Charting their own course
Top to bottom:
Lucie Lewis, Mary Flahive-Dickson, George Skovera
Local boomers find starting a business suits their needs
By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
Have you ever entertained the thought of opening your own business? If you're 45 years of age or older, you're not alone.
The baby boom generation is taking up the reins of self-owned businesses in record numbers. According to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity published in March 2012, business starts by individuals between 55 and 64 years of age grew by more than 6 percent in the past 15 years, from 14.3 percent in 1996 to 20.9 percent in 2011.
Sometimes these businesses evolve out of necessity. In other cases, the entrepreneurial spark is ignited by an unexpected source. And then there are the lucky few who have found a way to turn an avocation into a second career.
PRIME spoke to three local individuals who have successfully navigated the self-employment waters in the past few years. They share their experiences below.
Uncovering her worth
Lucie Lewis, EDD, of Springfield, Mass., now a freelance technical and creative writer and owner of Creative Futures LLC, did not plan to start her own business.
That changed in July of 2009, when her 22-year position as Director of Institutional Research at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) was eliminated during departmental restructuring. She had just turned 58 years old.
Lewis said her reaction to the news was, "I'm too young to retire and I'm too old to be new somewhere."
After spending the next day feeling "lost" – and rearranging all the furniture in her house – Lewis said she told her husband "I'm not going to look for a job. I'm going to take the retirement [package] and start my own business."
Lewis said she began thinking about the kinds of skills she had acquired during her work years, and how she could turn those into a job for herself.
Her career path had taken her from college and an education degree to a job in banking and commercial loans, where she discovered she had a natural aptitude for business analysis. She also began building writing skills as she prepared applicant's reports for loan companies.
"You don't give it any thought because its just part of the job, but that was where my technical writing began to be honed," she said.
When Congressman Richard Neal became mayor of Springfield in the early 1980s, Lewis got a job as an economic development specialist in the city's community and economic development office. Once again, every project "always required an explanation. It always required a report of some kind to talk about what your findings were."
From there, she accepted the directorship in institutional research position at STCC. Again, she was writing reports.
"I knew I was a researcher, I knew I was an analyst," Lewis said. "I was struggling with how the marketplace needed those services."
Lewis said about the same time she was pondering what to do with her skills, she saw a book in a Barnes & Noble bookstore that talked about making a six-figure salary as a technical writer.
"I thought about it. Every job I've had since the bank has been writing. But I'd never heard the term technical writing before," she said.
Even though she knew she'd been a writer for all of her work life and had dabbled in writing articles for publication while a volunteer for the nonprofit group Step Up Springfield, Lewis said, "It took time to determine what I could offer to the market.
"You need a business card but you can't get a business card until you have a position," she said with a laugh. "I said 'OK self, who are you and what do you do.'"
She pushed herself to begin networking, reaching out to potential clients to test the market's need for her skills. She also reached out to friends for perspective on her work-in-progress business. The legwork helped her to "see the value in what I had to offer."
"I'd say it took almost a year before I got my first contract," Lewis said. It was a writing contract.
Three years later Lewis has several repeat clients who rely on her for technical writing and grant writing projects. She also writes columns for two local publications, teaches a class in grant writing, and does genealogy research for individuals. Last year she also fulfilled a lifelong dream by writing a book titled "I AM: Renewal from Within the Garden."
This year she's looking to expand her client base by applying for state status as a woman-owned minority business.
In retrospect, she said the hardest part of her journey to self-employment was losing a job "with no clear vision of what's next.
"One of the tracks of my train kind-of disappeared overnight," Lewis said. "I let the good Lord lead me and he led me to people who had the messages I needed to hear.
"When I came out the other side with my first contract, I was grateful to those who had shaped [my business]," she said.
A new direction
Mary Flahive-Dickson of East Longmeadow, Mass., owner of the new Redstone Creamery, 48 Shaker Road, was a nurse by profession when a 2006 decision to further her education completely changed the direction of her career.
Instead of further nursing training, she followed the advice of an individual in the development office at Bay Path College and chose to pursue a master of business administration (MBA). She recalled how Sandi Coyne, her mentor while attending Bay Path, told her that when she finished her MBA degree, "Your perception, your way of thinking will forever be changed."
It was. In early 2010, with her new degree in hand, Flahive-Dickson interviewed for a few positions, but didn't find a comfortable fit for herself.
"After one of the interviews I drove away thinking, 'I don't think I ever do want to work for anyone else and I do think I want to work for myself,'" she told PRIME. "I think I will explore opening my own business."
Already working in the home care industry as a licensed nurse, she decided to look in to opening her own home care business. She discussed the idea with two friends, both nurses and former home care colleagues. The three decided to go into business together and the trio launched Trinity Homecare, located on Grattan Street in Chicopee, in the spring 2010, just months after Flahive-Dickson had earned her MBA.
Despite the growing success of her first business, Flahive-Dickson sold her interest in the agency to her partners in the spring of 2012. She opened Redstone Creamery in her hometown of East Longmeadow the following September.
"The change from owning a visiting nurse agency to owning a ice cream/coffee shop/general store [type business] came about for several reasons," Flahive-Dickson explained. "I have six children, three of which still live at home. I was many hours a day conceiving, developing, putting together the visiting nurse agency, and my first priority, which is my children, was being neglected. So I made the very difficult decision to leave Trinity.
"[I] still wanted to be a business owner, but wanted a business that my children, and my husband, could all share together," she continued.
Flahive-Dickson said she recognized a need for a place where families, and especially, kids like hers, could go to meet with friends and enjoy a coffee or snack. She also wanted her next business to, in some way, highlight other Western Massachusetts small businesses.
"Every product in here is local. We utilize the local farmers, we utilize local talent, all of the artworks in here are locally made, all the products in here are locally made," she said.
Her suppliers include Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters, Smith Trinity Farms Dairy of Enfield, Conn., and the popular 3 Caf of Longmeadow and Simona's Gluten-Free Baked Good of Western Massachusetts, which supply the breads and pastries for sale in her shop. Her ice cream is from New Hampshire. Local artisans also produce all of the crafts and artwork for sale in her shop.
"Some of the products in here, people would have no way to showcase them if they did not bring them in here," Flahive-Dickson noted. "But my top priority was to have a local place for local families that is comfortable, enjoyable, reasonable, safe and fun."
Despite the unique nature of her business concept – the comfortably furnished shop is a cross between a coffeehouse and ice cream shop – Flahive-Dickson said coming up with a business plan was not that difficult. "Having Bay Path as a launching pad gave me all the tools I needed." she said.
Despite her previous experience opening a business, Flahive-Dickson said it was a full-time job – and a major investment of time and money – to get her new business from idea to the fully functioning Redstone Creamery. She also explained that the business she initially conceived in the spring of 2012 has gone through several revisions, with more expected to come once she's seen the shop through a full summer selling season
"Business plans are kind of a living, breathing document, so what you put together is not written in stone. You can change as you progress," Flahive-Dickson noted. "I like to listen to the people who come in, I like to listen to the community. I like to hear what they like, what they would want, what interests them, and ideas have been spawned from that."
This kind of input means, in addition to selling coffee, ice cream, sweets and showcasing local artists' wares, Redstone Creamery has so far hosted coffeehouse concerts, book clubs, home school writing groups, fundraisers and other community-oriented activities.
The business has also given Flahive-Dickson an opportunity to give her three youngest children, ages 13, 14 and 16, a hands-on education in business. She said all three work in – or do their homework at – the shop after school, with the 16 year-old performing several of the businesses' management activities during her shift.
"She runs the store when she's here," Flahive-Dickson said. "She's learned budgeting, ordering and pricing, customer relations and employee relations and there's no better way for her to learn it than to do [it]."
But it hasn't been a completely smooth journey from her initial concept to today's shop, Flahive-Dickson said. She closed Redstone Creamery for two weeks in February for remodeling because the shop, which occupies a space formerly used for a Tae Kwando after-school program, was completed quickly to open on a specific date in September 2012.
"There was supposed to be a country music concert on the baseball field and there was a tornado warning that day and it was cancelled," she said. "We opened specifically for that day and things weren't done the way I wanted them to be done."
She's also working on a third business concept with her husband, which she hopes to launch in the near future.
With nearly six months of business now behind her, Flahive-Dickson readily admits her move from nursing and home health care services to shop owner was a big change, but one she said has had intangible rewards.
"It is a big leap, but it's an enjoyable leap. It's probably one of the most enjoyable things I think I've ever done. It has allowed me to prepare my children for business. It has allowed me to let them live what business really is and not just read about it [and] it's allowed me to become part of this community."
Opening Redstone Creamery and making it a showcase for other local Western Massachusetts business people has, Flahive-Dickson said, allowed her to feel she now has "a purpose-driven place, a purpose-driven life, a purpose-driven career, if you will."
From passion to paycheck
George Skovera of West Springfield, Mass., currently the sports photographer for Reminder Publications, said he has always loved taking pictures.
"I got into photography when I was just a kid," Skovera told PRIME. "I would use my parents' Brownie Instamatic (camera) to take family photos. It was a lot of fun."
By college he had graduated to his own camera, and kept snapping. After graduation he had the chance to buy a second-hand camera, a SLR. He learned how to run his new rig, and improve his photos, by reading books.
His actual career, however, took him in a different direction and he took a position working for the state. In his spare time he played softball, and, through a teammate he got his chance to polish his photography skills – and get paid for it.
"One of the guys I played softball with owned his own photo studio. He knew I was interested in photography, so he asked me if I would shoot sports photos for high school yearbooks, which was one of the things he did," Skovera remembered.
His hobby quickly turned into a part-time job first for his teammate, Dan Kozioll's, studio, and later, for other yearbook companies.
"The more I did it, the more I liked it, the better I became, [but] it didn't pay very much, so I had to stay with my daytime job," he said.
But he was still "building a portfolio, and each year my [photos] got better and better."
Over the years, Skovera said he also took some photography courses to polish his skills, and joined the Springfield Camera Club.
"I learned a lot from [the club] and I learned a lot on my own, just by doing," he said.
In 1990, he landed a part-time job shooting photos for Greniers Photography in Holyoke – now called Grynn & Barrett.
"They are the biggest studio around [and] offered the most work. They kept me busy four, five, even more days per week part time," he said. In 1999, he said his sister-in-law Dale Skovera saw an ad in The Reminder looking for a sports photographer. He interviewed with Managing Editor G. Michael Dobbs for the job and "fortunately was able to get it."
In 2003 after 30 years on the job, he took a buyout offer from the state and moved to doing photography full-time.
He said the hardest part of his new career is being both artist and business owner.
"You have to wear two hats," he said. "I can do the photography thing well, the business thing, not too well."
From his first job shooting yearbook photos for his softball teammate, Skovera said he was paid based on the time he spent shooting photos, with the studio owner handling the film and processing. He still uses his time spent as a yardstick when pricing a job, only now he combines the time he spends shooting the subject with the time he spends editing the digital images on his computer to arrive at a price for a photo shoot.
"Each job is based on the number of hours I expect to work, and then I go from there," he said.
He said he combines his income from his sports photography for The Reminder, his state retirement, the work he still does for Grynn & Barrett – as well as side jobs he picks up – to make his new career path work financially.
The biggest surprise Skovera said he's found in this new career is how transcendence the work sometimes becomes.
"I was photographing the Western Massachusetts [girls] basketball finals on [March] 9, and Chicopee was the underdog," Skovera said. "At the end of the game all the players were on the court and one of the player's mothers came up to her and gave her a big hug. I got a picture of it.
"I just looked at the picture – I just finished the job and turned it in – and I said to myself, 'that's timeless. a mother congratulating a daughter on something she did.' To me, that's spiritual," he said.
