Business Briefs
BUSINESS PROFILE
Nurse bitten by entrepreneurial bug
By ROBIN BARKSDALE
Chronicle Staff Writer
Jessie Dobson-Draft spent years as a nurse, but
when she saw an opportunity to combine her business
skills with her nursing expertise, she couldn't resist the
- entrepreneurial bug. So a year and a half ago, she
opened Nurses Temps, which places nurses with medi
cal institutions in the city.
She currently has a pool of more than 250 nurses
who make themselves available to work on a part-time
basis. Dobson-Draft said that her agency allows nurses
the option of choosing when they will work and for
how long. Some nurses, she said, use the service to sup
plement their income from full-time nursing duties.
"There are no obligations. Nobody gets upset if
you don't work," she said. "It's up to the nurses if they
accept an assignment. They can work when it is conve
nient for them."
Early in her career, Dobson-Draft said that she, too,
made use of^nursing temporary agencies. The advan
tage of using an agency for part-time work, she said, is
that a nurse may want to make a purchase that is not in
her regular budget. For instance, she said, she had seen
? a dress that she wanted to buythat would have been an
extravagant purchase on her budget. She contacted a
nurses' temporary service and worked just enough
assignments to be able to purchase the dress.
"Some nurses re-do their homes and want to buy
expensive draperies," said Dobson -Draft "So they call
in, get an assignment, work for a few days and then
they take off again. That's the advantage of the tempo
rary services."
But given the shortage of nurses in the medical
field, it would seem that nurses would come at a premi
um and that nurses would opt to work full time rather
than sporadically. Not true, Dobson-Draft said.
"Nursing is not as lucrative as it used to be, "-she
said. "A lot of nurses are opting to stay home with their
kids and maybe work three days a week as opposed to
seven days a week. The nurses are there, they're just
refusing to work under certain conditions."
Dobson-Draft said that about 15 of the nurses in
her pooFreeeive ehecks every week. The rest, she said,
call in to be assigned on a periodic basis.
Dobson-Draft made the gradual climb from nursing
assistant to the recipient of a bachelor of science degree
in nursing. As a traveling nurse, she was assigned to
Florida and then to Louisiana after missing out on her
first choice of Saudi Arabia. Traveling nurses are
allowed to select anywhere in the world that they would
like to work and are assigned to institutions in those
places. Dobson-Draft said that she was attracted by the
opportunity for travel which the job offered and gained
valuable experience while working as a traveling nurse.
But she also had an opportunity to get an up-close look
at the world of nursing temp agencies. What she dis
covered, she said, prompted her to open her own agen
Stouffer Winston Plaza has
f
new management team
The Stouffer Winston Pl?%a
Hotel has a new management team
in place as it prepares to celebrate
its fifth anniversary.
The new executives, all with
extensive experience in ho^l man
agement, are Thomas L. Marello,
general manger; Kim O. Dinsmoor,
director of sales and marketing; Bill
D. Bretches, director of operations,
and Peter L. Labrecque, director of
food and beverage services.
Marello is responsible for all
aspects of the hotel's operations. He
came to the Stouffer Winston Plaza
from Bailie Creek, Mich., where he
managed the 245-room Stouffer
Battle Creek Hotel. During his three
years there, the hotel rec^ivetf six of
the 12 national awards presented by
the Stouffer Corp.
As director of sales and mar
keting, Dinsmoor is responsible for
the sales and marketing programs
for the hotel's guest rooms, banquet
facilities, Blossoms and The Quill
restaurants, and lounges. He came
to the Stouffer Winston Plaza from
Brownsville, Vt., where he was
general manager of the Ascutney
Mountain Resort.
? Bretches is responsible for the
day-to-day operations at the Stouf
fer Winston Plaza. Previously, he
was senior assisiant manager for
Stouffer P1nelste Resorr artake~
Lanier Islands, Ga.
LaBrecque came to the Stouffer
Winston Plaza from the Stouffer
Hamilton Hotel in Itasca, 111., where
he served as assistant director of
food and beverage services, and he
has been with Stouffer Hotels since
1977. Labrecque is a graduate of the
Culinary Institute of America in
Hyde Park, 111.
Located at Cherry and Fifth
streets in downtown Winston
Salem, Stouffer Winston Plaza is
one of the Southeast's premier
hotels.
i
Photo by Sonja J. Covington
Jessie Dobson-Drafi says there are many advantages to working on a temporary basis. *
cy. '
"During my travels, I noticed that there were a lot
of agencies run by non-medical people," said Dobson
Draft, who worked at Baptist Hospital for 21 years. ftI
decided that, with my nursing experience and my man
agerial skills, 1 could start my own business. My hus
band (Nathaniel Draft) helped me start the business and
works with me in the business now. I felt I had an
added advantage because I can understand what the
nurses want - because I am a nurse, and I can under-.
stand what tne institutions want I always Wanted to be
blessed with a wonderful voice so that I could sing, but
Please see page A7
WHI w
Thomas L. Marello
Local McDonald's plans Family Nights
McMan Inc. a local McDon- must meet .
~aT<Ts franchisee, has planned awries Family Nights will be held at {
of "Join Me in Action" family the 840 S. Main, Kemersville, loca
nights at their McDonald's restau- tion on March 13, 1647 N. Bridge
rants. St., El kin, on March 14, Hwy. 52
These evenings will allow Bypass, Mount Aigr, March 20, and.
these relatives to get "on-the-job" at 780 Martin Luther King Blvd.,
experience and be part of the Winston-Salem, March 21.
McDonald's action. Also the Family McDonald's is the world's lead
Night allows relatives to meet the ing quick service restaurant organi
owner, managers and other employ- zation, serving 22 million people
ees of McDonald's. each day in more than 10,000
All participants will work side restaurants in 50 countries. Seventy
by side for two hours taking orders five percent of McDonald's restau
and preparing food with the same rants are locally operated by inde
standards the regular employees pendent entrepreneurs.
? We've lowered prices on over 50,000 items.
? We now carry over 1,000 name brands and we're
adding more every single day.
? We've added more salespeople for better service.
? We've made shopping easier, by providing more
conveniently located cash registers.