Role: Founder and owner of Marble Hill, a natural skin care company, based in Co Londonderry and Co Donegal.
Company: Marble Hill
Track Record:
Track Record
Dr Maria McGee qualified as a medical doctor from Manchester University in 1979. She gained a very broad experience in both medicine and surgery.
Having retired and returned to her husband’s family farm in Co Donegal in 2001 she took up her life-long interest in crafts and began experimenting with soap-making.
A natural spring located on the farm, dating back to 1850s, encouraged her to explore how it could be used within her soaps.
With a family history of skin conditions and her medical background including experience in dermatology, she experimented with plant oils from around the world including Shea Butter and Neem Oil.
This has resulted in her Marble Hill range of 100% natural, skin creams and two unique, detergent-free soaps.
A Day In The Life
7.10 a.m.
Alarm goes off and the morning is a blur, between getting ready for the day ahead, fixing a packed lunch, getting breakfast for my husband and myself and sorting out the dogs, our birds ( we have an aviary in the garden which houses our budgerigar), the tortoise, and the flock of wild birds who view our garden as home!
8.30 a.m.
Time to take a deep breath, make a cup of tea and catch up with emails and events from the previous 12 hours. I am currently working on a PR campaign for my foot cream product Pedisalve and a social media campaign which will launch on World Diabetes Day, November 14. As well as catching up on our online sales and all the news from our contacts from Scotland to L.A.
9.30pm
I liaise by phone with my general manager and colleague, Joe W Doherty, who is based at our manufacturing premises at the North West Business Complex, Londonderry.
Joe brings me up to date with the incoming telephone orders and any issues that arise with distribution and supply of our products; we are expanding very rapidly throughout the Republic of Ireland and have just had two new stockists in England confirmed.
10.30am
Back to the computer. I begin to draft articles for a health blog and my regular column in our local paper.
I try to bring a friendly feel to information which people may otherwise find daunting or over complicated.
I always do a lot of research for the articles as I want to bring people an overview which is easy to understand but is still up to date and informative.
11:30am
Research for my articles will keep me going for a few hours. I keep up to date with aspects of health related to skin care as it is very important to me as, although our products are not medical and do not contain pharmaceutical ingredients, I feel it is important to stay abreast of any issues which may impact on our customers who rely on us to help them to avoid potential problems.
1p.m
Lunch is usually a sandwich or a bowl of soup and a roll. I try to catch up with current events with the lunchtime news but I find that if I dawdle I lose momentum.
Also I catch up with my website manager who is drafting new content for my website www.marblehillonline.co.uk
1.30 p.m
Out to the production unit in the North West Business complex where we have our team meetings.
We set up originally as an online business but earlier this year we have joined up with distributors Natural Health First, who distribute our products all over the North and who are opening new outlets every week in the Republic. We have also been attracting attention from around the world.
2pm
If I am not in meetings I stay at my computer and on the end of the phone dealing with administration, suppliers and most importantly, product development. We are keen to push out our ‘Invest in your skin’ and well being messages about Marble Hill. Many of our customers are surprised to learn that the only all natural foot cream on the market has been created here in Northern Ireland. They also love to hear about how I started with inspiration from a natural spring well on our farm in Co. Donegal.
3pm
Back to the social media campaign which will include an online daily footchecker. Having had an interest in diabetes for a long time I was delighted to realize that my foot cream product Pedisalve is being recognised as an ideal cream for management of the diabetic foot.
Our goal is to encourage individual diabetics develop a regular foot care regime and this is often neglected.
PediSalve has been endorsed by senior foot and ankle surgeons, diabetes specialists and leading podiatrists and chiropodists.
Invest Northern Ireland have sponsored us with funding via an Innovation Voucher and we are currently conducting research in association with the University Department of Podiatry at Jordanstown which is already showing fantastic results.
3:30pm
At the moment I am involved in putting the finishing touches to our new range of fragranced luxury soaps which have been in demand for some time and will be ready for Christmas.
Everything has to comply with strict European safety standards so development of new products has to be approached very methodically and with close attention to detail.
5:00p.m
I am ready to put my computer to sleep and, if I haven’t been before, I call over to our production unit to see how things are going.
What is being produced varies from day to day and it is lovely to call in while some of our Health Scrub bars are being made; because it was devised as a combination shave, shower and shampoo bar it is the only one of our products to contain any essential oils, the lavender, tea tree, peppermint and rosemary oils are always refreshing after a day mostly spent in front of a screen.
5:30 p.m
It’s time to get the dogs organised and blow the cobwebs away.
We are lucky to live only a mile or so from lovely dog walking country, so it’s coat on and off we go.
All three of us relish this liberation into the peace and fresh air and so we all enjoy our selves even if it’s for only half an hour or so.
6.00p.m
Now there are only two of us at home it’s not such an undertaking to whip something up for dinner and I do love cooking so it’s a real pleasure to get the pots and pans out. I have become a major fan of Jamie Oliver’s fresh flavours so it will be something tangy if I have my way.
Fortunately my husband is a tolerant soul so he never complains even if things turn out a bit more exotic than they used to.
8.30 p.m
I always try to read the paper every day so I do not lose touch with the outside world and since our youngest son gave my husband an iPad for Christmas I have been upgrading my IT skills and using it to read the news. I still miss the real thing, though.
The rest of my evenings are either spent reading a book or listening to music.
I try to resist checking my emails after dinner as I always end up exploring links to do with Marble Hill and staying up far too late.
11 p.m
Time to wind down and get a good night’s sleep.
Agatha Christie is a great pal of mine at bedtime, she never fails to distract me so that I can drop off and hopefully not dream about my business.