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Joelle Marquis: Benefactor puts faith, funds behind Mercy Support project

By Clay Today
Posted 3/11/20

CLAY COUNTY – Joelle Marquis was living the good life. In an instant, it nearly came to a crashing halt – literally.

Instead, a near-deadly experience proved pivotal. In the years since, …

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Joelle Marquis: Benefactor puts faith, funds behind Mercy Support project


Posted

CLAY COUNTY – Joelle Marquis was living the good life. In an instant, it nearly came to a crashing halt – literally.

Instead, a near-deadly experience proved pivotal. In the years since, Marquis – entrepreneur, ministry co-founder, and partner in New York’s Arsenal Capital Partners, a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm – has turned her entrepreneurial spirit into a spiritual purpose: to build a heartfelt legacy that goes far beyond business success and to encourage and guide fellow business leaders to do the same.

“It was Dec. 2, 2000, 6 at night, and we were driving home in New Hampshire after a day of Christmas shopping,” Marquis recalls. “It was a two-lane road and a woman in oncoming traffic fell asleep at the wheel. She totaled two other cars and then… It was like hitting a brick wall going 110 miles an hour. Our car was driven backward, the airbags deployed and between the smell and the powder, we thought the car was on fire. We never had time to even apply our brakes.”

What’s worse, Marquis and her husband, Ken, had their three children in the car with them: two of their own still in car seats and 14-year-old Sabrina, whom they would eventually adopt. Miraculously, all survived.

“My faith wasn’t strong at the time, but I remember, just before the impact, calling out to God,” Marquis says. “That set a tone for years to come.”

Over the subsequent years, and all the while dealing with her own trauma, Marquis set out to make sure Sabrina took something positive from that harrowing experience.

“We just started unpacking what happened and what it might mean,” she says. “Maybe this accident happened because someday Sabrina or someone she loved would have otherwise not had a seat belt on. Or maybe the road needed to be blocked off that night to prevent a much more severe accident. Perhaps this crash may ultimately have saved someone else’s life. It led us on a journey of self-reflection that started with that accident. My own biggest takeaway was that I have a responsibility to share that story and those lessons and to help people see their world in the bigger picture rather than simply focusing on themselves – to show that the things we can easily take as negatives in fact may have a greater purpose.”

Early influencer

Marquis proved her penchant as an influencer early on in her career. Even before completing college – she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western New England University in 1990 and a master’s degree in organizational development from Springfield, Massachusetts’ American International College in 1993 – she entered supermarket chain Big d, Massachusetts’ American International College in 1993 – she entered supermarket chain Big Y Foods’ management training program and quickly made an impression.

“I had a concept of putting what today would be called human resources generalists in each of our stores. Payroll dollars are such an important component of a retail business, so I figured that if we paid more attention to who we hired and how we hired them, and if we could cross-train employees to make them more valuable for a similar cost, we could get a lot more value out of the business model,” Marquis explains. “So, I wrote a letter to the CEO asking him for a meeting, me being all of 22 years old at the time.”

Fortune favors the bold, as they say. To her surprise, Marquis landed that meeting and so impressed the CEO that she secured a stint in the corporate office to lay out plans for implementing a new HR department serving the entire 42-store, 5,000-employee chain.

“Looking back, I was responsible at a really young age for a pretty major impact on a business,” says Marquis, who went on to complete UM’s Executive Program and get her Senior Professional in Human Resources certification.

From there, Marquis has held a range of positions throughout her 30-year career, including general manager, chief operating officer, and senior leader of human capital at companies specializing in financial services, manufacturing, food and beverage, and information services and technology. But it was the searing memory of that December evening – and an impromptu Florida vacation – that ultimately prompted a new approach.

A new way

“A tech company outside of Boston had just recruited me to do integration work on a billion-dollar acquisition when 9/11 happened and the tech bubble burst,” Marquis says. Still reeling from the emotional aftermath of the recent car accident, “I realized I was no longer enjoying what I was doing at all. So, my husband and I dropped our kids off with my parents in South Carolina and headed to Florida for a quick vacation. We were immediately enamored with the thought of having a better quality of life and being outdoors – something we weren’t able to take advantage of much up north. Within three days, we had made the decision. I worked out an exit strategy with my company, we gave most of our belongings away, we sold our house, packed up a truck, and moved.”

After taking a year off, Marquis was ready to work again and landed a spot at Arsenal in 2003. Today, as senior partner, she provides human capital and change leadership in multiple strategic initiatives including more than 150 acquisitions, mergers, and consolidations; coaches executives across the portfolio and firm to apply past learnings to present situations to gain momentum and increase multiples; top-grades talent across the portfolio including C-suite, A positions, senior leaders, board members, and advisers; and has an 84% retention rate for senior leaders. The New York-based private equity firm boasts more than $6 billion in assets under management and invests in middle-market companies with revenues ranging from $50 million to $500 million.

Building and activating a legacy

But the work Marquis truly relishes is the kind of work inspired by her bigger-picture realization born of the crash. It started with the idea to purchase, repair, and flip a home, using the proceeds to benefit a nonprofit in need. In early 2016, Marquis, her husband, and another couple launched Legacy Homes, dedicated to securing and repairing foreclosed and distressed homes to help struggling families get back on their feet until they’re able to buy a home of their own.

Then, later in 2016 and 2017, Hurricanes Matthew and Irma hit, flooding 1,200 of Clay County’s homes and damaging 80% of its docks.

“We saw so many unqualified and unlicensed companies sweeping in, taking advantage of homeowners,” Marquis recalls. “Some were literally selling docks out of their trunks, taking deposits, then leaving town. Homeowners who couldn’t afford to have their docks rebuilt watched their property values plummet.”

Thus, was born Legacy Dock & Marine Construction. Action Roofing and Action Construction followed, providing affordable homes, remodeling, and repairs. All four compassion-centric companies fall under the Legacy in Action umbrella.

“The Legacy in Action name was really birthed because we believe we have an opportunity to leave a legacy on this earth and we want to leave one that makes the Lord proud,” Marquis says.

To that end, Marquis and the Legacy in Action team recently agreed to donate funds for a 7,000-square-foot building and five acres of land to Mercy Support Services, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting Clay County residents who are circumstantially in need. Ultimately, the property will hold 67 housing units.

“We want to set an example for other business leaders and individuals to step out in ways that are bigger than what they’re perhaps thinking about already,” Marquis says. “Push beyond the level you believe you’re at now and really walk in faith.”