The story below is a preview from our March/April 2017 issue. For the full story, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Women who have followed their dreams in middle age have often discovered lessons to teach the rest of us. Here are some of their stories.
Dan Smith
People in middle age often have difficulty changing careers for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with their age and the expense of hiring them. But many do and when they are women, the results can be quite satisfying.
Often, these adventurous souls go out on their own, taking salary cuts, changing lifestyles, doing what their hearts tell them is right.
“Follow your bliss” is rarely the primary suggestion from professionals, but it helps create some happy workers. The women profiled herewith did that. And they found what they wanted.
Bayla Sussman
Baylee’s Best
Bayla Sussman’s road has been the very definition of long and winding. She’s followed her dream in fields as varied as acting, marketing research, coding, events marketing, restaurant work, tax preparation, teaching, office management and creating dreamy chocolates.
It is the chocolate phase that has her attention now. She owns Baylee’s Best in Roanoke, crafting chocolate delights to an ever-increasing clientele at her shop on Electric Road. She became a chocolatier because, “I’m not good at retirement” and when she and her husband moved to Roanoke a few years ago, that situation was staring at her.
Sussman, who does not want you to know her exact age, majored in theater at Northwestern University, but for many of her jobs, she had no training other than her own curiosity. After college, she worked for a marketing research firm during the day and studied dance, voice and theater at night. She started an MBA program, but hated it, preferring the theater. She worked for Actors’ Equity and the Illinois State Lottery as a character and spokeswoman.
Marriage changed everything. “Attempting to be a good corporate wife, I followed my husband around the country as he advanced in his career. I continued to perform when possible. I began to do well in New England: some theater, some voice work, some film and video.”
In Roanoke, her husband lost his job and went into business for himself. She went to H&R Block, and “I ended up, teaching, preparing returns, managing an office, dealing with problems—and volunteering to head up the Relay for Life Team after I had cancer.”
The Next Chapter came in March, 2003: “I brought some truffles to a reception at my friend, Gwenda Kellett’s store. She informed me that I would have to go into business so she could sell them.” In September, “I had the kitchen inspected, got a business license and Baylee’s was born. I figured that I wouldn’t lose too much money because Christmas was coming, then I could close it down and they wouldn’t bother me anymore.
“In July of 2008, my inspector told me that the business was getting too large to stay in the house. I would have to close it or move it into a store. I figured it might be time to retire. Husband said: Store.”
Her husband became her “business and technical directors” as she entered a new store in early 2009 “and then he met a younger woman and left me with a lease I could not break. So, I stumbled on, reading, attending seminars when I could, asking questions of knowledgeable people and sharing information with other small chocolatiers. Last year I was able to take advantage of the Scale Up program for small businesses. Fortunately, I learn from my mistakes.”
Lee Hunsaker
The Love Of Writing
Lee Hunsaker grew up with the distinct advantage of being—for the past 47 years—the daughter of theatrical, eccentric, bonvivant, raconteur Julie Hunsaker, among other things. Her evolution and Next Chapter are the result of consistently following her bliss and looking for opportunities for change.
Let her tell the story: “After spending most of my adult life working in film, moving from job to job, traveling, forming and losing friendships (nature of that business), coming back to Roanoke was a shock to my system. I was, and in many ways still am, in the throes of an epic identity crisis.
“I realized that a part of me that had been pushed away and buried was my lifelong love of writing. I enrolled in some classes at Hollins ... immersed myself in motherhood and my family, and slowly began to find my footing again.
“I [organized] writing workshops in my living room, which branched off into public spaces like Sweet Donkey Coffee and even at Parkway Brewing! From those and from keeping strong ties to Austin, Santa Fe, New York, etc., I realized that Virginia is rich with stories and storytellers. I took a chance and organized a monthly Moth-style live storytelling series called Hoot and Holler: Our Stories.”
Hoot and Holler is no way to get rich—it pays very little—but in the “finding your bliss” attic, it’s in the big trunk. Hunsaker has always sought out that particular part of life, from attending high school for theater and writing near Boston, to majoring in English and theater at VCU.
Her mom “always encouraged me in the arts. My love of costume and film began in my childhood, as my mother owned the first vintage clothing store in Roanoke and eventually came to own the Grandin Theater. I was introduced to the film business when ‘Crazy People’ chose the Grandin as a filming location. From there, I ended up in casting in Baltimore for John Waters and eventually made my way to Austin, Texas.”
She met the costume designer from “Waiting For Guffman” who “noticed that I had a sharp eye and good sense of style and design. She asked if I would come work on set and from there my costume career took off.” She’d been a costume designer for movies like “Miss Congeniality,” “Office Space” and “Boyhood.”
In 2008 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a new marriage and an 18-month-old son. “My world was thrown upside down,” she says. She “went through nearly a year of aggressive treatments and surgeries” and “came to the decision that the stress, hours, and physical and emotional demands of the film industry were going to compromise my health.
“I needed to re-evaluate all I’d ever known in all areas of my life. It was time to prioritize and in doing so, I made the very hard choice to leave Austin and my career as I knew it, and to return back to my hometown of Roanoke. My husband, also extremely successful in his career as a prop master, gave up a lot to be here.”
The move, initially, “was a shock to my system. I was, and in many ways still am, in the throes of an epic identity crisis.” That’s when she rediscovered her love of writing and “slowly began to find my footing again … and I now believe I am finally finding my way back to myself and to what I truly love.”
Cathy Dick
Holistic Wellness Academy
Cathy Dick is 58 and the Next Chapter, she insists, continue to help her evolve. She’s been a teacher, receptionist, a home stager and a certified health coach … just since living in Roanoke.
She grew up in Arizona, dealing with headaches and stomach problems, watching her mother manage a heart condition, and learning along the way “how much stress and tension were the cause of many health problems.”
She moved to Alaska after two years of college, got married, raised three kids, and divorced after 20 years. She spent nearly 15 years supporting ADHD children and operated her own pre-school. “When the time was right, I piled the kids into my motor home and drove down the Alcan Highway in 1997,” she recalls.
About eight years ago she quit her HR position and offered home staging—just about the time of the housing market crash, and so she fell back into ADHD consulting, which did not do well. “This is when I realized my true passion—something I’ve done for friends, co-workers, and family most of my life—helping people feel better and make healthier lifestyle choices for themselves.”
In 2012, she founded One Degree Forward, supporting “women who desire to feel more energetic, confident and inspired and want less fatigue, pain, and being overwhelmed. They just want to live a healthier, happier life. My job is to help them accept who they are in the present moment so they can create the changes needed to be who they want to be in the future. Together we discover how the body is miraculously designed to heal from within when we use food as medicine.”
Dick is now the educational director for the Holistic Wellness Academy, an online school for health coaches and their clients, that opened in early 2017.
“I’m in great health,” she says. “I live in a beautiful place. I have a great husband, children and grandchildren to enjoy. Life is far too short not to live happy and healthy.”
Michelle Belton
Companion Home Care Inc.
Michelle Belton was the first female auctioneer in Virginia with a license, but that wasn’t the Next Chapter; not even close. She was just 23 then. She already had a five-year-old child and had attended 18 schools in 10 years as a PK (preacher’s kid). Her GED allowed her to attend auctioneering school and learn to work the “business of pawnbroker and gemological assessment and grading of gems and jewelry.”
She “conducted auctions ranging from guns, antiques and tools for a Russian gem dealer. She also sold Russian artifacts to art auctions. By 25, she had certificates allowing her to grade and appraise diamonds and colored stones. She managed a jewelry store for 10 years and when she became “bored with selling rich ladies big diamonds” she moved to a position as sales supervisor of “up to 85 employees at a call center.” ‘Course, she hated that and “desperately wanted out … I knew there was something more for me out there.”
All the while, she volunteered with organizations like Meals on Wheels, working with the elderly. She took a course from the Small Business Administration, and “that was the start of a complete reinvention of my life.”
In 2004, she opened Companion Home Care Inc. in a small business incubator. I “decided to narrow my focus from not just ‘non-medical’ help with daily living for seniors to a specialty in understanding dementia and Alzheimer’s.” She is a Certified Dementia Practitioner, “which gives me a group of like-minded individuals belonging to the [national association] to help further my mission in this disease.”
As a result of all this, “I am no longer afraid to take on large tasks, buy a one-way ticket to Maui, introduce myself and shake hands with biggest VIP in a room and every now and again, give myself permission to take a day and do nothing.”
Shawn Spencer
Project: Real Talk
Shawn Spencer found her Next Chapter in creating an opening for the practice of “servant leadership.” She’d made that her practice before, but now, she’s full-in.
“With 20 years of professional experience [I] held a range of positions across non-profit, political, private sector and corporate stratums.” They all shared and reflected the values of servant leadership.
Perhaps she is best known in the region as the effervescent and immensely talented vocalist of StarCity SWAG, a jazz quartet that pays homage to the great vocal phenoms of a bygone era like Holiday, Fitzgerald and Vaughn.
She moved from the Roanoke Valley to Washington 25 years ago “and began [my] personal and professional development in the diverse and transient environment of our Nation’s Capital.”
Spencer is the 10th of 12 children raised on a tobacco farm in Franklin County, beginning life by gaining “hands-on team-building skills and cultivating [my] communal attitude.” Her dad, Moses Spencer, remains her hero, she says.
She calls herself “an avid student of leadership development [who] is constantly seeking to grow and mature, personally and professionally.”
Since her return home from D.C. in 2005, she’s found a number of roles working for the Pepsi Bottling Group, Hollins University and Total Action for Progress.
She is the co-founder and executive director of Project: Real Talk, “an experience-based program designed for girls ages 12-18, [which helps] them build healthy social, academic and emotional architectures for successful lives.”
In addition, she recently joined SVH Family Services where she is leading and developing a division responsible for the employment of people with disabilities into the community. She says, “These roles are the perfect marriage of service and advocacy, both of which I’m extremely passionate about.”
Monica Rokicki-Guajardo
Better Building Works
Monica Rokicki-Guajardo was 49 when the Big Change hit her six years ago. “Sustainable design has always attracted me,” she says, “but in the profession things are quite silo’ed between the professions of engineering and even in the design studio.”
She was director of design and sustainability at the firm of Architectural Design in Roanoke at the time when “two things conspired to make me take the madcap leap into founding a business.”
She wanted to know how the buildings she designed “actually fared in the world” and she wanted to make a “gigantic impact.” She already had the certifications, but “that knowledge fell upon deaf ears in the ‘business as usual’ architectural world” and so it “was time to do a grand experiment and start a company that would change the world.” That is Better Building Works.
Her background includes an architectural degree with a second degree in philosophy (she’s married to philosopher Ivan Guajardo), being the oldest of nine children of a “hobo/coal miner and stunt man” mom and German dad, growing up in Chicago.
Her goal of “changing the world” is clear and “we have a … replicable model that can do all of the things I’ve always wanted to do: help people, make more beauty, get real, verifiable results.”
The company’s “building-science-based approach to existing building projects (and some new ones) has been refined over the past five years for both residences and homes. We are getting ready to expand into nearby Virginia markets.”
The result so far: “I would not have predicted the way that my company influences the people that I have the honor to employ and partner with. Their insights and passion to make a difference in the world are what carry us forward and keep me on keel.”
Heather Brush
Community Housing Resource Center
Heather Y. Brush’s Next Chapter was dramatic: “When I moved to Roanoke 20 years ago, I was very close to being homeless myself. I was touched by being on the receiving end of the Salvation Army’s holiday help for my babies. It became important to me then to somehow pay back that kindness. My changing careers [four years ago] at 43 has changed my life for the infinite better, and the best part is that I get to pay that forward.”
She initially followed a kind of bliss in school: studying fine art and English with a degree in human services,” all intense interests she developed over the years.
Her single mom worked “in a jail and in corrections as a drug and alcoholism counselor, and then for Housing and Urban Development with low-income clients who needed housing assistance.” She learned from the example. Her mom “always encouraged my love of being an artist and writer, but instilled in me the need to be my own woman and have a career I could survive on. I didn’t always pay heed to that.”
She tried different paths, journalism among them. “I loved the writing, but hated the business side of it. It wasn’t in my heart to sell the sad news we read every day, and newspapers don’t just sell fluff.” She wrote for magazines, as well as Book Page. She was a journalist for 20 years and even “ran my own business when my kids were little, book editing and reviewing.”
Ultimately, writing wasn’t going to work and “I found myself applying for jobs in human services again and again. When I got this position [housing coordinator at the Community Housing Resource Center, a program of Council of Community Services] four years ago, I decided to improve my worth to my clients and employers and went back to school for my human services degree. I worked full time and went to school full time, and lost a lot of sleep.”
These days she finds housing for the homeless and helps get them settled. It is a job she loves and she finds that “the change in me has been exponential over these recent years. I attribute this in part to my intensified study of Buddhism (have to have down time and re-centering of myself), but also in realizing my purpose in this career.
“I have become much more patient with people, and with myself. I am able to experience being empathetic on a daily basis, and this is highly rewarding, but also very productive for my clients and for our community. I see myself, my parents, my children, my loved ones, in every one of my clients ... At one of the newspapers [where she worked], we wrote about feel good stories of giving during the holidays, where people were affected positively by someone’s generosity. Those were nice stories, but I get to live those every day now.”
Katie Clifton
Queenpin
At 33, nearly 10 years ago, Katie Clifton found her way through the Next Chapter: “From the pieces of my smashed ‘should life’ I rebuilt a life with no limits. That included going to graduate school and starting my business. My private practice opened in October 2013, a year into it I started partnering with local businesses to host classes and workshops, and then on November 1 opened up Queenpin Herb Shop.”
She’d been a private school teacher who ran into financial hardship and needed an alternative career. Ultimately, after additional education and soul searching, she founded the Queenpin Family Wellness in Roanoke, which houses an acupuncture clinic and herb shop, and also is host for retreats and workshops on modern life management.”
Her support system has been extensive and strong. “Big Dreams require a whole anthill of support to function smoothly.”
Clifton majored in history at Hollins and took a job teaching in Tohatchi, New Mexico, on the Navajo Reservation in 1998. She wound up at Community School in Roanoke, teaching for 10 years. “I loved my job teaching, but I became separated from my kids’ dad in 2007 and realized I would not be able to support my kids on a private school teaching salary.”
While at Community School, she “watched my students’ parents look for a middle way in medical care for their children. Something between no treatment and what they felt was too much treatment. When I went home and told my husband at the time that I thought I wanted to go to acupuncture school he said ‘no way.’ We had two young kids and he was a real estate agent during the real estate crash.”
Divorce found her looking at “my dreams of how my life should be totally smashed. I was 33 and realized that the picket fence way of living was not for me.”
The decision was “completely worth it. I’m 42 and I think that the work I’ve done in the past nine years has been a great example for my two kids. They built this business with me, and they’ve seen that dreams take work, but are possible if you take the leap.”
Pam Golden
Glazed Bisque-It
Pam Golden’s background was organic chemistry and her Next Chapter was truly a large one. It started with being a stay-at-home mother of two boys and segued into owning Glazed Bisque-It, a “paint your own pottery store. I was a customer of the business and always thought more could be done with it. I had never owned a business, nor had I ever made or fired pottery.” She was 45 and it was 2007.
Golden’s degree was in chemistry and she actually taught organic chemistry at Gettysburg College before working as a research chemist where she earned a patent. She worked for more than 10 years in pharmaceutical sales.
She bought Glazed Bisque-It with the original intent that it was to be “something for me to make some money but it has become a career and has become a primary source of income,” partly because of her divorce.
The diversity required in owning her business means “I wear a marketing hat, a human resource hat, an operations hat, a sales hat, a public relations hat and a financial hat among others. I don’t like the art part of my business—it is very difficult for me. I am constantly learning art techniques to help customers create a masterpiece.” The varied components “motivate me every day.”
Golden plans a mid-2017 move for the business to Starkey Road in Roanoke County in order to reduce costs, and she has opened a second Glazed Bisque-It at Smith Mountain Lake at Bridgewater Plaza.
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