This weeks Friday Featured Local Business leader covers three businesses. After reading this you might wonder if Deb ever sleeps!
So, Deb, give us some background on your company. What do you do and why do you do it?
I am lucky to be a part of several great organizations.
The Rockingham Group is a local insurance company, headquartered in Harrisonburg, Virginia. We have policies for your home, car, business, farm, or rental properties. Our agents are located all over Virginia and Pennsylvania and are ready to help you.
I also work with my husband’s business – Van Horn Inspection Services. We provide home inspections and radon testing for the residential market in the Shenandoah Valley.
I work as part-time adjunct faculty in the College of Business at JMU. I teach Introduction to Computer Information Systems, a course focused on the role that information systems play in business and how they should be managed.
Do you have an ideal client? If so, what do they look like?
The ideal client in insurance is someone who is conscientious and responsible.
The ideal client for a home inspection will want us to help identify and prioritize maintenance and repair activities.
At JMU, my ideal student comes to class every week, pays attention, and engages in the conversation. No one wants to hear me talk all night, so I like for them to be involved.
What is your favorite success story in the past few years?
Learning to golf. I never thought I would like it, but after some encouragement, I went and had lessons from Nancy Brophy at Mulligans. She and Wendy Kern are amazing instructors and got a group of new and experienced female golfers out a few times. I realized that this is a great way to spend time with friends, get to know business contacts better, and get away from it all. I turn off the phone, except to take great photos while out, and enjoy the moments, even though I really am not a good golfer.
What do you like to do for fun? Favorite restaurant? Favorite place to spend a Saturday afternoon?
Spending time with my two wonderful daughters is a must. It is not unusual to find my husband and I brewing beer on a Saturday. And I love the chicken rollatini at L’Italia.
What is on your (iPod, radio, phone) while you work?
Dave Matthews Band, P!nk, and the Civil Wars are my top 3 right now.
What is your favorite book?
Favorite author is John Grisham, followed closely by James Patterson.
What is your favorite app for your phone or iPod?
Drawsomething, Trivie, and VDOT511
Where is your favorite place to vacation?
We love the Outer Banks.
What historical figure would you most like to have dinner with and why?
I would not want to have dinner with a historical figure – I believe the real people would not live up to the idolized versions in my mind.
If I could have dinner with anyone not living any longer, I would have a family meal and enjoy some delicious food, great conversation, and loving embraces.
Green walls are a relatively new concept that comes in many sizes and shapes. Living walls incorporate a vertical growing support matrix that allows plants to be rooted anywhere on a building’s wall surface versus a green facade that trains vines to grow up a trellis or other support system. Nature has perfected the art of living walls since the beginning of time. Plants have shown that soil is not essential for a vertical landscape in nature. Living walls reduce heat island impact, stormwater runoff, and make walls beautiful.
The average forced air duct system leaks 30% of the heated / cooled air out of the duct before it reaches the room it was intended to heat or cool. A very good installation only leaks 10% of your money out of the ducts typically into an unconditioned space.
While mastic can do a lot to reduce air leakage from the ducts, keeping the ducts into the conditioned space reduces the money lost.
Getting your HVAC system efficient is a great way to reduce your wasted energy each month and will make your home more comfortable on a daily basis.
I spend most of my time thinking about the design of homes and commercial structures. It is hard for me to understand why anyone would ever want to go through the process without an architect by their side. I often hear people say they can simply go to a builder to get a home designed and built in order to save money. There are also plenty of options for purchasing plans from a magazine or online. So why would you ever pay for an architect?
I would challenge you to look at the process from another point of view. Why would you ever pay someone to design a home that is not a trained licensed design professional that knows how to translate your goals into a home that meets your specific needs, is efficient, healthy, and energy-efficient? Why would you ever invest in a building that was not exactly what you need? Why would you put the person building a home and billing you for the work in charge of writing the scope for the project? So what value does an architect bring to a project that makes them a necessary element that you cannot afford to eliminate?
An architect, as defined by Wikipedia, is a person that is highly trained in planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings, and is licensed to practice architecture. While the architect’s role has evolved over the years from master builder to only doing design, the importance of an architect’s involvement has not diminished. The key reason that an architect is so valuable to a project is their ability to hear your ideas and to transform them into a feasible and concrete reality. While anyone can purchase a design program, only an architect is trained to think design, solve functional problems, understand building systems, and offer aesthetically balanced solutions.
Attic insulation
So to put it into perspective, if you are renovating your home, what is the best investment? Should you replace your windows, HVAC system, or just add insulation? If you want the best value for your renovation how do you decide? What are the implications on indoor air quality if you make your HVAC system more efficient without adding insulation? Where does the make up air originate? Will the windows fit aesthetically? How will you hide the outdoor HVAC units?
If you are renovating your kitchen, do you replace your cooktop with a gas range? If so, do you need a hood vent? If you add the hood vent, do you have enough make up air in the home to avoid creating a backdraft from the fireplace? What if you select cabinets that have volatile organic compounds in the binding agents? Will your kitchen renovation make you sick? Does the kitchen flow for the way you work in the kitchen, does it work with the rest of the house, does it blend from the exterior?
Architects understand these complex issues and are not only focused on aesthetic solutions. Engaging an architect is like taking a business partner for your project, one who is knowledgeable, knows the risk areas around the project and knows how to minimize those risks, and has the necessary people skills to work with your contractors. A good architect will treat your project like it is his or her own and will offer creative solutions and ideas. They will be able to identify, in detail, the advantages and disadvantages for any issue that may arise in the process. In other words, an architect will save you money, time, and frustrationwhile delivering an aesthetically beautiful and functional design. Whether you are renovating or building new, an architect is a great way to maximize your investment in the project.
Do you have you have your clothes dry cleaned? What about the carpet in your home? What chemicals are used in those processes? Where do those chemicals go after the cleaning? The air inside a home can be as much as 5 x’s as toxic as the air outside. Is your home making you sick because of the chemicals you are bringing in? Off-gassing of chemicals (fire retardants, cleaning agents, even candles) is detrimental to your health. Be sure to find companies that use non-toxic materials to do things around your home like cleaning carpets.
What criteria do you use to search for a home? Is price the driving factor or is it value? Working with a Realtor you can set specific criteria to find a property or home that meets your needs.
This weeks Friday Featured Local Business leader covers three businesses. After reading this you might wonder if Deb ever sleeps!
