Going For The Records - C.J. Enterprises Inc - Brief Article - Company Profile

Nation's Business, Jan, 1999 by Nancy Bearden Henderson

Nancy Bearden Henderson is a Chattanooga, Tenn., free-lance writer who frequently profiles small-business owners.

Carolyn Jones' desire to run her own business was born when, as a spunky, pigtailed girl growing up in public housing, she collected fares from customers who rode in her dad's taxicab.

"I thought it was so interesting that he could work independently and call his own shots," she recalls. "To me, that looked very exciting."

The Chattanooga, Tenn., native earned a business-education degree in the mid-1960s, but her entrepreneurial dream was still years in the making.

Newly married, Jones and her husband moved to Detroit, where she worked as secretary to the vice president of Motown Records.

The regular contact with entertainers such as Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and the Temptations was thrilling, but when the company was relocated to Los Angeles in 1970, Jones decided to stay in Detroit.

Accepting a job as medical-records supervisor at Detroit's Children's Hospital proved to be the turning point in her career. "I didn't have any earthly idea what 'medical records' was," she says. But she quickly developed a passion for helping patients "without the blood and all that stuff."

Jones outlined a plan to start her own medical-records business by 1980, earned a two-year accredited record technician degree, then enrolled in a four-year registered record administrator (RRA) program. Her marriage had crumbled, and in 1974 she moved back to Chattanooga to be near her aging parents, only to find that the closest medical-records program was two hours away, in Atlanta.

Unwilling to give up her goal, she commuted to Emory University and finished her RRA degree. Then she talked the president of a junior college in Chattanooga into letting her start a medical-records program, and later she established curricula at several historically black colleges in the Southeast.

As part of her 10-year plan, Jones worked at various times at an acute-care hospital, a health-maintenance organization, and an ambulatory-care center, learning the record-keeping regulations for each type of facility. She also began wooing clients.

In November 1980, Jones remarried, obtained a bank loan of $5,000 for supplies and equipment, turned a bedroom into a home office, and launched C.J. Health Records. A week later she landed her first contract, handling medical records for 17 nursing homes.

The impressive first contract was largely a result of the fact that Jones was a full-time medical-records specialist who could also serve as a consultant. As business grew, her husband, Edward Jones, and son Charles Kimbrough Jr. joined the company.

The road to success was often bumpy, however. Jones discovered, for example, that being a woman entrepreneur meant that some potential clients didn't respect her ideas. "But I don't accept obstacles," she says.

Jones decided that every five years she would diversify. "My philosophy is that if you make hamburgers, you ought to make spaghetti, because you'll always have a piece of hamburger left over. So we expanded into records management for the government."

With the addition of a secretary, Jones had "run out of walls" for more desks in the home office, so in 1985 C.J. Health Records leased office space and won a $250,000 contract managing classified documents for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In 1993, in response to a growing non-medical clientele throughout the United States, Jones changed the name of her venture to C.J. Enterprises Inc.

Jones' firm has more than 100 full-time employees and 30 part-time workers and consultants. It offers clients a wide range of services, such as helping doctors negotiate contracts with managed-care organizations and setting up efficient accounts-payable systems. The company's annual revenues have topped $4 million.

C.J. Enterprises has received nearly 20 awards from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the National Association of Women Business Owners, and other organizations.

The professional recognition that Jones is proudest of, however, is the 1998 Chattanooga Area Manager of the Year, which she received this past summer. She is the first black and the first woman to be given the award since it was established 13 years ago. It is sponsored by 17 agencies in her hometown.

Jones says there are three keys to her success: taking a personal approach, treating employees and customers fairly, and--most important, she says--allowing God to be "Chairman of the Board."

Jones believes in sharing the wealth with her staff through benefits such as tuition reimbursement and paid-in-full health insurance.

"We try to add one new benefit to their packages every year," she says. In 1997, CJE introduced an alternative work schedule; employees now have a paid day off every other Friday so they can enjoy longer weekends.

In addition, Jones is a mentor for other minority women business owners, leads university workshops for female entrepreneurs, and fields up to 10 calls a week from women hoping to start their own businesses.