062: Taking care of the people who are next to you, so that they can take care of you with Jerome Amos Jr.

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories for today's military spouses so they can continue to make confident and informed decisions for themselves and their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen a Moe's, a gold star, daughter, veteran spouse and your host for holding down the fort by us that wealth. Let's get started.

All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of holding down the fort. I am your host, Jen Amos. And I'm pretty excited. I had an opportunity to chat with this gentleman offline for a long time before we started recording. And so I want to introduce you all to Jerome Amos Jr. He is the founder of B fam, which stands for brothers from another mother cooking US Air Force that and the lead for the Comcast NBC Universal veterans network. NYC hub. Jerome, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 1:08

Thank you, Jen. It's great to be here. And thanks for having me. It's it's gonna be fun.

Jen Amos 1:13

you because you know, clearly: 2020

Speaker 1 1:37

Am I doing? Well, Jen, let me tell you, I am doing so well. No, no, I'm doing great. It's an absolutely pleasure to be, you know, alive and well and safe with my family. I happen to have the convenience of having a job of which I can work from home. I could have done that without the pandemic though. I do like going to restaurants. So yeah, it's important to me that I can, you know, enjoy myself. So working from home is good. It saves me a two hour round trip. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Jen Amos 2:09

You know, I think since a lot of employees are working from home now, I think they're reevaluating the way they want to show up at work. Like I imagine for employees who have to show up in the office again, I hear all these quote unquote, excuses or reasons not show up like oh, well, you know, in all due respect, obviously, like, you know, I have an elderly at home. So I don't want to endanger my elderly by going to work and then possibly bringing home something, or parents have really enjoyed spending more quality time with their family and their children. And so it's interesting how much things have shifted. And although it was really uncomfortable for a lot of us at first, I think that a lot of us are beginning to see the silver lining in this pandemic. So anyway, I just thought I would add that because it's interesting times I think, but good time. I think it's I think people are getting to see it as a good time for a lot of reasons. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 3:05

a good time. I live in a small community and when those HOA things and it's brought us closer together, we share more. I mean, we were sharing before, but now we're really like focused on it. My one neighbor brings us she makes me mass, she brings over mass and I bring over food. So it's sort of some particle Oh, in wine gets exchanged a lot too. But

Jen Amos 3:29

I love that. I mean, it's just been also speaking of wine. I consider myself a social drinker. But I think since these pandemic times, I've been drinking more at home. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But I just have to say white claws like my chosen my chosen beverage when I'm just distressing from the day. I feel like it's one of those drinks that I don't wake up later and have a hangover. There's something special about it. And it has a beautiful effect on me that I don't regret the next day.

Speaker 1 3:59

Yeah, yeah, I would have to say I belong to a lot of wine clubs. I really don't drink that much. I used a lot of the wine to make sauces and things. But so yeah, that's basically or desserts or whatever else I can force it into. But yeah, we're wine quarters, as I like to say, tucking it away and waiting for an opportunity when we're all going to be together. And that's why we buy the wine so that we can share it with our friends. So that's basically what it's been now that we don't have lemonade friends. We're backing up on the booze

Jen Amos 4:30

on the boots. You hinted at this a little bit just now, Jerome, that you like to incorporate wine into your food. And that's always something that I think my husband wants to aspire to do with our food. It's just, you know, when he's looking in the kitchen, we don't always have that available. But anyway, as I had mentioned, when I introduced you on the show, you are the founder of the brothers from another mother cooking network on YouTube. And so I thought we'd take a moment to talk about that and And I know from my notes you actually started about two, three years ago. And here you are with 200 subscribers and you know, continuously asking the community like, what do you want to see? What do you want featured? And you know, this, this is really for you and your community. So thank you for transitioning to the kitchen. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about the backstory of the fam. And yeah, just why you do it.

Speaker 1 5:26

So be fam. Yeah, the family is a creation of basically my wife and my friends. I made a friend at a very unusual location we had met at Costco. Okay, so gentleman walking around with his girlfriend, sort of look like me, big guy, you know, his name is Ellis. And he had something like, I don't know, 12 large containers of barbecue sauce on his palate, and was pushing it around. And I you know, you know how you doing in a store, you cross each other in the aisle. I kept crossing him and I'm like, Okay, I don't know this guy. I don't want to freak him out. Like that. But when we hit the checkout line, I was like, I gotta find out why he's got someone's barbecue sauce. So me being me. I said, Excuse me. I don't mean to disturb you. But I gotta ask, what are you doing with all the barbecue sauce? Are you doing one of two things in my mind? You having a party of which you did not invite me wrong? Have you be something with the barbecue sauce in the bathtub that you guys are doing? I don't know. Very unusual. So he laughed, which was my intention. And they said, Yes, we're having a party. We call it this thing. We do it every year. It's called Meet fest. And he invited me and out of the blue. And I said, you know, when you you meet a person who gets you're funny, I'm going to make this happen. So I went home after I went Costco shopping, did all what I said, and I told my wife, we're going to an event tonight. She goes, what? Oh, I met this guy and his girlfriend. They do this thing called Meet fest. I said that's got to be us. We're 40 people. We love food. So why don't we go meet them at this place. And we used to live in a town that the event was in. So I figured, hey, how difficult could it be we grabbed some of the quartered wine and brought the wine to the party. And yeah, he made a great party that he used to do. And it was fantastic. A lot of fun. And we made some new friends that came into a event. I call it an event because he did a party. So I have to do a six course meal for him. They come into my house, I set up a six course meal in the brag, because that's what guys do. We banter. I kept sending him text messages of what I was making. So he could be, you know, salivating ready to go with the game. And every course that I was putting together and laying out the prep route to do my resume. Plus, he was like, Man, this is really good. And then so once my wife finally got to see us together in my kitchen or in our kitchen, as you can see, it was like you guys like a brother from another mother. And that was it. You know, that was it. So we started doing b fam cooking. Right? And from I mean literally the next week we shot our first video I had talked to During that same week, I had gotten an interview from workshop culinary. They're a knife sharpening company, they sell devices that sharpen your knives reasonably. Anyway, me and my sales brain started sort of percolating and same time and I'm saying oh, well, they're doing a survey on me because I bought this knife thing. And I was like, Well, yeah, we're gonna shoot a video next week. And he was like, you're shooting a YouTube video? Yeah, we this is an idea that, you know, just for fun. You know, I see a lot of people on YouTube doing all types of crazy stuff going to Dollar Tree going, you know, and and I like a lot of the videos that talk about how to create different issues like how to make a big shrimp scampi, which is my last video, how to do bread, how to do everything that you could possibly find. So YouTube is a resource for me, and I figured I can be part of it. So we did it.

Jen Amos 9:10

Yeah, I think it's really awesome. I think that how to videos are extremely popular on YouTube. And I'm just curious in this time of people being at home more often because of the pandemic and social distancing and not going to restaurants as much as people used to. Have you noticed maybe a spike in your viewership, or have you noticed anything new since the start of the pandemic in regards to your YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 9:35

I've been more focused on it that has been I'm trying to get better at producing a video and making sure that information gets out to people that it's in a better organized fashion. But you know, growing the channel is difficult. And this is not my first job. My second job it's my not even my third job. It's an opportunity for me to get into kitchen create something that people like especially my mother in law and my wife,

Jen Amos 9:58

MIT That's important people are most

: 10:01

important people, right that I can get so many ideas out of my brain. So like, eggs on eggs on eggs is something that I, I only cook on the weekends. So I just get these ideas out of my brain. I made something last weekend called the savory bread pudding, which is like a ham and cheese sandwich rolled up inside of time and bread, which I made the bread too, which is also a thing you know, it's these are opportunities for you to take a sauce and put it on and put it on a plate and make it look nice. Like you're at a restaurant. Yeah, the nice thing about having the or trying these things is that you can give yourself an elegant feel and stay safe at the same time. Yeah, not just one course. But two courses or three courses like kraebel Lay.

Jen Amos: 10:44

Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds to me that this is sort of your YouTube channel is almost like your brain dump for your own inventions. You're like, you know what, this is a great idea. Not only am I going to make it, but I'm going to put it on video so that I can remember that and share that with, you know, family and friends that may want to, you know, create the same thing.

: 11:02

Mm hmm. That's exactly that. And when we were actually in the building, when we were still while I'm still going to work at NBC, I literally, we used to do potlucks, one of our things was to get the team together in software development. least that was my original job working in NBC. We have 40 developers together. And these are usually while they're tremendously younger than me, I would like to say at least 20 years, most of them and they're all individuals, right. But the one thing that brings us all together, good food, good booze. That's, that's universal. And that's similar to the military. It's, you know, part of the development team. So we had all of our occasions. One of the things that happened and NBC that used to be really popular was that we would do NBC itself, the company would do special events. When I first arrived in NBC, they just happened to be the same time as Pi Day. So the exact number of pi nerdish Yes, it sounds nerdish. Oh, no. Yeah. So 314 Yeah, it was the exact exact minute so we had Pie Day. So I would make pies we bipods everybody, cheer pie. We have Cinco de Mayo. So we well, we ended up with a couple of crock pots. So I made tacos, and we made chili, we got a chili, cook off all that work, keep the team together to allow us to grow together, because we are just a distributed team. So from New York, all the way out to Seattle is the other part of the team, we would get together and create these opportunities for the team to bond more. So that's why we made NBC makes NBC a home for us. So I'll at least that's the way I like to treat it. Because everyone's you know, part of my family.

Jen Amos: 12:44

What one more thing before we transition to NBC is that, to me, it sounds like cooking for you is a way to build community and camaraderie, whether it's with family or you know, with your colleagues. And so with that said, you know, is there any other reason why you just love cooking and like why, you know, out of all the things that's on your plate, you've chosen to do this YouTube channel?

: 13:05

Well, I like to share, you know, cooking in general, and being ex military. That's really what brought it. I mean, I grew up in a house that cook I was raised by my great aunt, and she was a church lady, literally, she was married to the pastor. And the neighborhood itself, where I grew up all the kids to come to my house, because the ice cream man literally stopped in front of my house every time it drove by. So it was a literal location in which the estimate came to and we all took care of that stuff. But and it was always the neighborhood knew that there was a place that you can find comfort and food at the same time. And it was always available. So I took that into the military. And when we got in the military, there was an opportunity for the shop to come together. When I worked in maintenance on the aircraft, we all got together to bring the team together. So that stayed with me, similar to Friendsgiving. That's a really big military tradition of which we've now duplicated at NBC. So, right, so to me, you have to take care of the people who are next to you, so that they can take care of you. Right, they are the reason I mean, I'm from a large family, I'm one of eight, right? And I say that proudly, because I'm the oldest. And it's my job to loop them all together, you know, and keep them as a family, no matter how close how far apart we are, you know, and just bring them back to the central family business of doing what we need to do, which is grow our family and make it bigger and better and survive through times like this. And other times like when my father passed away and my mother passed away. Food is a key factor to that complete lifecycle. So for me, it's my blanket.

Jen Amos: 14:50

I love that. And I think you know, being the eldest of eight, which is incredible. By the way, that's a lot. I mean, it's one thing to be the eldest but to be the eldest of eight I imagine that you have I've kind of picked up the caretaking role sometimes or like the, you know, the parental roles at times. And so I just love how cooking is a way to kind of bring everyone together for you and maintain the family unit. And yeah, and really, it's an act of love, I think to cook for people anyway. So I think that's amazing. And I really appreciate you sharing what cooking means for you.

: 15:23

It definitely is that I mean we, if we were in person, I'd probably make you some ice cream or something that would probably be what I think that you would like the most. I don't know why I'm just looking at you. I don't even know if you like ice cream.

Jen Amos: 15:37

I love ice cream. Oh, I'm a chocolate person. I'm like, oh, like make me like a fudge Allman chocolate ice cream

: 15:45

strove to crumble, lay, or deconstructed smores or something like that?

Jen Amos: 15:50

Yeah, you're gonna be like my best friend. Maybe when I'm in NYC, when I visit my sister, we're going to have to pay a visit. When things are better and social distancing is less strict. Who knows when that'll be but I will keep that in mind drum.

: 16:07

Good, good. The hotel is not that far. And you can you know, because there's gonna be a lot of booze, I gotta get rid of some of this stuff.

Jen Amos: 16:13

I will gladly help you use up some of that booze for sure. Be I've just been about it this pandemic. I think I say that probably I don't know. Well, drum, let's go ahead and transition to the work that you do at NBC. So I want to go ahead and read the title again, you are the lead for the Comcast NBC Universal veterans network, NYC hub. And for people that are hearing that for the first time, what does it mean to be the lead over there? And also share? How did you come across this opportunity.

: 16:44

So NBC itself, I joined NBC approximately six years ago. Right? Very strange path in a way. And I feel like it was always in alignment for me to get there. But I had already been working for. I've been working, doing software development, doing e commerce work, and I was thinking, it's time for me to stop jumping from job to job. So what I mean by that in our career, in software development, you generally come in there, you do whatever you need to do to finish the task, and then the project is over. And then you move on to another project. So I worked for everything from an advertising agency through I was an instructor at Pratt and fit, teaching front end development. And then I was like, Okay, so I've done all these different jobs work for Chanel work for projects like Levi's CK one, I can run down a list. And I'm like, Okay, I need some place I need to nest that's getting to the point in my life, where hopping is great, but it's better to find a place where you can nest, and I had a couple of opportunities to work in more ecommerce places. And they had already sent me paperwork, and I'm like, this NBC job. That really looks like a spot I should be it's a big enough company, right? Know this opportunity, you know, they should have some space in there for a an entrepreneur, because originally I was something else. I was a photographer, and prior to that I was working in maintenance and r&d technician sales. I've done it all. So they're collected. Yeah, my grandmother used to say you, you better have a plan B. I have Plan B, a C, and A D. Just in case. So I'm winter MVC. And I was working there for about a year before. I didn't know anything about the veterans network. And it's a veterans Network is an erg employee resource group. And they had some kind of survey, big mistake. So there's another survey and one of the primary questions on the survey was, Do you feel like you're being fully utilized? I could not answer this question. But honestly, and I had to tell them approximately, and this is a percentage, how much do you feel like you're being utilized? I said, approximately 10%. And they said, Mr. Hammonds stuff doesn't sound right. I go, Well, let's look at this. I have four resumes. You're using part of the four resumes, which is web development, I was an entrepreneur, I had my own business, I supervised 162 people I was in charge in basic training on. So you have me utilizing part of that. And I'm not managing anybody now. I'm just a senior software engineer. Right? Yeah. But it's it's about 10% is about right. So they were like, Whoa, I didn't realize all that. Because when you apply to the job, you're applying for that position and your resume is clean. Your resume is clean, meaning that it talks to that position. Say who I am. It says what the job is that I'm applying for? I didn't want to put on too much stuff because then you become overqualified.

Jen Amos: 19:56

Right? Right. Like you just want to show just enough to like show that you're gay. Trouble, but also not overqualified.

: 20:02

Exactly. I want the job. You know, I don't care what level it is, but you're asking me a question you want me to answer correctly. So I answered correctly. 10%. So they suggested to me after sending out the survey, again, because they must have gotten some other information that was, you know, needs to be changed and some of the things in a private conversation with my boss's boss, he said, Maybe you should go and meet this guy named Val, Val, who's a senior, what is the Senior VP for NBC News, and he was in charge and started veterans network at NBC. Okay. And I'm like, Okay, I didn't know the guy's next door is right next door and in the office. And I'm like, okay, he wasn't in the office at the time. But there was an event that was going on. Someone else was in charge of veterans network. I attended the meeting. Where was it at a bar, of course, actually. And I arrived at a board place was packed, and they were giving out swag, MBC swag. But I'm not exactly a small guy, as you may have seen, right? So they were giving out jackets, and the guy who I was talking with who was the person who was doing my job, then Tony said, I don't have an extra jacket that would fit you at this moment. He took his jacket off and gave me his jacket and said, I'll take care of it later. Wow. Okay. And I said, that is the feeling I haven't had, it brought me the circle, you know, just like you, you know, it's not everybody standing together center on the body brown the circle started talking just like normal. That is something I haven't felt in 30 years. Wow. You know, I've, like I said, hopping from job to job, I still do what I do, I still made the the Harlem Shake video, I made the, you know, other companies with other people who still do the same thing. I'm still the same person. But that feeling of being in a brotherhood being with some people who care about you, no matter what, you only get that from a certain class of people. And those are military people. Right? And that feeling. I hadn't felt in a long time. I called my wife that night on the way on my long trip home and told her, I want this meeting. I hadn't felt this in a long time. And I didn't know what was even missing it. Wow. Yeah. So ever since then, I was like, I'm all in 100%. Working with veterans network, I am looking to do whatever I can to help them out. And they got a great mission, they originally were looking at they wanted to get Comcast is looking to get 15,000 veterans and military families into Comcast, by a certain date back then they've since updated it. And I don't know what the actual status is at the moment. But the last I heard was 21,000 by 2021. That was before pre COVID. So 21,000 by 2021. So they're looking for active duty, they're looking for veterans, they're looking for military spouses. They have another partnership where they're trying to bring in 100,000 military spouses, and that's together not in our number, particularly but our portion we're trying to help. I'm all in, you know, I did not know that I was missing it. And that's why I do what I do with veterans network, because we're here to support. And I negotiate the corporate entity that is the rest of the people to make sure that it happens.

Jen Amos: 23:16

Well, thank you for sharing your story. Jerome, in working with Comcast and NBC, Comcast, NBC Universal, as well as with the veterans network and yc hub. I think that's a beautiful story. You know, sometimes we don't know what we need until it's given to us. And for it to bring you back, you know, back to the old days old times have that kind of camaraderie, you know, you got in the military, it's like, wow, like, this feels like home. Right. Like, I imagined that, that it felt like you had a sense of home there. And it makes sense why, you know, for someone who has jumped around from job to job and project to project, I imagine that six years at the same company, is a long time for you.

: 23:56

Again, yeah, that's what my anchor has been, you know, I literally, I would generally jump every two years or so, you know, looking for the title and looking for the money. You know, the anchor is then veterans network, you know, the camaraderie, the stuff that we're trying to do together. Yeah, that's, that's what kept me there. And this is the longest outside of my own businesses, the longest position I've had since the military. And it's actually longer than the military because I was only in the military five years, one month, one day.

Jen Amos: 24:27

Yeah, I saw that in our notes. I think it's quite fascinating that you were very specific on the amount of time it was like, oh, five years? No, it's not just five years. It's five years, one month and one day, can you tell me really briefly what is the significance of you wanting us to know you serve for five years, one month in one day?

: 24:44

Because it's an odd amount of time for you your contract generally is four years, right? So when you say five years, one month, one day people say why why that? Right. And it was really odd that I you know, the Gulf War Part One star They did. And they gave me a choice, I can immediately get out. Well, I can extend my contract. I extended my contract, but we kicked butt. So we got to so they don't need us anymore. So let me out early. It's a weird thing. And then it happened to be exactly five years, one month, one day. How much more? Could you? Yeah, that's like, I need a shirt for that.

Jen Amos: 25:22

Yeah, I mean, even just say, like five years, one month, one day, it's a good conversation starter, you're like, someone would say like, What do you mean, five years, one month and one day, you know, it's like, oh, let me tell you a story. So Jerome, I want to just talk a little bit more about the veterans network. And, you know, obviously, you have really enjoyed your time there and you want to, you know, help out other veterans and you know, military spouses. So tell us with the veterans network, how can people get involved if they're, you know, interested in learning more?

: 25:51

Well, veterans network itself, you obviously, we work with most of our focuses with external VSOs veteran service organizations, right, we connect with our community tremendously. But we are spooling up and have spooled up an event that we're hoping to do quarterly with CBS and Fox Network. It's called vet working event. Yeah, that working? Yeah, that's, we only ran one of them. So far, we are running another one in December. And you can check out LinkedIn for it right now. Right, that I'll give you the date, because we haven't locked into next date. But basically, what we're trying to do is we're trying to help veterans network with people, the most important thing is about networking. Yeah. So that would get people to know of you as compared to, you know, one of them. Right? And we're having a little bit of fun. It'll be a trivia night again. And my understanding is we may be giving away some prizes, because one of the veterans, what do we call them that veteran business person? What do you call that? It's

Jen Amos: 26:47

like a friend business owner, or

: 26:50

they've made it into a word now. It's like, veteran veteran, or there we go, entrepreneur, entrepreneur. Yeah, yeah, so a Navy SEAL. He's got a business company out there, and he wants to donate some stuff to us. So we're working with them trying to get that all together. But the idea is that we're trying to get all of the media companies such as NBC, CBS, and Fox, hopefully ABC hears this and wants to, you know, jump on board, or HBO or something, the idea is to get them all together, because all of them have headquarters in New York, and I'm in New York, I like to think of veterans network is separate and included in MVC, because we deal so much with the external community, that we have to breathe and figure out how we can get veterans to be employed. Now, that sounds weird coming from an MVC person, but it doesn't sound weird coming from a military person, I'm looking out for my friends, veterans should be employed, but 1% of population, military families should be employed, will give. So if I can loop them in with, if I don't have position, I got this guy that needs to position I got a friend over another place, get your spot, you know, that's the inside his boys club, if you want to call it that, whatever you want to, we're looking at to make sure that that our families are taken care of the military family is taken care of. And that external connection will do that, you know,

Jen Amos: 28:17

yeah. I appreciate you sharing that because, you know, really going back to the conversation around transition, it's really difficult for a lot of families to transition from the military life to civilian life. And so if they know someone who knows someone, you know it I think it makes the process a lot easier,

: 28:35

even more easy if you know someone who's working at a place know someone, right? It's the most important thing that I've learned over my years of being out which has been 30 years you know, it's not what you know, it's not it's not who you know, it's who knows of you and this was from an old photography seminar that I got from my other career that is so true, should be triple underline by everyone they have to know of you so you've got to get network out there. So you can spread some of the WHO YOU ARE of yourself to find that next position. Few years back there was a lady who worked at NBC didn't know that we have a veterans network and then once you found out she was like, I need persons who are meticulous and cleaning up outfits costumes, right? You know, like, like someone who was in the military. Who else is more meticulous, didn't military people. Military Spouses are that meticulous too because they know they have to keep them their husbands and wives and, you know, family members up to par that meet regulations, or else you get trouble. So this particular person worked in costumes who worked in Long Island City, and she hired eight people. Like now, that's that's how it happens, you know, and they were all military spouses.

Jen Amos: 29:57

I love that. I love that so much and I appreciate At you really bringing up the statistic that really less than 1% of our nation serves. And that's just not the service member. But that's the family is the spouses that have to make those sacrifices. And so I think it's great, you know, what veterans network at NBC Universal is doing to be able to provide opportunities for our veterans and military families. So thank you for being a part of that.

: 30:23

No, thank you for talking about it. There are a couple of other things I want to mention though.

Jen Amos: 30:30

We're gonna wrap up soon. And then we're gonna wrap up soon. But I want I definitely want to make sure we, you know, cover everything that you want to share for our community. So before we transition to any other updates or events you want to share, Jerome, is there anything else you want to share about the veterans network?

: 30:44

Now I'm joining Blink is a great place we give and we have done stuff like Comcast started while Comcast and started initiative. One of our veteran leaders in Dallas, Texas started something called the Adam's corner, right. The Adams corner is basically a corner of a Fisher House, which is set up as a play station of what you came up with the idea of who was injured and you know, consequently passed. When she was there with her with her other child, we're gonna say some spouse, it's not about the other child, she noticed that there was wasn't any place for for the child to go and play. So you know, just to step aside today, Mommy can handle the issues that she was having with a son, which is, you know, he was gravely injured. And so she came up with an idea and she, you know, coordinated with her, her group to set up this Adams corner, dubbed after his name, of course, Comcast picked it up last year and we spooled up, I think it was six or eight other Fisher houses and that were permanently connected with Fisher houses, which we, in my case happened to spawn up one in the Bronx, right at the Bronx, Fisher House, the Bronx, VA. This is one of those events of which you pull in the right people, because Goldstar families are highly important to us. And in particular, highly important to me, as you would attest to right wing shape that taking care of the families is really, really important. If you saw this this Fisher House it was it actually I can actually show you part of the Fisher it's another background shades.

Jen Amos: 32:20

I love it. Yeah. Fisher House. Love it. Love it. Wonderful.

: 32:27

So yeah, that's one of the living rooms in the Fisher House in the Bronx. And I'm knocking over all of my stuff. So yeah, this Fisher House is in the Bronx. And well, they carved out a room for us to play room of which we filled with toys so that when military families go to this Fisher House, I don't know if you if you've heard of the Fisher House. So let me ask you that. Have you heard of Fisher House?

Jen Amos: 32:50

This is the first time I'm hearing it. And I imagine for some of our listeners it is to Okay,

: 32:54

so let me give you the 15 cent on that Fisher House is owned by the Fisher's or donated by the Fisher Fisher family. They're a big developing company, I guess, across the United States, I don't know all of the information in reference to them. I just don't it they're very generous. And obviously they had a military member in their family or else wouldn't be doing this. So they believe they go to VAs are close to vas. And if you didn't know, which I know you do when you're a military person, and usually not, I don't know what they call it filthy rich, I think that's usually what it's called. So when you have to deal with a medical situation, and you have a person in hospital, you want to stay close by usually this is something called a hotel, which you know, is going to charge a nominal like you cannot afford this Fisher House, the Fisher's built these houses that are close to and in fitting with the location architecturally brand new homes that are like suites. And I mean, beautiful. I mean, the all new furniture has been donated, I mean, immaculate dual kitchen, so you have space for a family to come in there and spread out. And then that gives the family the ability to just focus on the issue. Right, they come and they can stay for free. Wow. That's, it's it's fantastic. So this this little playroom. Adams corner is one of our opportunities that NBC and Comcast has supported in the past and will continue to support. Like I said, we had a tooled up last year, we were supposed to be smiling more this year, but then, you know, we had that little thing called COVID. That started that blew everything up. So yeah, yeah, it's important that we support our people.

Jen Amos: 34:43

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jerome, you are a wealth of knowledge and resources and connections. I absolutely want to thank you so much for being on our show today. Well, a couple of other things I feel like it's important to add is that you actually come from a family of service as well. Oh, we mentioned that your dad had served and your grandpa had served. You want to tell us a little bit about your lineage?

: 35:05

Sure. Yeah. My, my lineage? i It does, it does. It really does. Thank you very much for mentioning my father, Jerome Amos Jr. He served in, during Vietnam. You know, a, he served in the army back then. Nothing against the army. He didn't want me to go in the army. He was very adamant. I can go in any other service, just not the army. Right, I was bringing it back to myself, I was one of those people who were very determined as to what I was going to do with my life. And when I was what I was going to do meant that in ninth grade, I decided I was gonna go into Air Force. Wow. So my father had assigned a special permission for that. But he was this is when he was very adamant about it. His father, my father's father, also served in the army. Right. So I guess that's the main reason you didn't want to be to go in the army. And I believe my grandfather's grandfather also served in the army. That's my understanding. So but that has nothing to do with anything as much as my great aunt I, which I mentioned, when I was a kid, my great aunt used to see literally, we guess, I guess we had like a, still trying to figure this all out to be specific. But um, we had four veterans who lived in a house who were not family members. They were all let's just say they had issues of which they needed some place of support. And that's, that's one of the things that my grandmother used to do. She was also a nurse for the Red Cross. But that's a lot of them a lot of stories. You will you should,

Jen Amos: 36:41

she sounds like an amazing woman, and she sounds like you come from, you know, a long lineage of service and giving back. So, you know, I am not surprised that you are so multifaceted, you know, today and sharing all the good work that you're doing today. But yeah, you know, with that said, drum, I just want to make sure we covered everything that you wanted to share. So is there anything else that you wanted our listeners to know, or maybe plan for? Before we wrap up,

: 37:11

one last couple of last things won't be one, I just want to make sure that I talked about more things on NBC, right? Our sales and marketing team are looking for veterans to sign up for a particular event. It's called the bold veterans group. MVC, veterans, network and bold have teamed up together, there are another ERG in our company. So each one of the departments have different ERGs. I work for corporate ERG, and this is the sales and marketing branch. They're looking for veterans who have finished their college degree and are looking to come into media. And in sales, it's a great opportunity for them to work as a resident is the thing that we're calling it, right there'll be paid and, you know, brought forth a run through a training program to see if they can cut the mustard if they can do they will be brought into the company. That is a fantastic opportunity for any person, but even a better fantastic opportunity for a person who is a veteran, right? I'm just brought up from not just the entry level, but into middle management.

Jen Amos: 38:18

Awesome. I love it. Oh, man, I feel like I've just gained so much from you and our conversation, Jerome and also as a fellow a most person, we were talking a lot about that offline that we share the same last name, but we're not related in any way in case anyone is wondering. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker: 38:34

don't know about that. I want to check. We got to get into that.

Jen Amos: 38:40

It'll be a it'll be a fun holiday activity, you know, to kind of just like, dig around and see, you know, what we find a lot of Amesys a lot. It's true. It's true. It's very true. Absolutely. But yeah, again, I just want to thank you so much for being on our show today. And just sharing all that you had to share. I just love your attitude and your energy and your passion for what you do. And I want to congratulate you for all of your success at this point in your life. I know we also mentioned offline that you've been married for over 30 plus years and it just, you know, it's I think it says a lot about you and your character. And again, I'm just very appreciative of our conversation today. Jerome,

: 39:22

thank you very much for having me again. And J amo says you are realize, I promise you someplace in there. We're related because I thought this out when I was this last little story. I found this out when I was working as a photographer. There was a priest in one of the services his name was Jerome and he wanted to make sure that that I knew what the st amo is. There's a St. See, a lot of Amos's St. Louis was the shepherd so leaders file a gathering their flock, amen.

Jen Amos: 39:55

I love that. I didn't I mean, I didn't know that part of it. So that's a yo Knowing that this would be a fun project for us to figure out if we're related but you know, we could you just never know.

: 40:10

Well, you all be fam your family.

Jen Amos: 40:14

Awesome. I love that drum. I appreciate your hospitality and your homely, homely nature. One more thing before we go. I know we keep saying, like, we're gonna wrap up. But we always keep saying one more thing. Why don't you share a couple of websites or ways that people can get a hold of you? We will include this in the show notes, but in case anyone just wants to hear it out. How can people find you online?

: 40:38

So you can find me online at B fam cooking.com. Of course, that's my landing page for my YouTube channel. You can also find me on YouTube. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram for a B fam cooking.

Jen Amos: 40:51

Awesome. Well, again, drum. It's been an absolute pleasure having you here on holding down the fort. Thanks again for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yes. And to our listeners. We hope that this show gave you one more piece of knowledge, resource or relevant story so that you can continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll chat with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.