A Passion for Service: Interview with John Parker of JSP Home Services
Whether they’re heading out in single digit temps to repair a faulty heating system or roasting in the summer heat to install a client’s air conditioning, John Parker and his team at JSP Plumbing and Heating are dedicated to their craft. With over six decades of combined experience among the staff and an expansive service radius around their Kingston office, JSP aims to bring solutions fast and keep customers for life.
When did you open your business? Was there anything specific that prompted you to start your business at that moment?
We opened 11 years ago, and the main thing that prompted me was that I wanted to see if I could do it! After attending SUNY Purchase for music and spending much of my 20s touring and playing music, I met my now wife in Rosendale and set up roots in the Hudson Valley.
We eventually started a family, and that kind of grounded me and brought me into the trade. I always liked working with my hands, and knew that I didn’t want to go back to school to teach music, so the shift suited me more. I like music, but this is what I love to do. I live and breathe it.
What makes your business unique from competitors?
We always maintain customer-oriented service. We have 24/7 customer service, and people get ahold of us 24/7 because we set high standards for the work that we do. We truly focus on listening to our customers and giving them the best possible service and quality of work. We gather customers for life because of it.
I’m aggressively fueling the business and want to be able to provide a service to the entire Hudson Valley. Five years ago, it was just me–now we have nine employees total with multiple fully-stocked vehicles on the road.
We still cover the same area, about 45 minutes around Kingston, but with a larger team we are able to go to more sites per day. If it’s cold and your heat is out, or it’s hot and your AC is out, we can get out there fast to help you.
What is your favorite part about what you do?
I love working with my hands and figuring things out. That’s always been a part of me. If something wasn’t working, I was always the guy to fix it. Being out in the field and managing technicians is the thing that I enjoy the most. I am constantly moving, and my team is constantly growing the the point where work is always exciting.
Also, I really like figuring out how we can be better techs and learning about new technologies and methods. That kind of upward and onward momentum and philosophy keeps me passionate every day.
How would you like to see your business grow?
My goal is to get to a point where we have 20-25 trucks on the road. We want to become even more of a company whose name carries weight–where people know just by hearing the name that we’re going to do quality work for them.
What measures do you and your business take to support the local economy?
Between using the local supply houses and not the box stores, we try to keep things local. We’re conscious of it as a business. The idea of keeping money in the local economy is important–it makes sense to me. Shopping locally, you’re not giving your money to Walmart, or to someplace in Kentucky, but to a local technician or grocer. And then it is cycled around between other people who live here, too.
How have you been using currents in your business? And/or how do you plan to use them?
An exciting idea I came up with to use my Currents was to donate them to local nonprofits. I did an AC job for a woman in Accord who paid for a portion of the job in Currents, and they sat there for quite some time because I wasn’t sure where I wanted to spend them. But then I gave [Current Executive Director] Chris Hewitt a call to ask if I could donate them. I thought it would be a great idea to give back to the community.
For more information about JSP Plumbing & Heating, call (845) 209-1700 or contact us online.
