind of eventually catch up on the learning curve and have started doing it. But we do still struggle to. We've out our capacity. We don't have room. We don't have room for more service calls. We don't have room for new clients. We've had to pull the reins back. We've had a lot of general contractors reach out, looking to use us for remodeling. And we just have to say we're not able to do any work for new contractors at this time. And I never thought we'd be like the dentist, right. I remember being a kid and you'd see these signs and it would say, you know, now accepting new patients. And I would think, well, aren't you always accepting new patients? Like, well, what is this? Why? Why would you write that? Well, now I get it. Like, I totally understand now where a business eventually just hits a capacity threshold where they may not have more room. And as we continue to grow with that, making sure we're being organized with our growth and making sure the quality is there, you know, our capacity will increase. It's just never going to be as fast as I wish it could.

100%. Yeah. No. And that's definitely a challenge that I think every single person who Comes on this podcast talks about, but I love your approach to it. Finding a place for a good find when you do find them. And also giving credit to the six people that you had go through that pre apprentice program. I mean that's really the only way to solve this hiring crisis, right, is to start bringing more people into the trades. It's not going to be a fast fix, but it's going to be one of the ways to fix the problem.

I love that you brought that up because. And we believe here that like it's giving back too. And between our local NHERI chapter and our local ABC chapter, we spend a ton. We're actually going into one of the local high schools next week for three days to do hands on plumbing with their students. I am inside of schools at least once a week talking to different students about the trades. And I really believe that it's. Yes, that's not something that maybe is driving revenue for our business directly, but each of us collectively, together taking that time to give back, even if it's just a little bit of your time, is how that we will fix the skilled labor shortage. But a lot of people are just, I'm too busy, I'm too busy. We're all too busy. But you have to make it a priority or nothing is ever going to change 100%.

All right. Oh my God. We've already hit 45 minutes, which is insane. It's so wonderful to speak with you. You're great conversationalist. But I want to talk a little bit about your team because it seems like they really deserve a good chunk of this podcast. Just tell me about them, tell me about the value they add and you know the most surprising thing you've discovered while your team has grown over the last 10 years.

So Katie and Trina are rocks in the office. They're the ones that take care of the scheduling. You know, there are curve balls that come up all week long and they handle it. And they've started to work with Scott, our operations manager, to try to handle it without me knowing which sometimes I hear whispering and I know something didn't go well, but I confidently trust them. I know they're doing their best to sort through it and often they take care of it and it's been handled and it doesn't need me to get involved in the situation. So those three are kind of in the office. What makes everything continue to run? No day ever goes as planned. Right. It never will inside of our industry and we all know that. But you have to have a team that works extremely well together. We've all become very close friends and I think that's what makes it a little bit more fun when the days get really, really stressful. And then our field team. Our field team is made up of usually when I go through it and I talk about it, it's people I've met or people that know people somehow. Kevin is one of our lead journeyman plumbers. Kevin and I worked together at that other company in Waukesha. I was actually his apprentice. I mean, he's Kevin's now in his 50s, but he was one of the people when I started there of like, really? There's a girl on the job site now with me. He's come a long way over the years and has embraced that and we remained really good friends after I left that company. And eventually he came to me and said, I'd like to come on board. And I talked to him and his wife about it and. And he's been like, I always joke, kind of my work husband, him and I are really close friends. He's just a really great guy, would do anything for any one of our clients. Takes extremely good care of them. He has a great family. His wife, I just, I think so highly of her. He's got two kids, one of which is coming into the trades now. So it's been a great find for us to have recruited Kevin, another one of our plumbers. He's actually a master plumber. His name is Adam. Adam and I used to sit next to each other in apprenticeship class all of those years. Adam was the first person in that class that was willing to talk to that girl, that girl that was inside of the class and invited me to come sit with him at lunch. And we became friends. We lost touch for a while, but then he saw we were hiring and he applied and he's been with our team ever since and has been really a really good rock star for us. Charlie is another one of our lead journeyman plumbers. He was a delivery guy for one of our suppliers. And I know what you're thinking. I had permission. We did not just steal him. The agreement was we could hire him and put him through our apprenticeship and give him the opportunity at a really great career if we bought more from them. And so we made the agreement and it was a win win for us and that supplier. So it worked out great. And then we've got Luke, who has been with us for a few years now. Luke is a fifth year apprentice. He also has a service card in Wisconsin. You can have a service card. It's kind of like a restricted license while you're doing your apprenticeship so you can do work by yourself without having somebody there. And Luke came to us through a friend of his that knew we were looking and he reached out and he said, I got a great guy. He's in manufacturing. He's thinking about switching over to plumbing. So there's always been like this connection. Right. And that's how we've recruited our team. Alex is a fourth year apprentice with our team. He has also got a service card. So he does a lot of service work by himself while he's finishing up his plumbing license. Another referral from another team member. So that's kind of the common. Because we don't advertise. You have to know somebody to kind of get in the door. Josh is one of our journeyman plumbers. Josh's story is super interesting. And actually, Jackie, Josh is the one that you and I ended up getting connected because of. Really? Yeah. So Josh's story is a little unique and he applied years ago. When we first were getting ready to hire our first apprentice and he was looking to come on board. We had a tough decision to make and ultimately hired Charlie instead. Because I knew Charlie, Charlie was delivering every day. I had a relationship with him, trusted him and unfortunately we only had room for one. Josh ended up having an accident with getting hit by a car while he was working and was out of work for two years and made just an amazing recovery. He had to learn to walk again. That man has got an ambition and a work ethic like none other. He came back into the plumbing world. I got wind that he was looking for a place to go and join a team. And at that time we were big enough that we had room and we could make room for him. He has been a solid team member ever since. Our team really enjoys him. His sense of humor is really quirky. He fits right in. He fits into our culture perfectly. So we are very lucky that. But Josh's path did cross and come back to us eventually. Dan. Dan's a third year apprentice. Dan was in his 30s doing woodworking and wanted to always be a plumber and decided to quit his current career, start over as an apprentice and he is working his way up to becoming a licensed plumber. He's a super great guy and we are really lucky to have him as well. Jake is a second year apprentice with our team. Jake's best friend was a student in my night classes. I was teaching night classes for the apprenticeship program and One of the apprentices in my class recommended Jake come check out our company because that company he was working at didn't have room for him. And so that's how I met Jake, was through that. That student. So I have him to be grateful for getting Jake over to us. And James. James is a first year apprentice. We met through one of his teachers. I was talking about those organizations that I go into the schools. Well, one of them I had started a friendship with and was helping recruit and talk about the trades. And he reached out to me and he said, I've got a great student. He's really interested in plumbing. I will personally vouch for this kid. And got James introduced to our team. James has got a bright future ahead of him. He's an extremely smart young man. He's not quite 21 yet, so he's our youngest on the team. But he has been just a breath of fresh air of not all kids coming out of high school. Ethics, I mean, you hear that, right? People complain about. No, there are a lot of really good ones out there. And unfortunately the bad apples sometimes shine over all of the good people coming in. And then Scott, Scott is our operations manager. I talked about that I knew from another place. And Scott kind of oversees the office here, but he also oversees out in the field while I'm getting involved with those other organizations. And then the last newest team member is Evan. Evan is pre apprentice with our company. He is the one that will be going up into his formal apprenticeship this coming summer. So he's the one that we're getting ready to to replace out in the warehouse. The tough job is Evan will have to train that person. So I always kind of tease them that we got to make sure we find a good one so the training goes easier. But that pre apprenticeship into the formal apprenticeship has worked so well for our team and now we've got it down to a science. And the person in the pre apprenticeship role does most of the training for that new person coming in. And it also allows the team then to take a vote on whether or not that person goes into an apprenticeship. Because it's not just my decision. Ultimately, yes, I'm the one that signs the contract with the state. But everything we do here is about the team. I always say we share in the successes and the losses. We are truly a team. There should not be just any decision that I solo make ever.

I love that. I also think this is the first on toolbox for the trades that someone went through their entire roster.

So that's small Enough that I can do that, right?

It is. But very impressive. Thank you for doing that. And I can tell just by the way you were able to speak to each and every one of those how you've really made a home from for them at Milestone. So congrats on that and also kudos for so many of them being in their apprentice stage. Being in that pre apprentice stage. It really shows that while you're growing, you're also building more people in the trade. So way to go Jesse, man. What's next for Milestone Plumbing?

We're going to continue our pre apprenticeship, we're going to continue volunteering, staying involved. I moved up in both of those organizations to leadership. I, you know, I believe in the trades and people are like, why do you put so much time in it near you? Why do you put so much time in it? ABC Because I believe in what we do and the only way that we are going to get people that come into the trades. And it's not just plumbing. I mean when I go into a school, yes, I'm biased, Jackie and I will tell them plumbing is the best. But I also talk about the great stories about the other, the H Vac, the electrical. I mean there's all kinds of trades people can go into. That plumber that I talked about that has the two kids and one is going into the trades, he's becoming an electrician. So it's as long as they know that that opportunity exists and they don't have to go to college. Yes, I chose to go to college, but not everybody has to go to college. The plumbers that are on our team, they're not in college. Some of them dropped out of college because it wasn't for them. And I think that's one thing we see is a lot of teachers and parents believe that every child should go into a college state and that's just not the case. That's how they rack up that student loan debt that we hear talked about a lot. The trades can offer really great opportunities and really great living and being able to have a nice home and have the vacations and have the vehicles. You don't have to go to college to have those things. And you may find that it's a much more rewarding career if you're a hands on person like I was.

I love that. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice from the early days of your company, what would it be?

Hire sooner. I fought it in the beginning because I was a control freak and everything I did always had to be perfect, right? And until I had those two little boys that I finally let some of that go. But it in the beginning I was scared and one of my goals and one of my personal goals and my team knows this, is that this company will never lay somebody off if somebody's not a good fit or if they ever were to do something unethical. Letting them go for a reason is something that we would have to do and cross that bridge when we got there. But I never want to be in a position where we tell somebody that we don't have work to support them and their family. And so I've always wanted to make sure we have enough work coming in, which has meant that at times we haven't hired as soon as we probably should have. And so that's something that I need to probably have done a little bit sooner. But we're working to change that moving forward.

Got it. All right, so I historically this is going to be on season five of the podcast. I have a series of icebreaker questions that I love to give at the end, but you are the first person to be asked this brand new one. If you had to choose a song to be the soundtrack of your life, what would it be?

So. And when I read through last night and I appreciate you giving me time to think about it ahead of time, I joked to my husband that Baby Shark and Wheels on the Bus are my day to day like song tracks because you have two little kids, this is what you listen to when you pick them up from daycare. But I really thought hard on this question and my team is going to find it hilarious when they listen to this because I hate country music to the point where we joke around when Jess comes on the job site, oh, you better turn the radio off. You got country on. Like it's become a thing at projects. But that being said, there is one song that has always been, I think a really good song to live by and it's Tim McGraw's Humble and Kind. I think that it is just if you listen to the lyrics and I heard it years ago and when that song comes on, I don't change the station even though it's country.

That's amazing. Thank you so much. Jesse. You were a true delight to talk to. I got so much information. I loved hearing your story and I wish you the best of luck with you and Milestone Plumbing. Please keep in touch and let us know how everything's going. Thank you for being a guest on Toolbox for the trades.

Thanks for the opportunity Jackie.