Madelen Salter is market president for Office Images in Jacksonville. In this role, she focuses on business development, market expansion, talent development and leading innovation regarding the workplace of the future.
Tell me about Office Images
At Office Images we create an experience. We know we’ve been successful if there is something we have uncovered or brought to life in [the client’s] space or within the culture of their organization.
We ask questions that are important to understand who they are as an organization, what their brand is; we ask questions that seem not even relative to office furniture: What’s working in your organization? What’s not working in your organization? With this move or with this change, what do you have to get right? We’re not just saying, “Oh, you need six chairs? Well, here’s six chairs.”
We work in industries like health care, education, hospitality, clubhouses and restaurants and lounges and things like that — anywhere the public is.
How does it work?
We are educated interior designers, and we partner with interior designers, architects, general contractors, commercial real estate brokers and clients to develop spaces that they might also be working on.
We have a sales team, an interior design team, project coordinators, project managers, installers. So, when a need arises — maybe an architect or a designer or the client comes to us — then we partner with them to do the design services; we literally specify every single piece of furniture unique to that client.
It’s not like an Amazon, where it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to grab a chair.” We are uniquely designing through our main manufacturers and specifying furniture. Then, we order, procure, monitor, ship, receive and install.
There’s not an office too small, and there’s not an office too big. We can do something as simple as workstations.
What brings clients to you?
Some of them want to work on spaces because they’re taking less or more space, or they need the space to do something different. Or, they have the opportunity to be in a different part of town. Or, the way they engage with clients needs to be different as part of their brand.
Most interesting, I would say, sort of post-COVID, people are coming back into the office. But people are recognizing that, even pre-COVID, their office environments were rather stale, and they had not invested in them because there was really no need to spend that capital.
But now there’s this opportunity to reimagine who they are as a culture.
The office is not going to be the only thing that gets people to work there, but it can be used as a tool to retain employees, retain talent, but also recruit them.
I also see a lot of care and thought taken in higher education, how college students engage with their space. I think those students coming into their young professional careers are sort of expecting that the spaces they are going to work in will be more innovative and pique their curiosity and their interest.
How do people find out about you?
Clients that have had an exceptional experience with us will recommend us, and we are affiliated with a very large manufacturer — the name of that is Haworth — so people know us that way. And we’re seen as a thought leader in the industry. Our relationships with key businesses and the work that we do in the community also helps us.
How can potential clients contact you?
They can email or call us. The website is officeimagesinc.com.
[Her email address is msalter@officeimagesinc.com. Her office phone number is 904-398-9761.]
How big is your team?
There are 31 of us.
Tell me about your background.
I grew up in a very small town in Alabama. I went to school at Auburn University and studied interior design and human sciences and have an international minor in French.
I spent a good bit of time traveling, studying abroad and just fell in love with the connectivity of space; just how you feel in a space became something really interesting to me.
I came to Jacksonville to do my internship with a very old architectural firm.
I was operating CAD, which is computer-aided drafting and space planning, and I realized very early on in my career that I wanted to be able to interact with people in a different way than I was able to in that particular role. So, I switched and stayed in the design industry in different capacities. And then, I worked in real estate for maybe six years.
Then, the recession happened, ’08. Our industry was on pause.
At that time, I realized that I just really loved the art of selling.
I thought: Where can I get a really good, solid sales experience and training? So, I had an almost 10-year career in medical sales. I focused mostly on cardiology sales.
Then, I tripped back into this industry. … My predecessor was retiring and asked me to come here and run the business, so here I am.
How long have you lived here?
I have been in Jacksonville since ’01. I lived in Duval County and then my husband and I married, and we’ve been in St. Johns County since. …
What do you like best about living here?
What I love about Jacksonville is there are so many hidden gems and pockets and places … There’s such a neat opportunity for us to continue to evolve and innovate and better all of these little areas. So it just continues to be interesting.
And we have so much around us — the water and the parks and all that.
It’s a friendly place. It’s a friendly place to do business. It’s a friendly place to build relationships and raise a family.
When I moved to Jacksonville, I remember coming in that night; it’s so beautiful when you come into the city at night, all the bridges and the lights reflecting off the water — it’s just really gorgeous. We take it for granted.
So, I love it. I’m almost certain that I’ll never leave.
