Nadine Spence has been in the car rental business since 1993. It is almost all she has ever known as an adult professional. Spence is the Montego Bay-based co-owner, along with her husband, of a local franchise of Sixt, an internationally known German car rental company with thousands of locations around the world.

Born and bred in Jamaica’s western tourism capital of Montego Bay, Spence attended Barracks Road Primary School as a child before later moving on to Montego Bay High School.

“When I left school, I did a summer job at a car rental,” she revealed. “Then I went to a call centre briefly and then back to the car rental business full-time, where I became the regional manager for Budget Rent-A-Car at the age of 22.”

Spence rose quickly to that position through a willingness to grow and learn with each new challenge.

“I just have an affinity for customer service,” she explained. “I was good at it, but administratively they saw the drive in me for getting things done so I kept getting promoted — and though I love customer service I had to grow. I was promoted to regional manager and therefore I had to learn how to supervise and manage people, as well as a wide cross section of other things.

“I had no idea and I wasn’t ready at all, but that just propelled me into it,” she continued. “I had to learn fleet management, I had to learn my soft skills in terms of people management — It was a whole different ball game but I totally enjoyed it and I enjoyed the satisfaction that the customers received.”

Spence left Budget in 1999. She freelanced and also ventured into entrepreneurship through buying and selling, but the car rental business was now a part of her and the idea to open her own car rental business was a constant thought.

She opened Sunsational Car Rentals in 2002 but just as rising through the system at Budget Rent-A-Car was not simple, this came with challenges as well. In the first few years of her new business, Spence was pursuing her first degree at the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) in Montego Bay.

“I can’t tell you how I balanced it,” she reminisced. “All I know is when I was doing my first degree my daughter had just turned one. She was a baby. I had finished the associate degree, got pregnant, and then went back to do the bachelors and had to manage. I remember planning a business, planning a wedding, getting a degree, doing so many things all at once. It wasn’t easy and I was involved in so many social activities. I don’t know how I did it.”

Her husband, Orville Spence, who she married in 2004, joined her in the business and they have been co-owners ever since. The business grew quickly and so did her family. She and her husband had two children and he also had four children before they met, who she embraced as part of her new family.

Sunsational Car Rentals expanded rapidly because at the time, according to Spence, hotels were not “locked in to just their business”.

“They were open to doing business with other entities, other allied members, other members of the tourism fraternity — so you felt good going into a Sandals to rent a car, Sea Castles or Wyndham at the time,” she recalled. “You would have people who would just call in, people at the cruise ship terminals who would call in. Sometimes by 10:00 am I would have delivered nine or 10 cars along the strip. It grew so much that I couldn’t handle it. I had to ask friends and family to invest or give me their cars to rent to handle the level of business.”

“When everything started to lock down and the hotels decided you have to have some sort of contract with them, some sort of insurance coverage with them, the whole ball game changed in terms of access to that clientele,” she revealed.

There was also increasing competition from informal car rental companies, as well. It was at this point and because of these changes that Spence thought it important to look towards direct bookings and getting on to a reservation engine. This was her reason for taking on a Payless Car Rental franchise in 2010.

It was eventually decided, however, that Payless was not the brand that the company was looking for and so three years ago they switched to Sixt, which Spence says “is the brand I have always dreamed of”. The aim is for high-end, high-quality vehicles, and Spence said further developments will take place and become known before the end of the year.

Since 2002 when Spence started her own business, the company’s fleet has grown from five cars to as much as 50 cars. During that time it has seen over 23,000 clients, with over 2,000 clients per year in recent years.

She finds it difficult to separate her experience of being a successful entrepreneur from her experience of family and of being a mother. To her, it was all intertwined. Business was a part of family and family was always a part of the business.

When asked what would be her advice to any young lady intending to start a business and raise a family, she answered without hesitation, “I would tell her not to do it if you don’t have the support.”

Spence explained how, at various times when she and her husband were under pressure, she was able to call on family members.

“Entrepreneurship is not easy at all,” she stated emphatically. “Were it not for my family, I don’t believe I would be where I am today, and I probably would not have made it this far — And I mean support from my husband and from our family, by extension. I have been seriously blessed. I can’t explain because people ask me all the time how I do it, but I feel I have been blessed.”

The six children in the family have also been very involved in the company since they were young and even now when all of them have grown up.

“Every single one of them worked holidays, and they worked a year or two until they branched off into whatever they studied,” she stated proudly.

“My youngest child didn’t have classes on Thursday and Friday, so she would come to the office, while the one that did Economics is here with me now because he realised the family business treated him nicer,” she elaborated further with a laugh. “Because we are thinking of expanding, they know there are different locations that they could handle, they could manage, and so they are looking forward to the expansion mode that is to come. As a matter of fact, they want to invest themselves into the business, so we’ll see.”

In speaking of the closeness of her family, Spence said her husband’s four children embraced and accepted her as a mom “even though I looked like a sister”. Looking forward to the future she wants her vision of the togetherness of family to continue, even though her parents and so many relatives now live overseas.

“I have already told my kids that you can’t go far with my grandchildren when you are ready to have them,” she sais with a laugh again but gave some advice on a more serious note. “Never ever underestimate the unconditional love of a family member.”

Spence is currently pursuing her MBA at The University of the West Indies. She is a director in the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, a vice-president area chair for the Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association, as well as a distinguished president of the Kiwanis Club of Providence, Montego Bay. She encourages her children to also give of their service to the society, and at this stage of her career she is looking forward to enjoying a little more free time while still advancing the business.

“There’s a saying that says ‘work hard, play hard’, and that’s my mantra going into the future,” she smiled.