Matt Bender: Babes ’N Brushes

“We have a painting company. We do mostly residential interior.

“I started when I got back from being overseas. I was in the military. I came back and decided I did my duty. Plus, [it] disabled me: I got thrown out of a Humvee.

“I just kind of was over the depressing part of that life, so I decided to do something happy. Painting people’s houses is happy because you’re dealing with people in good times of their life. You’re not painting your house or remodeling if you’re in a bad place, usually. So, I like the positivity.

“[Our] employees are all women. We train [everyone] from square one. It’s a job that’s a trade, an actual skill that you can carry through the rest of your life. And they’re good-paying jobs.

“For a lot of women [throughout history] – and I had this with a single mother growing up – your options if you didn’t have an education were to be a cashier or server or something like that. Not a lot of good options. So, we kind of started the company with that in mind. It’s an opportunity for a lot of upward mobility for people. It’s good work.

“This is tax return season. This is spring. This is when we’re usually jamming. I’m usually beating customers off with a stick. We’ve had year-over-year, 5%-10% growth for at least three or four years.

“We survived the housing bubble, which was devastating. We pushed through it. We kept people employed. We did the smart things we could do. We adjusted. But this one’s a little weird.

“We started getting cancellations before [the stay-at-home order]. We actually voluntarily closed for a couple weeks. I was on board to give this a try, out of compassion. Let’s be compassionate to the at-risk people.

“[Now] my question is, ‘How long do we stay shut down? [It’s] illegal for all these people to work. I haven’t been to the store in a month. We sent everyone home. I told them, ‘File your unemployment right away.’ They filed and all five of them, their unemployment didn’t come through. I put in another paycheck for them out of my own pocket so they wouldn’t miss it. I can only pay them so many. … They know that.

“I would be happy to spend the money and to bear the financial burden if it was being executed properly, but it’s not. My employees can’t get their unemployment. We’re at three weeks. It’s a website – making it work should be one of [the state’s] top priorities. And it’s creating a lot of pain for a lot of people right now.

“I text [my employees] just about every day. They want to work. They’re hurting. They’re worried.

“Anything you can do to reduce the regulatory and taxation environment in this state would help.

“The progressive tax [referendum] has been doomed from the start, to remove the constitutional [flat rate] protection so that he can – and will – change [rates] at any time. Now you’re going to hit business owners even harder.

“That would be insult to injury on top of everything else.

“Training people into the trades is a huge passion of mine. I think trades are a big future for a lot of people. These are jobs that you can’t export, that AI can’t do, or can’t replace any time soon.

“Our employees are very important to us. They enjoy their jobs and we pay them well. They’re family to us. We like to see them do well.”

Matt Bender
President, Babes ’N Brushes
Naperville, Illinois