Jerome is our awesome Store Supervisor at the Vancouver Habitat Store.
Tell us about yourself.
I am from the island of Saipan, which is one of the Northern Mariana Islands. I’m married to my beautiful wife and have two boys.
How did you first hear about the ReStore?
My brother-in-law use to work here. I was looking for something to do in the winter, and came across Habitat for Humanity. My brother-in-law used to work here, so I came in and looked around the store. I started off as volunteer in 2004. I became a Store Associate, and now I am Store Supervisor.
I really love this place. Before working here, I worked in retail merchandising at Walmart and it was very different from here. Working here, it feels more like family. I love the diversity of everyone that comes here.
What’s your role at the ReStore?
My role as Store Supervisor is to make sure store policies are being implemented in the right way from safety to receiving donations to customer service. We make sure that everything is flowing in the right way like the donation process (receiving the donation to when it goes out on the floor). Most importantly, I encourage our staff to make sure that they put the customer first.
Merchandising is an important of being a Store Supervisor. That’s the interesting part for me, since I have been working in retail for over 14 years. I try to support and train the team with their sales and merchandising. Even though the items we receive are used, we can still display and make them really nice in the store. I give the staff ideas and encourage them to be creative, like that we can group items together to make it a set. It makes it fun for everybody. I try to say to each staff member that today is your day. What items can we use to be creative? Share your ideas with me. It works well for the crew because it makes the work really fun.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of working here is meeting all different people and all different personalities, especially customers. It excites me when they come into the store, and are happy and smiling that they found something that they needed. It gives me that thrill that we made that customer happy and made them smile.
For me, customer service is really exciting. You take your time, talk to your customers, and get to know them. I like to smile. I like to communicate with the team and have fun. It’s kind of like a family to me.
Three Fun Facts
1. I love to play softball. I have been playing for 12+ years and I compete in tournaments.
2. Fish is my favorite food.
3. I went to school and studied horticultural landscaping. I run my own horticultural landscaping business.
