Harper Talks Show 6 - Jamie Pritscher

Harper Talks Show 6 — Jamie Pritscher (.mp3)

2013's Distinguished Alumni award-winner Jamie Pritscher comes from a family of entrepreneurs, drawing from that when she co-founded That's Caring, a socially-conscious and eco-friendly solution to gift baskets. Jamie also founded nuphoriq, a full-service marketing agency specializing in the catering industry, as well as sitting on the boards of the Community Character Coalition and Friends of Busse Woods. Join Jamie and Assistant Professor of Communication Arts Brian Shelton as they discuss getting started, getting involved, and how working for yourself can really be.

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast  
Show 6: Jamie Pritscher — Transcript

[00:00:02.020] - Brian Shelton

I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a co-production of Harper College alumni relations and WHCM today on Harper Talks. I'm excited to speak with 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award winner Jamie Pritscher. Jamie comes from a family of entrepreneurs and leaned on that spirit when she had a business spinoff idea while working for Tasty Catering. Jamie started That's Caring, a socially conscious and eco-friendly solution to gift baskets. She also founded nuphoriq, a full service marketing and branding agency specializing in the catering industry, as if that was not enough to keep her busy. Jamie also volunteers on the Board of Community Character Coalition and the Friends of Busse Woods. Jamie joined me for the Harper Talks podcast over Zoom.

[00:00:02.020] - Brian Shelton
I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a co-production of Harper College alumni relations and WHCM today on Harper Talks. I'm excited to speak with 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award winner Jamie Pritscher. Jamie comes from a family of entrepreneurs and leaned on that spirit when she had a business spinoff idea while working for Tasty Catering. Jamie started That's Caring, a socially conscious and eco-friendly solution to gift baskets. She also founded nuphoriq, a full service marketing and branding agency specializing in the catering industry, as if that was not enough to keep her busy. Jamie also volunteers on the Board of Community Character Coalition and the Friends of Busse Woods. Jamie joined me for the Harper Talks podcast over Zoom.

[00:00:57.130] - Brian Shelton
Thanks for being here today, Jamie. How you doing?

[00:00:59.440] - Jamie Pritscher
Great! How are you doing?

[00:01:01.090] - Brian Shelton
I am fantastic. It's starting to look like spring out there when we're recording the show, so I'm excited about that. How about you?

[00:01:07.570] - Jamie Pritscher
Oh, yes. When the sun was out, it was glorious and got to enjoy some of that weather and looking forward to enjoying a lot more of the outdoors coming up.

[00:01:15.760] - Brian Shelton
All right. So I'm interested in what you're doing now, but I'm also really interested in what you did during your time at Harper College. What did you do there? What were you involved with? What was it like?

[00:01:27.830] - Jamie Pritscher
So I had an interesting path to Harper College, I first went to Illinois State University. I was there for two weeks and decided, what the heck am I doing here? I think in my major might have been in business at the time and I just was feeling so lost. It was a big campus and I didn't even know if business what was what I wanted to do. So I took a step back, called my parents made that call and I said, I think I'm going to come home. So I came home and I told them I could get a job. I will go to Harper full time. And fortunately, Harper does have some of those classes that started a little bit later in the semester. So I was very, very thankful for that because classes had already started. But I was able to get into some of those shorter classes right away and just some of those Gen Eds and and start taking it and get acclimated back with Harper while finding a job and working full time again.

[00:02:26.890] - Jamie Pritscher
And so I was super appreciative of Harper and my counselor I had because, again, I was a little bit of a lost soul. I think I took so many different elective classes from marketing, mass communications classes. I was in a lot of psychology stuff. I took criminal justice. So I really used Harper Gen Eds and even all the different kind of elective courses that they had to offer to figure out what do I even like right now? Like what do I want to do after this? Because, again, a little bit of a lost puppy.

[00:02:59.500] - Jamie Pritscher
And I still think throughout that process, Harper and then when I went back to Illinois State to finish my degree, I probably changed my major three or four times.

[00:03:09.880] - Brian Shelton
I'd say it was so funny that you say that because I have this conversation with not only our students at Harper, but at with younger people that I mean, know high school students or their parents. And they're all talking about where they're going to go to college. And I'm like, you know, really, why don't you go to Harper? Why don't you figure it out? What the heck it is that you want to do with your life rather than going off and leaving home, spending all that money to go to school somewhere and then finding out that you're majoring in something that you didn't want to major in. Because I did the same thing. I majored in the wrong thing for two years. Right. And that was a very expensive mistake that I made. Right. So I hear the story from people all the time. And it's so great to hear you say it as an alumni of Harper College and talk about that. And then also as as faculty at the college. We meet so many students in particularly in spring semester where they say, well, I went to University of X last fall and now I'm back here and it's like, well, maybe if you had started here.

[00:04:03.010] - Jamie Pritscher
So, yeah, absolutely. I tell them my niece is a freshman in high school. And of course, there's the great Harper Promise program. She lives in Schaumburg. So she's part of that initiative. And I tell her all the time, you should just go to Harper. And I think the Harper Promise is a great thing for you and a great pathway to figure out what you want to do with education.

[00:04:20.980] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, my daughter's ten and there's not a week that goes by that we don't have the conversation about how you're going to Harper first and then after that you can go wherever you want. That'll help you pay for it. No problem. But you're going to Harper first.

[00:04:31.240] - Brian Shelton
So that's great. So you when you left Harper, you were studying mass communication, basically, and that's when you went to Illinois State and that's what you majored in, where you got your degree in?

[00:04:41.290] - Jamie Pritscher
So when I transferred actually to Illinois State, I was psychology at first. So I was gung ho on the psychology path. And then about a semester into that, I decided maybe psychology is not for me. So touching back on what else I had explored at Harper, I really had enjoyed the marketing and mass communication classes that I take it, and I'm like, all right, let's see, how can I maybe morph into this? So again, I was ever changing in that that major and then Mass Communications is what I did end up majoring in. And I got the minor in psychology, though.

[00:05:16.660] - Brian Shelton
OK, you know, I teach a lot of mass communication majors and my advice for them is to learn how to do something while they're in school to get involved with campus media and that sort of thing. What advice might you have for current mass communication majors?

[00:05:30.280] - Jamie Pritscher
Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree. When I went to Illinois State, I did work on newspaper side of things. It's not that I necessarily wanted to be a journalist, but I think it was great to practice writing skills. You need writing skills no matter what, and mass communications, whether you're a copywriter, working on strategy, putting together marketing plans, digital marketing. So it was a challenge for me as I am not a writer by trade, but I think it was a really good experience to have that.

[00:05:58.660] - Jamie Pritscher
And then, of course, when I got out of school, then at least I had some stuff for my portfolio as well. I also think there's lots of opportunity with events and being involved with different community things on campus, because after all, every event needs marketing and communications. How do you tell people about it? So while it might not be exactly a newspaper or something like that radio station, I still think there's a lot of experience that you'll gain being a part of that volunteering, all that kind of stuff.

[00:06:31.660] - Jamie Pritscher
I would wholeheartedly say go for it. And I also think there's so many professional organizations and a lot of them have student memberships to them. And it can be very scary as a student to join those associations. Obviously, they're full of really great people, many of them who I'm sure you may admire. But it's a great way to network and meet people. And also, if you're a student, you don't have to be a know it all.

[00:06:55.390] - Jamie Pritscher
People want to welcome you. People by nature want to help other people. And I think that's my biggest advice to students, is people want to help you when you're a student and figuring it out. So finding mentors, being a part of associations, joining different committees, you're going to meet great people who are going to just support you in all your endeavors.

[00:07:17.360] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I have that same conversation with students all the time. Like, you know, if you want to do something, just ask, because the worst thing that can possibly happen to you is that they will say no. And what's the big deal? You just pick up and move on to the next person and ask them. So that's that's great advice that you're giving her. And I really appreciate that.

[00:07:35.740] - Brian Shelton
I always enjoy speaking with entrepreneurs like yourself. I've had the chance to to interview many and meet many in my lifetime. And the reason that I enjoy talking to entrepreneurs is because you have something that I don't. And and what you have is the ability to harness the fear of failure. And so I just wonder, maybe you do have a fear of failure, but you have a better control over it than I do. Right. So but I wonder, is entrepreneurship in the blood, is that something that's innate or is it something that people can learn?

[00:08:09.400] - Jamie Pritscher
It's a great question. We all have different talents because I could never just fly by the seat of my pants and ask all these these questions. And that's why we each have our callings in life and our jobs that we have. So thank you for commending me. I also commend you.

[00:08:24.580] - Jamie Pritscher
I would say with entrepreneurship, I mean, it definitely for me did run in my blood. My dad, my grandpa, as many of my uncles, all were business owners and entrepreneurs. So always in the back of my mind, I felt like, oh, I'd love to have a business and do what they did, but I had no idea what I would do. Clearly, I couldn't even pick a major what kind of business was ever going to start.

[00:08:50.830] - Jamie Pritscher
So that was always something that was in the back of my mind. And then, you know, I saw it took a lot of hard work preservation. Yes, there is a lot of failure that goes along with it. And you have to pick yourself back up again all the time. And there's lots of rewards that come with working for yourself, being your own boss, starting a company that other people want to work for, and having a mission that people believe in. It's very, very powerful. So I think some of it is kind of within you. You have to have that drive. You have to be able to fail and get over it. And I think some of it can absolutely be taught. And I think that is in learning a lot about leadership, management styles, entrepreneurship and business within the classroom, all those kind of disciplines. And then I think a lot of it is working for a company or a great entrepreneur.

[00:09:41.950] - Jamie Pritscher
So I had the opportunity to go into Tasty Catering is a family owned business, but it's owned by three brothers who are entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs at that. And so I had taken an interest in that entrepreneurship side when I was there and learned and soaked up a lot of knowledge from them and combined that with the past of what I've seen within my family, stuff I had learned in school and all my varying classes, and I think it all came together for me.

[00:10:09.740] - Brian Shelton
That's awesome. That also reminds me, you know, a colleague of mine runs the business and entrepreneurship program at Harper and she says that and you hit on this a little bit. But she says that she meets students all the time who are very interested in entrepreneurship. They're interested in the idea. They're interested in starting their own business and going down that path. But their parents push them away from that and they want them to do the traditional degree, go to work for some one sort of thing. And but you come from a family of entrepreneurs. So what would you say to those students? Or even better yet, what would you say to their parents?

[00:10:45.170] - Jamie Pritscher
Well, I think that if that's what's going to make your kid happy, money or steadiness is not always the key to happiness. Obviously, you need to make a living. You need to be able to afford things. But if they're super passionate about building a company they have a product or service to create, then that's going to bring them the ultimate happiness.

[00:11:05.270] - Jamie Pritscher
And I think that's what we all want for people. And like so if they've seen and I'm sure or read about struggles, yes, there can be tons of struggles of entrepreneurship, not paying yourself, paying other people first. So there's huge things there.  Working lots and lots of long hours. But then you can also have again, going back to some of the rewards side when you're on your own boss. If you have kids and you need to create a flexible schedule for yourself, you can do so. Obviously, you might make sure you tell your employees as well, but you can do that. So I think there's tons of pros and cons to it. I would just tell anyone going into entrepreneurship, it takes years. So I think we read a lot about all these great stories and cool companies that have started, and these people hit it big with apps in a year. And I think that's great. I applaud those people, but that is far and few between. There are lots of small business entrepreneurship companies and they'll tell you it took a number of years to really start. It pivoted a number of times and then you finally figured it out and kind of hit where the sweet spot is. And it's all worth it. It just takes time.

[00:12:20.690] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. The Elon Musk's of the world are the exception, not the rule. And even Elon will tell you that he failed multiple times before he finally found something that works. So

[00:12:28.580] - Jamie Pritscher
Absolutely.

[00:12:29.840] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I see that all the time. So while you were working, you were able to sort of start a business within a business, kind of be an entrepreneur. But while working for someone. So you started this company called That's Caring. Tell me about that. It's a socially conscious and eco friendly solution to gift baskets. So what does that mean?

[00:12:52.690] - Jamie Pritscher
Oh, yeah, we've morphed a lot because businesses morph over the years. So how we started was I worked for a company, Tasty Catering, they are a caterer here in Chicago area corporate events, weddings, picnics, the whole nine yards. I have lots of different lines of business in good times. They do about ten thousand events per year. Whether that's a drop off or picnic's up to five thousand. But they clearly have lots of different lines of business within their catering company.

[00:13:19.640] - Jamie Pritscher
And one thing that they had been doing when I had started was they had gifts. It was natural for people to say like, oh, hey, I need to send sympathy gift basket to one of my employees. Can we do some fruits and nuts or I mean, or I want to send a wine gift basket to somebody so made people asking them for it for gifts. And so I had just started out here and they're like, OK, well, you can take this division to see if you could do anything with that. So I kind of got to play around with this idea of gifts. How can we make it work? What are we selling? Who do we... What do people even want to buy? And at the same time, I was also getting my masters degree. So I was going to Roosevelt University where I was getting a master's in integrated marketing communications. And so I had to also put together a marketing and business plan in the class I was in as this whole gift thing was happening. And I decided like, hey, why don't I just go this route of putting together a business plan for this gift division? What can we do with it? And how can we make it different from other gift companies out there? So 2008 is when it was started and in two thousand eight, that was when really green and sustainability was really, really emerging a lot. And so if you think of a traditional gift basket, it's a gift basket. There's cellophane wrap around it and then there's cellophane wrapped gift basket goes inside a giant box, which then has packing peanuts with it. And so while it might be a pretty presentation, there's a whole lot of packaging waste that goes with that.

[00:14:51.470] - Jamie Pritscher
And so we looked at designing more of a gift box. And I feel like this was before. There is Birchbox, Blue Apron, all these things that are food boxes. Going back to two thousand eight, so we really we custom designed more of a gift box that fit right inside a shipping box. So we are trying to really make that whole shipping process as eco friendly as possible and cutting out waste. And then, of course, the gift contents inside. There's ways to make it different and obviously different quality products that we use. But at the end of the day, there's wine and cheese gifts, there's cookie gift baskets, and that's what they are. So we really set out with the packaging differentiation. Fast forward a few years and it was really expected that all of your you should just be green. That's just what it is. You don't even say that is a thing anymore because it's what consumers expect and how they should. We should all be socially responsible and recycling and using recycled materials. And so we had worked with a number of their social enterprises, so their nonprofits that make a product. And so there was a few here in the city. I still work with one of them today. They're called Bright Endeavors.

[00:16:03.920] - Jamie Pritscher
They make soy candles and recycled glass and it helps underprivileged women just develop work skills, get into work program and they help place them when they get out of it. And it's a beautiful product. So we've been selling that for a long time and people loved the story behind the product and that it gave back. And so we did a little bit of a pivot ... Toms Shoes, Warby Parker, all these give back companies where you could be a for profit company that gave back. So we morphed into a give back company.

[00:16:36.290] - Jamie Pritscher
So now with every gift you purchase from us, we work with food banks across the US. We have about 20 something partner food banks that we work with and they supply weekend meals to the children's backpack, weekend bag programs. So all the children who are on free and reduced lunch are living in food and security supplies, meals towards that. And so that's what our whole product is dedicated towards. So you get to enjoy some food, give something to a recipient, but then you also get to give back as well.

[00:17:09.670] - Brian Shelton
So that's that's really interesting. I was also thinking you said that that was in 2008 and that is like the peak of the financial crisis and the housing crisis. How did that influence the business? Was that scary to that added element to it?

[00:17:23.240] - Jamie Pritscher
Yes, it absolutely did. But obviously, having some risk taking partners and entrepreneurs that I was around and the funding did come from Tasty Catering. So it's like I kind of got to start, I say a business in my parents basement, if you will. It was very sheltered from huge risks. So I admire those entrepreneurs that had to go out and get a line of credit. I was very fortunate I was able to manage a small startup cost and do it within another company.

[00:17:53.780] - Jamie Pritscher
But the only place we had to go was really up. There wasn't anything happening. There was not really much for sale. So any increase was an increase. So while it was scary, it was still, I think, a great time to start because there was that whole in the market that we had saw from the research of people not necessarily doing gifts this way. And we really just had a lot of the built in clientele from corporate clients that were already there. So we're very fortunate to be in a good space to still start up in that year.

[00:18:25.580] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, it's also interesting you talking about the green packaging, and I think that that's really just innate today, right? Like you get a package in the mail today, somebody slips you something and it's filled with packing peanuts or it's a giant box and you order just a tiny little thing and you're like, what the heck, man? You know? And like you're like, I'm not ordering from these people anymore. Look at all this waste. Right.

[00:18:44.780] - Jamie Pritscher
It's a big, big turnoff when you're ordering from. And you see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:49.760] - Brian Shelton
Every once you get a giant package from, you know, the big brown box truck and it's got a tiny little thing and then you're like, why is the box that big? I don't understand.

[00:18:57.810] - Jamie Pritscher
Oh, I know.

[00:19:00.680] - Brian Shelton
So tell me about nuphoriq. This is the second business that you founded.

[00:19:04.880] - Jamie Pritscher
Yes. So much like how That's Caring kind of stemmed off of the need from you could say that the catering company, nuphoriq is a marketing company and we specialize in working with caterers, venues, hospitality industry across the U.S. So we have clients coast to coast. And this idea stemmed from my business partner and I were getting a lot of attention, Tasty Catering, was doing a lot of crazy things in marketing in that at the time for a small catering company. And within the catering industry, there's a very tight knit group of people. There's a few conferences, some professional associations, but they're really all good friends and trade a lot of stuff back and forth. Because what we're doing here at Tasty Catering in Chicago, we're not selling to a client in Boston. We can't cater there. So to another caterer in Boston, might share some information, recipes, how we did a huge event, some. New ideas, and so at the same time, a lot of people follow what people are doing and what kids are doing on websites and different things digitally, and so Tasty was starting to gain a lot of attention within the catering community.

[00:20:15.880] - Jamie Pritscher
And people started to ask, like, oh, well, who does your marketing? Can I call them for my marketing? And so, again, it was kind of a natural progression. We had a great in-house marketing team. I had worked on it part time. My business partner was working on it more full time. We had a few interns and those interns also happened to be graduating college around this time. And so it was kind of this perfect little storm of, all right, we can take these interns out from a full time job and the career they they wanted in and start this marketing company.

[00:20:48.250] - Jamie Pritscher
And so with that, in 2011, nuphoriq was born and we started a marketing company.

[00:20:54.630] - Brian Shelton
I was looking at the website the other day and there's there's a picture of two of the employees. And the caption underneath says, this is actually a picture of and it had their names. That is not a stock photo. And I thought that was really cute. And so if that's indicative of the type of work you do, I think that's really

[00:21:08.500] - Jamie Pritscher
Tthank you for noticing that. Yes, we think very funny sometimes have little things in our website.

[00:21:14.410] - Brian Shelton
If you don't think you're funny, how would anyone else. Right?

[00:21:17.350] - Jamie Pritscher
Exactly. Exactly.

[00:21:19.390] - Brian Shelton
You know, I thought that was stuff that was really great. It says a lot about the personality of the group of people who work there. I think so. It's interesting. So that's really cool. So I'm hoping that one day soon when someone's listening to these podcasts, they'll say he's talking about a pandemic. What happened? Right. I know that almost seems impossible, but how has the pandemic affected the way that you work? Are you are you and your employees in the office? Are you working from home? How is that going?

[00:21:49.210] - Jamie Pritscher
So there's lots of different things going on since this pandemic started, and it's a little different for each of the companies. So I'll start with for That's caring since we obviously get back to the food banks, I feel like and food banks, we all see the lines that people are in need of food now more than ever, I think there's a lot of awareness surrounding that. And then there's also all these virtual meetings happening since people aren't in the office. So things colliding together That's Caring has really flourished during the pandemic. We've had a record year last year. This year's off to a really great start for us. And it's because obviously people need to send virtual gifts or employee thank you because they didn't have a party at the end of this year and so budgets were transferred. So it's an interesting thing because and I can't wait for this pandemic to be over, but it's going to be a big source of business that is going to go away because we're going to be back to in-person events some day. And these gifts might not be as popular, but we have grown and we've grown our customer base through this, sending thousands of gifts. And so there's this awareness of our our product through COVID times. And I think people as soon as they found us, they felt really tied to us knowing what was going on and then knowing they wanted to send a gift and then their gifts could also make an impact and provide meals. So with that said, again, we've been busy. So employee wise, we have strict safety protocols that we're following. But we've had employees in here making and distributing gifts. We haven't had any COVID cases. Everyone was very safe. We would stagger people if needed.

[00:23:33.160] - Jamie Pritscher
And there obviously, again, following all all protocols in place. So we've been shipping an essentially open for business the whole time.  On the marketing side of things, different team. And that job can really be done from home. You can work anywhere for what we do. You need software. You need to be able to log in to certain things, but you can be anywhere. So that team has primarily been working from home. I come to our office every day since I kind of work in both companies. I'd like to be here for the production side of things and I'm just not ready to work from home person. I realize that about myself. I am better coming to the office. It's a little lonely in here. But again, those employees work from home. So two different kind of things based on based on the businesses that we have.

[00:24:22.930] - Brian Shelton
It's interesting how know so many businesses have been so negatively, negatively affected by the pandemic and then you know what you're doing because you were able to take advantage of and I don't mean that in a negative way, but you were able to take advantage of the environment, right, that you were in and and grow your business from it. And it might actually hurt your bottom line when things start to go back to a whatever normal is going to be in the future.

[00:24:43.090] - Jamie Pritscher
I take it though.

[00:24:47.680] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I'm the same way. I mean, we're having these conversations about who wants to teach on campus, you know, and and how many classes and that sort of thing. And it's just kind of a great unknown. We don't know, like how many people really want to come back, how many people would rather wait it out a little bit longer, that sort of thing, so but I'm like you, I want to be with my people and work with them and see them and have the conversations with them. And so I look forward to when we can get back to that, no matter what that means. I mean, look at me wrong. I've enjoyed working from home for the last year, but it'd be nice to be back on campus.

[00:25:19.550] - Jamie Pritscher
Absolutely.

[00:25:20.450] - Brian Shelton
So I was looking and even with everything that you're doing running these businesses, you're also volunteering your time on the boards of the Community Character Coalition and on the Friends of Busse Woods. Can you tell me about what you do with both those groups?

[00:25:32.570] - Jamie Pritscher
Yeah, friends of Busse Woods I don't do as much with any more. We really did a lot back a number of years ago where we would help clear brush and Busse Woods, did some big Earth Day projects, got my friends at Tasty Catering, involved that we serve a grill picnic to the volunteers afterwards and we haven't done that in a number of years. But it was really about keeping. I mean, Busse Woods is a beautiful area and we all like to enjoy it, whether it's having picnics and events there, whether it's going for a bike ride or a walk through there. And so I just felt this importance to help, help keep it clean. And I learned a lot. And how much is obviously the park districts and Parks community do a lot, but they relied heavily on volunteers to do a lot of the projects since it's a free place for people to go. So I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys the nature and preserves to get involved. It's a fun day. Cutting down trees or clearing brush, picking up trash. A great group of people that's always out there doing that.

[00:26:41.930] - Jamie Pritscher
Character Counts is a specific to Elk Grove they have a coalition. And so I help them. We do we do some of their website and communication pieces, so helping them communicate it. But the group really does a lot for the town of Elk Grove, and that's where our businesses are. It's also where I grew up. I don't live here right now, but it's the exceptional community, as we say. And so they do a lot of things for the community, whether it's food drives, doing stuff for veterans, making a difference day, packing the pantry.

[00:27:18.230] - Jamie Pritscher
Then they also like to put on character building events for children to talk about character and instilling character. Character counts in the five pillars are taught in a lot of the schools here. So it's just enhancing that. So it's a it's a great group and the people who make up that group are so dedicated to kind of spreading that and just keeping events free in the town and just really helping out others who need it, other kind of groups that need it.

[00:27:46.040] - Brian Shelton
So I know it's been a little while, but what was it like for you to be nominated as a Harper College Distinguished Alumni?

[00:27:51.200] - Jamie Pritscher
It was super exciting.  I was I was pretty shocked about it just because there had been I, of course, seen who else had been nominated. Naturally, you'd go look that up. Nominations within my category that year and the previous nominees. And I just admire all the people that are that have received the award. And so it was really astonishing to be like I'm being recognized among this group. Like you say, these are my peers in a sense, and it was truly, truly an honor. So I'm very thankful for it.

[00:28:29.780] - Brian Shelton
It's great. You know, it's funny we talk about in the community college world that people go to their community college, they love their community college, and then they transfer to wherever it is they transfer to a four year school or whatever. And then when someone asks them where they went to school, they talk about their four year school. So it's good that you're that you are proud and recognize your community college experience. I'm glad to hear that.

[00:28:52.760] - Jamie Pritscher
I am a big proponent. I will always... My college story, like I said, is a bit unconventional going to the four year, going back to Harper, then going back to the same four year University of Illinois State. But I wouldn't change a thing. I think Harper was a great way for me to find my path and anyone I talked to about it, I will always say I went to Harper before I went to Illinois State. It is definitely part of my story. And who who made me making me what I am today.

[00:29:21.410] - Brian Shelton
Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today and to tell your story to the folks who listen to this podcast. I love talking to entrepreneurs as I said before, it's always so interesting to see and hear how they went down this path to do what they do. And I just think that it's it's so great what you're doing.

[00:29:39.080] - Jamie Pritscher
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was an honor to be on this as well.

[00:29:43.910] - Brian Shelton
Jamie Pritzker is the founder of That's Caring and nuphoric and a 2013 Harper College distinguished alumni. If you're enjoying Harper talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it, rate and review us so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a co-production of Harper College. Alumni Relations and WHCM Harper Radio, our show is produced by Shannon Hynes, our technical producer is Eric Barnea Sanchez. Our theme music was created by Aidan Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.