Garfield Plunkett: My plan between the rest of this year and next year is to acquire about 30 more houses. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

Part 2 of the Jamerican millionaire story. Part one appeared yesterday.

Garfield Plunkett, a Jamaican multimillionaire living and working in the United States, said that he has refused to allow money to get to his head.

"When people call me and say 'my toilet is blocked up', I jump into my truck and I go and fix that toilet ... I take my job seriously and I make sure that my customers are satisfied.

"If I can't do it right, I am not going to do it. Right now I am four months backed up with jobs in the recession," Plunkett said.

From his account, it appears that Plunkett has never been one to sit back and hope to hit any purple patch. He told The Gleaner that he has always been willing to bend his back and break a sweat.

"When I was younger I would go to Boys' Champs like everybody else. But while everybody there was jumping up and cheering, I was selling oranges to them," Plunkett said.

And it was that early entrepreneurship in him that would fuel his desire to make it big in the world of business. Aside from his home-improvement business, Plunkett also offers real estate services. He buys houses, refurbishes them and sells or rents them at prices that make him smile.

The worldwide recession, which has crippled the housing market in the United States, has not shaken Plunkett one bit.

"I see this as a bunch of opportunities. People might be crying, people may be screaming, people might be losing everything; It is unfortunate but that's the way the market works," he said.

"My plan between the rest of this year and next year is to acquire about 30 more houses ... . When there is blood in the streets you buy real estate," he reasoned.

Meanwhile, the glory of financial heaven for Plunkett is a far cry from his youthful days in Essex Hall, St Andrew.

Plunkett said that while he was never poor and his parents never struggled to feed the family, he did not have a totally rosy life.

"I used to walk five miles daily - Monday to Friday - for the five years that I went to Oberlin High School. When you are walking that much, every day you make a step you tell yourself that there must be something in life better than this," Plunkett said.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com