As that great sage, Mike Tyson, once said, “Everyone has a plan until someone punches you in the throat.” That’s the experience that many young entrepreneurs felt starting their businesses during the early years of what was to become the Great Recession.
Jay and Lisa Yerkes fell into that camp at the end of 2007 when Lehman Brothers began to show signs of weakness with the abrupt closing of its subprime lender, BNC Mortgage. The Yerkes, who had just started their own business in Chestertown months before, almost immediately started getting calls to cancel both commercial and residential projects. It was just the start.
In his Spy interview, Jay Yerkes talks frankly about the challenges that came with the economic collapse of the region, but also the way in which Yerkes Construction, driven by a special sense of mission, could absorb these financial body blows and find a way to survive. In the Yerkes case, that way forward was having an underlying faith in Chestertown’s long-term future, the reliance on community support, and spiritual connection that transcends these big bumps in the road.
This video is approximately six minutes in length
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