by Bailey White
Staff Writer
Deborah Maina didn’t leave Kenya with the intention of starting her own business in America. But after 11 years, her company, Service Plus Temp, is gaining momentum.
Maina’s business, a temporary employment agency that specializes in providing workers for the cleaning and hospitality industries, started as a result of a “what do I do next,” musing.
She was working as a patient care technician at St. Luke’s Hospital and had been there for four and a half years. Finding good child care for her two children, now age seven and three, was difficult and she began to think about running her own company, which would allow her greater flexibility.
“When I was thinking about what to do next, I realized that I’m good at talking to people and I want them to do better,” she said. “As a small employment agency, I knew there would be an opportunity to recruit and give jobs.”
She began the business with a few partners who, after Sept. 11, decided to go elsewhere. Maina decided to stick with her fledgling business and she landed a contract to provide cleaning services to Berkman Plaza in December. Now, she has contracts at the Ritz-Carlton and Adam’s Mark hotels, where she provides assistance for conference set-ups or extra help for banquets or turndown service.
“We do mostly hospitality, but we’re very diverse,” she said, adding that she can also provide service to private homes and offices. “We could work in any field.”
Maina works seven days a week, going back and forth between her different venues, trying to grow her business. She loves what she does, she says, because it gives her an opportunity to help people, often fellow Kenyans coming to the country as refugees with little understanding of the language or culture here.
“Sometimes people come who don’t know about flushing a toilet or going to the grocery store,” she said.
To help them acclimate to their new surroundings, she and her friend and former business partner Simon Nyagah help them find jobs with her company or prepare them for an interview by providing proper attire and encouraging words. And she strives to bridge any communication barriers by putting her employees through a few sessions of English lessons.
“We try to focus on education and at least try to get them through high school so that it’s easier for them to find good work,” said Maina. “I think it’s important to be productive and to give back to the community.”
Even though she’s been in America since 1992, she remains devoted to issues back home. She reads the Kenyan newspaper online everyday and in 1996 she founded a Boys and Girls Reading Club in her native village of Embu.
“I make it a goal to send 60 books a year,” she said. “There’s now a nice library in the village.”
She also helps support a team of Kenyan runners, one of whom won last year’s Boston Marathon.
First place is where Maina would like to see her company, also.
“We want to give 110 percent, working in a place like Berkman or the Ritz, you have to,” she said. “You have to be the best.”