Jamie Gutierrez is Building a Legacy by Promoting People
Before Jamie Gutierrez became the CEO and owner of a multimillion-dollar company, she was a South Omaha kid waking up at 5 a.m. to help her parents clean. Her first job was cleaning ashtrays at a bowling alley. Today, she leads Midwest Maintenance, the family business her parents started in their garage in 1965, and continues a legacy rooted in hard work, community, and creating opportunities for others.
Gutierrez grew up alongside the business. Her parents, Paul and Alice Gutierrez, started Midwest Maintenance as a small cleaning company out of their South Omaha garage. Jamie and her siblings worked alongside them, learning early that building a business meant more than making money. It meant showing up, working hard, and taking care of the people around you. Jamie has recalled cleaning bowling alleys as a child and helping her father clean at Offutt Air Force Base, where she earned the childhood nickname “Latrine Queen.”
Those early lessons eventually became the foundation for her career. After earning her bachelor’s degree from Kearney State College, Gutierrez officially joined Midwest Maintenance’s operations division in 1989. While continuing her education at Creighton University, she became president in 1995 and purchased the company from her parents in 1997. Under her leadership, the family business expanded from its South Omaha roots into a regional operation serving clients across multiple states.
For Gutierrez, becoming a business leader also meant finding her voice as a Mexican-American woman in an industry where women were not always in the room. In an interview about her journey, she reflected on having to work to find her voice while navigating the barriers that came with being both a woman and a Hispanic woman in business.
Her identity is also closely connected to the community that shaped her. Gutierrez has spoken about growing up as one of the only brown faces in her public school. Her parents were active in Omaha’s growing Latino community, including efforts to bring Spanish-language Catholic Mass to the area and involvement with what was then the Chicano Awareness Center, now the Latino Center of the Midlands. As a child, Jamie was often brought along to community events, where she helped check coats or clean up afterward.
That spirit of community involvement has stayed with her. Gutierrez has supported organizations including United Way of the Midlands and Police Athletics for Community Engagement (PACE), which provides free athletic opportunities for Omaha youth. Her support of PACE included helping provide funding for sports equipment when the program was getting started. Gutierrez has said she wants the South Omaha Latino community to thrive and hopes to see more Latinos, women, and minorities step into business and leadership roles.
Today, her commitment to building community continues through leadership beyond her own company. In 2026, Gutierrez serves as vice chair of Habitat for Humanity of Omaha’s Board of Directors, helping support the organization’s work to build a stronger Omaha. She also remains active in the business and civic community, including her involvement with industry and community organizations.
At the heart of Gutierrez’s leadership is a simple philosophy: “promoting people.” It is a value she says comes from wanting to help people discover their strengths and grow.
From her parents’ South Omaha garage to the leadership of a growing regional company, Jamie Gutierrez’s story shows that a legacy is not only about what you build. It is about who you bring with you. Through business, philanthropy, and community leadership, she continues to make space for others to find their own voice, pursue leadership, and build something of their own.
