After years away for college and work, Laurita Jackson returned to Memphis to be closer to family and raise her children in the South.

She moved home in 2003 to work for the family business, Memphis Chemical & Janitorial Supply Company, and took over as president in the beginning of May, bringing aboard a commitment to her employees and community.

“It’s great working for a family business,” Jackson said. “One of the things that allows us to make it work is we have a saying, ‘We do what’s best for the enterprise,’ and that allows us to make the right decisions for the company, and also maintain our family relationships.”

Memphis Chemical is a distributor of janitorial supplies, cleaning chemicals and cleaning equipment, in addition to servicing that cleaning equipment. Distribution ranges from throughout the city to nationally for some FedEx facilities and customers in the federal government such as the departments of Energy and Veterans Affairs.

“We are locally based but we do have the capability to ship nationwide, and we do that,” she said … (read more)