Fostorian invests in her community

FOSOTIRA --- Nichole Jones is both a dreamer and a doer. Those qualities have benefited her in her pursuit of establishing an environmental laboratory in downtown Fostoria, and she'll take them into her position on the Fostoria City Schools Board of Education. Jones' business, BoJhun Environmental Services, at 222 S. Main St., recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and she ended up being the top vote-getter in the recent balloting for two school board spots. She's emerged from humble beginnings to do those things, in addition to raising three daughters and coaching track and cross country "They say that my personality is not normal," she said in a recent interview. "People who I've worked with in the past -- even my old boss would be like, 'You could run her over with a train and she would still be standing,' just because I was like, 'There's more to do." She added: "I don't know how to stop. I just go and I go and I go." Jones and her siblings had a way to go from the start, with their parents being young people who hadn't completed high school educations. "Shortly after we moved here (from Toledo), we were put in a foster home and we would have to go there a lot, like during the summer, because my mom couldn't afford a babysitter," Jones said. "So, we would see people, like, get adopted out or families get split. It was always, like, a fear, but my mom would get us back and we grew up in Fostoria. "And what I love about Fostoria is that while we have a bad reputation, the people of Fostoria are just different. They are very welcoming. They are not judgmental. What I wholeheartedly believe is if you have respect for people and you are driven and you have a good attitude in life and you don't sit and dwell on negativity, you can do anything. People appreciate that, and I do it in everything I do." Jones' youngest daughter is an eighth-grader at Fostoria Junior/Senior High School. Her middle daughter attends the University of Toledo. Her eldest daughter, who is in the military, was born while Jones was a senior in high school. While many youngsters who have children see their lives go sideways, Jones graduated from Fostoria with honors and went on to study at the University of Findlay. "After growing up with the background that I had, I wanted to make sure that I was able to provide a different life for my child," Jones said. "So, it really pushed me to be a better person, a better mom, and to try to provide for the best future that I could." She took a job at a laboratory in Lima after graduating from Findlay and commuted from Fostoria. "I started working in the environmental field right out of college," she said. "I worked for another lab and I ended up managing the whole lab. I started out just as an analyst and then I did a lot of training. I did marketing, I did sales and I did a lot of project management; then, eventually, I became the lab manager, which is one of the top positions. Then I decided to open my own lab, here in Fostoria." Receiving $150,000 from the city's Revolving Loan Fund helped Jones acquire the equipment necessary to get started. "I started consulting in November of 2013, and while I was doing the consulting, I started working on getting (what) I needed in the lab," she said. "I opened the lab in April of 2014." Jones' facility collects water samples and tests them for a variety of customers from multiple states. She has 12 employees under her and between 300 and customers at any given time. "Buckeye Pipeline is one of our biggest customers, and we deal with around 20 of their terminals all over in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and then we get a lot of homeowners and realtors," she said. "Today, I sent out a quote for a new customer and we just got another call for another one today. It's just adding on and we're not even doing sales. It's just kind of word of mouth. It's exciting." She said she was inspired to run for school board not simply because she has a child in the system, but she's seen some opportunities for change that could draw others -- such as her own employees -- to live in the community. She said she wants to work with others on the board to make improvements take place. "I definitely felt the need and I definitely felt moved," she said. "I think it's a bigger purpose than just me positioning myself. ... I feel a lot of it has to do with attitude and just the way I long at things in a positive way and how I do want to be that person that I feel the community and the kids need. I feel like I can connect at that level and I want to make sure it's happening. "I'm not satisfied with a just kind of go-through-the-motions work ethic on things, so I'm very driven to try to make sure that people are staying mindful for the overall goals and purposes of the kids and the community." She recently celebrated a birthday, and she's mindful of what she may be able to accomplish with the time she has left. "I'm 45 years old and I feel like I have so much left to do on this earth before I leave," she said. "There's just not enough time. I think about how many more decades I have, potentially, and I think, 'That's not enough time for everything I want to accomplish.' So, I don't spend it watching TV. I am very faithful. I don't like to say religious because there's kind of, like, a bad reputation for people who are religious. But I'm very guided and I just feel like I have a purpose and I want to do everything I can to benefit as much as I can."