Background

Jen and her husband bought their first home, a “fixer-upper” in Cambridge, MA, in 1999 before the DIY/HGTV movement became mainstream. After 4 years of mostly sweat equity that happened on top of their full-time jobs, they sold their house for enough profit to buy south of the city. Before she began her journey designing homes, Jen worked in finance and process improvement consulting for 21 years. Over the course of her corporate career, Jen ran over 50 projects and creating savings or value of over $8 million.  

In 2007, Jen left her corporate career and founded Manifest Consulting, an independent venture that looked to bring the teachings of Six Sigma and process improvement to nonprofits and small businesses. Jen has served on the Town of Scituate’s Economic Development Committee and founded and ran two education-oriented non-profits, Friends of Scituate’s Future (FoSF) and Scituate Education Foundation (SEF). FoSF was created to help solve the huge problem of Scituate’s 100-year-old middle school. A building fraught with asbestos, no foundation, leaking roofs and ramps that ran into walls. Friends of Scituate’s Future advocated for the construction of a new middle school for Scituate through 3 town meeting votes over 5 years with working with the state to fund part of the new school. Scituate Education Foundation focused on how to create fundraising to benefit the whole community with innovative educational opportunities for all ages.   

Throughout this time, Jen took on numerous home improvement projects with properties in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Her projects were often spurred by problems her own family faced like how to balance travelling to ski with their two rescue pups while minimizing costs of ski rental homes and navigating their family’s finances. This launched her venture in Manifest Home, where she has helped others design their homes or spaces within like kitchens, around problem-solving, financial limits, and the environment.

Jen holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and has studied low-impact development, passive home design and high-performance building techniques, aiming to build eco-friendly homes through her projects. Her real-life experience over 3 new home builds including site development, zoning, conservation approvals to over 15 other renovations with extensive research into every aspect like flooring to design has been the real education.  Her husband, Chris holds degrees in architecture, civil and mechanical engineering and an MBA and is a great sounding board and partner throughout projects.