About Jennifer
From clay to kitchens to code.
I'm Jennifer Kerr-Marsch, a residential designer in New Smyrna Beach. I've spent my career on the jobsite side of design, and Brightwork is how I help family-run contractors get their evenings back.
I didn't start behind a computer.
For 17 years I was a clay artist. I learned to make tile by hand, and somewhere along the way I wanted to design the whole kitchen, not just the backsplash. So I went back to school and earned my design degree.
When I came out, I started drafting for my contractor friends. I got lucky: a couple of great engineers took me under their wing and taught me everything they know. That gave me a real leg up, and it's why I speak builder, not just designer.
Today I run Mangrove Bay Design & Lighting. I've always looked at design as a business too, and a lot of my passion is in business development: how the work comes in, how it moves, and how the office keeps up.
So much of the job isn't the job.
When AI came along, I saw what it could do for the part of our work nobody talks about: the admin. Proposals, emails, purchase orders, schedules, follow-ups. In most firms that's more hours than the actual design or building.
So I put it to work in my own business first. Design is the part I will never give up. The paperwork around it? AI can carry a lot of that.
Then I built PlanClear AI, a tool that checks Florida residential plan sets against the 2023 Florida Building Code before you submit them. A local city plans reviewer helped me test it.
I use what I recommend.
These run in my firm every week:
- —Weekly client updates written from my project notes and sent automatically.
- —Purchase orders read from email and logged into my tracker, freight flagged.
- —Proposal drafts built from my notes into a ready-to-edit document.
- —New leads land in my CRM with their answers, and I get a heads-up.
If it can't survive a real job with a real deadline, I don't hand it to you.
I love working with the guys.
Any contractor I work with regularly, and their subs, will tell you I'm all in on every project I'm part of. I love learning what they have to teach me, and I love it when they're open to what I can teach them. It's a partnership on every jobsite, and that's how I run Brightwork too.
How I work
Plain English.
No jargon. If I can't explain it so it makes sense in the truck, I haven't done my job.
Your crew first.
If your crew won't use it, it doesn't count. Field teams shouldn't have to learn anything new.
I'll tell you what to cancel.
I don't resell software or take commissions. Sometimes the fix is a spreadsheet and a checklist.
You stay in charge.
Nothing goes to a client without your OK. The calls, the pricing and the relationships stay with you.
Memberships
- Home Builders Association of Volusia County
- Chamber of Commerce
- American Lighting Association (ALA)
- American Institute of Building Design (AIBD)
- ASID, Allied Member
Based in New Smyrna Beach. Working with businesses across Central Florida, in person or on Zoom.
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Questions first? Call or text me at 386-847-1566.