Category: Q&A

On The Job – Fernando Reyes

Fernando Reyes

Auto detailer

Fernando Reyes is an auto detailer and owner of Always Faithful Mobile Wash, an auto detailing and cleaning service based in Nashua.

Explain your job and what it entails.

Auto detailing entails going through a vehicle and removing all of the grit and grime from the inside, giving it a deep vacuum, and some people may elect to have some [interior] shampooing done to remove hardened stains they can’t get out on their own. Then, we give the vehicle a thorough wash on the outside, wax it and take out all the windows [to clean them]. When we’re done it looks like it’s back to new showroom quality. … We offer mobile services, so we eliminate the process of someone having to drop their vehicle off at a shop; they can stay within the comfort of their own home, and we just show up and get to work detailing their car on site.

How long have you had this job?

I’ve been in business since last year.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I used to do [auto detailing] as a hobby. Me and my friends are avid car enthusiasts, so we like seeing nice cars as well as working on our own. … I was at the point in my life where I felt like, when you’re working for an employer, you don’t get appreciated or valued for the hard work you put in. I wanted to do something where I could be my own boss and make my own schedule, and instead of relying on an employer to value me, I could have a community and a clientele that would value my hard work. … I came up with the idea [for a detailing business] and started doing some research.

What kind of education or training did you need?

[The work] is basically the same thing you do when you go to a car wash and wash and vacuum out your car. … Being a military veteran, I’ve been able to apply the attention to detail I learned in the Marine Corps to make sure we get every little nook and crevice of the vehicle and clean places that you wouldn’t think [to clean]. … There are, however, some [auto detailing] training [programs] we’re looking to do in the future, just to help us with our technique and to be able to do [the job] quicker so that we can [serve] more clients in a day.

What is your typical at-work attire?

We have uniform shirts. I elected to go with fluorescent colors, like highlighter yellow and orange, so that when we’re out in the community, especially if we’re on a main strip [of road] doing our job, we stand out, so we can avoid accidents or injury.

How has your job changed over the course of the pandemic?

When we first opened, things were pretty good. We had gotten some contracts … with clients. Then Covid struck, and we had a lot of canceled appointments. We decided to try to stick it out and make the investment to keep the business alive. … I said, ‘Let’s see how the second year goes,’ and we played our cards right. We got a lot of repeat customers from the work we did [before the shutdown], and those customers have given us a lot of word of mouth.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

I wish I had known this was a thing that I could do and actually generate enough income to live comfortably. I would have started doing it sooner.

What do you wish people knew about your job?

That our business depends on Mother Nature. If the weather is good, we can accommodate [clients] and provide our services. If it’s not, we have to reschedule.

What was the first job you ever had?

Dunkin’ Donuts.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Fear is the best motivation, so go for what scares you, because you never know what lies on the other end.

Five favorites

Favorite book: Horrible Harry series
Favorite movie: Bad Boys
Favorite music: Latin/Spanish reggaeton
Favorite food: Chinese
Favorite thing about NH: Weekend getaways up in the mountains

Featured photo: Fernando Reyes. Courtesy photo.

Setting the scene

NH production studio progresses video tech

Studio Lab, a video production studio in Derry, is making a big impact on the film industry, not just in New Hampshire but across the country, as a pioneer of virtual production technology. Owner Tim Messina talked about what goes on at the studio and how the technology works.

What does Studio Lab do?

We’re going after new ways for films to be shot … [with] the technology that’s changing. … We’re using gaming engine technology … called Unreal Engine, which is what’s used to make video games like Fornite and Rocket League. … You can go scan a tree, or a house, a city … or a film set that you’ve built — and recreate a 3D world of it here. … We have a wall with a bunch of panels … that’s essentially a video screen — it’s not just a projection — and with that, you can actually move inside of that world and film it in real time. When I move the camera, we can move anywhere inside this world — we aren’t just locked down to a [still] view — and everything in the perspective is correct.

How is this different from a green screen?

If you think about green screens from back in the old days, you would have actors [moving] around this wall, but they couldn’t actually see what [the scene] is; all they saw was green, and they were just told what [the scene would be]. Now we can actually put the actors in those worlds, and they can react to them and interact with them in real time.

How creative can you get with it?

Pretty much everything is controllable. … We’re not just moving in this world; we can change everything about it, down to the little details. Let’s say the director wants [the shot] to be morning or afternoon; I can change the time of day and move where the sun is in the sky … and I can even take clouds out or make it cloudier … or make some clouds thin and some clouds thick. … I can change the size of the moon, or how many stars there are. … Then, everything in the scene changes — the shadows, the reflections on the water, everything.

What makes this technology so appealing to filmmakers?

A lot of times you have to get permits to shoot in a high-density area. You have to plan it months in advance so that [the city] can shut down the area … and get cops. Then, once you shoot it, there’s no going back. If anything gets messed up, or you have a different shot in mind later, you can’t [reshoot it]; your time is up. That’s the worst part of it all — fighting for time. … This [technology] gives you the ability to take as much time as you need to shoot in the scene, without being in the way [of the community]. … It also saves a lot of time. There’s a lot of prep time up front — it takes forever to build these worlds — but once they’re built you can recall them instantly, which saves time long-term. … Instead of filming at multiple [physical] locations in the same day, which is very time-consuming and usually not even possible, you can shoot multiple locations in a matter of hours from one location.

Are there other studios doing this?

Sony Pictures, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Universal — all these big studios are building these stages right now. This is where filmmaking is going. … We’ve talked with Verizon, Facebook, Nvidia, MIT. … Sony Pictures reached out to us. … It’s pretty wild. They’re all coming to us to collaborate because we’ve done things here that they’re still trying to figure out.

What’s next for this technology?

What we’re working on now is motion capture streaming a person’s movement in real time in a digital environment. The person wears a mo-cap suit, which allows you to track their position and movement. Then you take those real movements and digitize them. … The person can make a certain gesture and pull a tree up from the ground, or punch into the air and the window behind them will break. Basically, the world is reactive to what they’re doing physically.

Featured photo: Tim Messina. Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Kristen Mader

Inspired by made-to-order tableside guacamole at his favorite Mexican restaurants, Gabriel “Gabe” Alpuerto of LKristen Mader of Pelham is the owner of Cakes 5th Avenue (cakes5thavenue.com, find them on Facebook), a homestead business she founded in 2008 that offers custom cake orders for several occasions from weddings to birthday parties. Originally from Georgia, Mader got her start in the industry working as a cake decorator for the former Breadbox bakery in Windham. Custom wedding cakes are at the forefront of her business, with all kinds of traditional and specialty flavors and filling options to choose from. Cakes 5th Avenue is also a featured vendor at the Pelham Farmers Market (Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. outside the First Congregational Church of Pelham at 3 Main St.), where you’ll find Mader on select dates selling home-baked cookies, cupcakes, lemon squares and fruit-filled hand pies.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A rubber spatula, because with the amount of cake batter I make, I am constantly scraping bowls all day long.

What would you have for your last meal?

I would like a perfectly cooked medium filet mignon, with a little bit of seasoned butter and some mashed potatoes with garlic and mascarpone. It’s one of my favorite meals.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I have two. In Salem, there’s a place called Fuego Latin Fusion [Bar & Restaurant] that is great. They started doing family meals for curbside pickup last year during Covid that we took advantage of. … A longtime favorite of ours also is Scola’s [Restaurant] in Dracut, [Mass.].

What celebrity would you like to see trying one of your cakes?

Betty White. I would love to sit down and have cake and a vodka cocktail with her.

What is your personal favorite cake design that you’ve ever done?

My favorite was a four-tier cake I created back in 2013 for a cake competition down in Hartford, Connecticut. The reason that one sticks out is because I used different techniques that were unfamiliar to me and was just feeling very adventurous. … I won second place in the competition, so that one probably means the most to me.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

If I had to pick one, I’d say farm-to-table [and] supporting local growers and ingredients.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I would have to say homemade pizza. … We start with a garlic crust and we like to do a white pizza with a mix of mozzarella and ricotta, some seasoned shredded chicken and freshly sauteed spinach. That’s probably the most frequent one that we make and we never have leftovers.

Kladdkaka (Swedish sticky chocolate cake)
From the kitchen of Kristen Mader of Cakes 5th Avenue in Pelham

10 tablespoons salted butter
1⅓ cups sugar
2 eggs
5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spray an eight-inch round or square cake pan with baking spray, or grease the pan with butter and dust with flour. Line the bottom of the pan with a round or square-shaped piece of parchment paper cut to the size of your pan bottom. Place butter in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl and cover with a paper towel. Cook in the microwave on high power for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until butter is melted. Add sugar to the bowl with melted butter and whisk to combine. Add eggs one at a time and stir well after each addition. Add the cocoa, flour, vanilla and salt. Stir just until all dry ingredients are incorporated. Transfer batter to the prepared pan and spread out to an even layer. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, being careful not to overbake — the cake should be slightly firm on the outside with a delicate crisp top, but soft and sticky on the inside. Let cool in the pan for 20 minutes. To remove, run a thin-bladed knife around the outer edges of the cake. Invert the pan onto a similar sized cutting board or dinner plate and, holding them together, give it a good shake downward. If the cake does not release, go around the edges again with a knife and repeat with inverting cake. Once the cake is released, remove the parchment paper and invert again onto your serving plate using the same method. Dust with confectioner’s sugar or cocoa powder, or serve each slice with a dollop of fresh whipped cream or ice cream.

Featured photo: Kristen Mader. Courtesy photo.

On The Job – Angelina McGlashan

Angelina McGlashan

Photo manager

Angelina McGlashan is a certified photo manager and the owner and founder of Preserving Memories, based in Windham.

Explain your job.

I basically help people manage their photos and videos. … People find themselves drowning in photos. I frequently get a call when their phone storage is full. … My [job]is to gather [ the media], get rid of duplicates, rename them in chronological order, [put them] into yearly folders, then create a backup system and teach [clients] how to maintain it. … Some clients have me maintain it for them. For physical photos … I scan them and create digital files. … If photos are damaged or faded, I can restore them. … I also convert every form of video tape including old film reels so they can be viewed again and shared.

How long have you had this job?

Since 2017.

What led you to this career field?

I’ve always loved photography. … I was a nurse for about 15 years. Then … I worked for my husband … from home. He sold his company in 2017, and I was searching for something new I could do from home. Someone posted on our community Facebook page that she … [needed] help organizing her digital photos. … I thought, ‘I can do that.’ I contacted her, did the job, and she asked if I could convert all her old video tapes. I [researched] how to do that and found the Association of Professional Photo Organizers. I … told my husband, ‘I think I found my new career.’

What kind of education or training did you need?

This job … entails having advanced knowledge of Windows and Mac PCs, understanding clouds and backing up versus syncing, and learning many different programs to organize photos, restore photos and convert different kinds of media. I have taken advanced courses in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I continue to take workshops through APPO because new technology is always emerging.

How has your job changed over the course of the pandemic?

At first I was really nervous that my business would just slow to a stop, but the opposite happened. People were home and had a lot of free time on their hands and pulled out all those boxes of old photos and videos and wanted them organized or converted. To be safe, I arranged no-contact drop-off for items and Zoom calls for organizing services, and I still offer those services today.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Most days, when I’m not seeing clients, I’m in yoga pants. When I’m sorting physical photos or taking apart old albums, I am literally sitting on the floor sorting all around me.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

I wish I had found this career sooner.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

Some people don’t know how technical my work is and all the different programs I use to organize photos, and that most jobs take a lot of time. They think I have a magic wand and one button that does it all. In reality, [the programs] are just tools, and I still have to go through hundreds of thousands of photos myself. There is a huge human element to my job.

What was the first job you ever had?

I was 14 and worked at Donut Maker.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Working from home can make it very difficult to separate work time from personal time. Another organizer said to set a strict schedule and work hours and stick to them.

Five favorites

Favorite book: A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux
Favorite movie: The Green Mile
Favorite music: Anything from ’80s hairband music
Favorite food: Anything Mediterranean
Favorite thing about NH: Being close to the lakes, the mountains and the ocean. We always have fresh seafood and lobster.

Featured photo: Angelina McGlashan. Courtesy photo.

Fresh pair of eyes

Meet NHAA gallery manager Amanda Kidd Schall

The New Hampshire Art Association welcomes a new gallery manager, Amanda Kidd Schall, to oversee its galleries and exhibitions, membership, artist resources and other operations throughout the state. In addition to its main gallery in Portsmouth, NHAA manages gallery spaces in Concord and Manchester. At the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center (49 S. Main St., Suite 104, Concord), there’s an exhibit called “Around New Hampshire,” featuring work by Elaine Farmer, on view now through Sept. 16. Creative Framing Solutions (89 Hanover St., Manchester) features different NHAA artists each month. The artists for September are Ellen Marlatt, Eileen Belanger and Elizabeth Craumer. Meet them at an artist reception on Friday, Sept. 10, from 5 to 8 p.m.

What is your background in the arts?

I’m an artist myself. … I went to Clark University, where I studied studio art. I lived in Worcester [Mass.] for a long time … and have exhibited my work at the Worcester Art Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum and in Boston and other areas. … I taught printmaking at Clark University, and I was a professional framer. … I also served on the Worcester Arts Council.

What kind of art do you do on your own time?

I do a lot of different mediums, mostly printmaking, but I’m always exploring new mediums and trying out new techniques for making art. Recently, I’ve gotten into photography. I also do sculpture and mixed media. … I like to explore themes [like] women, the environment, sexuality, and I like to reference art history, as well as flora and fauna, in my work.

What does the gallery manager do?

It’s an all-encompassing job. I’m in charge of running the main gallery in downtown Portsmouth, so I spend a lot of time physically in the gallery, taking care of art sales and customer interactions. The bigger-picture aspect of the job is doing a lot of visioning for what we want the NHAA to look like, not just this year, but two, three, four, five years down the road. It’s a lot of laying down the foundation for things like how we [operate] memberships and how we can attract donors. I’m always thinking about how we can support our artists by going after more opportunities and resources to offer them. [That includes] finding new exhibition spaces around the state; finding educational resources and people to come teach the artists; elevating their business skills; and exposing them to new techniques and perspectives in art making.

Why did you feel like this position was a good fit for you?

I’ve been approaching art from lots of different angles. … I have the experience of being an artist myself … and of teaching art … and of being involved with art on a government level and in nonprofit organizations, so I’m able to bring all of that to the position. … I’ve always loved working with artists; as a framer I was working with artists on a daily basis on presentation and how to make their artwork ready to be hung in an exhibition. … Framing often turned into design sessions and exhibition planning … and I always loved that aspect of the job.

What do you bring to the NHAA?

I think I bring a lot of fresh ideas and a fresh approach. … Over the last 10 years, Worcester has transformed from a struggling city that didn’t really appreciate the arts, to being a hub in central Massachusetts for the arts, so I’ve seen what revitalizing an arts organization … and [forming] partnerships with other community organizations can do. I’m excited to bring my experience with those successes to the NHAA.

What do you hope to accomplish as gallery manager?

The New Hampshire Art Association has been around for over 80 years; we have an aging membership … and have been really struggling to build capacity and expand programming. … I really want to honor the artist members that we already have and the traditions that have been established that make the New Hampshire Art Association what it is, but I also want to think about ways to expand our membership and make it easier for more people to participate. … That’s why I’m looking to launch an online open member jurying program in January that would allow people to submit their artwork online rather than have to commute from all over the state to bring their artwork to the gallery in person. … I want to connect with some newer organizations with different memberships and different types of art so that we can create a really vibrant arts community. … I’d also like to showcase different mediums that have not been highlighted much at the NHAA and allow for contemporary artists to have more of a presence in the gallery.

Featured photo: Amanda Kidd Schall. Courtesy photo.

In the kitchen with Gabe Alpuerto

Inspired by made-to-order tableside guacamole at his favorite Mexican restaurants, Gabriel “Gabe” Alpuerto of Londonderry started creating his own at home and would bring it to parties. After realizing that the avocados would go brown during longer trips, Alpuerto decided to instead pre-make and bottle his tomato mix and, when he arrived at his destination, make the guacamole on site. That turned out to be a game-changer. Gabe and his wife Melissa started Solo Agrega Guacamole (soloagrega.com, and on Facebook @soloagregaguacamole), now producing their guacamole mix at Creative Chef Kitchens in Derry and selling it at several local stores, including Mr. Steer Meats (27 Buttrick Road, Londonderry), the farm stand at Sunnycrest Farm (59 High Range Road, Londonderry) and The Flying Butcher (124 Route 101A, Amherst). The company’s name translates to “add one,” or as Alpuerto likes to say, “just add avocados.” But the mix, he said, is also great as an ingredient for spreads, quesos or simple salads. In addition to being sold in stores, Solo Agrega is a regular vendor at the Pelham Farmers Market on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., outside the First Congregational Church of Pelham (3 Main St.).

What is your must-have kitchen item?

My knife is my best friend. That’s the one thing that I can’t live without.

What would you have for your last meal?

I’m a big fan of spaghetti. A big bowl of my mom’s spaghetti is a meal I could probably eat all day long, every day for the rest of my life.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

La Carreta, because we love Mexican.

What celebrity would you like to see trying your product?

I would go with Oprah [Winfrey] on that one. I feel like whatever Oprah says kind of becomes the trend.

What is your favorite thing to use your product on?

I’m a simple guy and just like it with a nice tortilla chip, or even kettle chips are great too.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I don’t think it’s any dish per se, but I think everyone is gravitating more toward eating local and supporting local businesses.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

A nice big breakfast. … I feel like breakfast makes anyone happy, no matter what time of the day.

Chickpea salad
From the kitchen of Gabe Alpuerto of Solo Agrega Guacamole

1 can chickpeas
3 ounces Greco Greek feta cheese
½ cup Solo Agrega guacamole mix

Drain chickpeas. Mash ⅓ cup in a bowl and leave the rest whole. Toss with Solo Agrega mix and feta. Serve and enjoy.

Featured photo: Gabe Alpuerto. Courtesy photo.

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