Mortgage broker-mom works hard at both jobs By Fr. Fred Alvarez  At 5 foot 6 inches and 106 pounds, Linda Jean Sampson doesn't physically match the image of Sampson, the Biblical strong man, although she does wear her blond hair long. Yet in her professional career she is every bit as big and impressive.  A visit to her office at 4 Crestview Ave., Corltandt Manor, reveals a good deal about Linda Jean Sampson-wife, mother and businesswoman.  A lawyer by profession and a mortgage broker by trade, Sampson advises customers about renting or buying a house.  "We assist people in obtaining mortgage financing," she said. "They don't know how much money to spend for a house. So we advise them what lifestyle to choose in order to make their money go further. We enable them to get the best product for the least cost."  Sampson's customers come from Peekskill, Cortlandt, Yorktown, Rockland County, Long Island, Yonkers, Staten Island and the Bronx. She provides service in Spanish as well as English.  Satisfied customers send her more customers.  "At the end of the day I feel great. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a client get what they have been hoping for, and I see those happy clients hundreds of times a year."  Born in Peekskill in Jan. 1, 1958 Linda Jean Sampson was honored as the "New Year's Baby" with her parents getting free diaper service, baby clothes and baby furniture from local merchants.  She graduated from Walter Panas high School, Russell Sage College in Troy and Pace University School of Law in 1985 with a juris doctorate.

Her father, George Sampson, owns Superior Auto Body in Peekskill, and her mother Happiene did his clerical work for years. "My mother, doing the bookkeeping for my father's shop, was a grand role model for me and that's why I work so will with my husband,' says Sampson.  Her husband is Brooklyn-born Brian Eisen, an attorney practicing in general law and specifically in the tax area. She and her husband share the office complex that they moved into in September from their Lafayette Avenue home that doubled as an office.  "My husband inspired me to go into mortgage broker work. He says that I have a bleeding heart, because I help people to the 'nth degree' to get what they want."  At 3:30 p.m. she gets her three children-Alyscia 10, Kaitlin 9, and Jay 7, from the school bus, giving them a big snack, then helping with their homework until 6 p.m. when she marches them to Gym City, just a few feet behind the office.  She purposely picked this locale for the office so that she could be more available to the children, even during office hours.  "When we had the office in the home in Lafayette, it was more a home in the office," she said.  Sampson masterminded the layout of the office complex, which has a library stacked from floor to ceiling with tax, banking and law books and a "closing room" where loans are finalized. There are meeting rooms equipped with TV sets for running educational tapes and which are made comfortable and soothing because, as Sampson says, some of the clients tend to have an emotional pitch approaching that of a woman in labor. Finally there's a "family room" equipped with comfortable sofas, playing card, coloring books, and movies for the children of clients.  It was when she graduated from law school that Sampson made a decision to start her own business.  "At the time I was working for the Mobil Oil Corporation in Manhattan and had a high position in the tax law research department, I loved it there and it was a great career, intellectually stimulating, even though my hours were from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.."  "And then I gave birth to my first child, Alyscia. When I would go back to work in the city, I would miss her terribly. My family was beginning and I couldn't be without them. So, I decided to move my focus back to Peekskill."

A veteran in the business world, Sampson advises women who are thinking of entering it, to "take a hard look where they want to go and then to decide. They can have the best of both worlds - family and business - if they pick a career path that embraces all the things they want to do. For example, if you want to have 10 children, maybe you should open a day camp."  Sampson has very clear views on the- role of women in society today. "If you want the right to choose, you have to take the responsibility that goes with those choices. I didn't become a CEO and fly all over the country, nor because of my law training did I turn into a Perry Mason. No, I became someone who can be there for my family and customers."  As a wife and mother, Sampson is very strong in her opinion about the place of a woman in the family.  "If women are going to be parents. They have to maintain standards in the home. They should be a mother in the family. No baby sitter can take their place.  "I don't think that women should extend themselves so that they ignore the family ties to both their children and their own parents. If you take a corporate jab and fly all over the country and are not at home, your children will suffer. What kind of a role model is that?"