The story below is from our January/February 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photo above Courtesy of Amanda Forrester
This former business owner has big plans for the area and herself.
Amanda Forrester is a multi-passionate former business owner who is both competitive and collaborative, intentional and able to go with the flow.
Forrester thought she was retired in 2017 when she sold Brick House CrossFit but says “the SBDC and I found each other.” Now, as Regional Director of the Roanoke Regional Small Business Development Center (RRSBDC), she helps small businesses grow.
Her life has been pieced together with unplanned and seemingly unrelated or random careers and moves, yet somehow all the pieces came together to work for a life that allows her to have personal happiness and professional satisfaction.
Growing up in Roanoke, she couldn’t imagine a life outside of entrepreneurship. Her dad was a serial entrepreneur and a big influence on her.
“There was no separation of work and personal stuff when I was growing up,” shares Forrester. “Working at SBDC is like having a small business within the SBDC, being an entrepreneur within a structure.”
“Amanda has a knack for creating engaging and intentional spaces, where people are encouraged to show up as their whole selves and thrive,” says Heather Fay, Botetourt Advisor and Regional Program Director, RRSBDC. “Amanda’s knowledge, wisdom and life experiences coupled with a passion for small businesses and the economic impact they have on a region make her an incredible asset.”
From design to fitness to nonprofit work, her work has a common denominator: building spaces, places and systems for people to thrive.
“I love interweaving culture, human behavior, systems and communication to create space for people to be their best self,” Forrester shares. “It doesn’t matter what application, give me something to build, and I’m a happy gal.”
That desire to build and create led to studying art at Hollins University and interior architecture at George Washington University. She designed, managed and brought to life human centered spaces for corporations, hotels, restaurants and private firms, gutting and redesigning buildings in DC.
“A lot of people think design is about paint colors, but honestly, you don’t want me to pick a paint color,” she laughs. Instead, she worked with human behavior to determine the best layout of space. “I focused on space navigation, efficiency and experiences within those spaces.”
She helped her sister and brother-in-law run and expand La Casa de mi Padre, a children’s home in El Salvadore. While there, she met her son Kevin on his first birthday. She immersed herself into his culture and brought as much of that back with them as possible when they returned to Roanoke in 2010 to be near Forrester’s mother who had early onset dementia.
They still visit El Salvadore often. Forrester says, “It holds the dearest place in my soul.”
She lights up talking about Kevin, a freshman at University of Lynchburg. “He is a super cool young man with so much to give to this world. He is full of creativity, has a love of outdoors, music and is a master photographer.”
When she was a single mother, she learned how to spend her time and make money in a way that wasn’t based on an hour of her time. That led back to entrepreneurship.
“Life is about what opportunity faces you in the moment and what risks you take,” she says. “Following what you are curious about in the moment will lead you on your path.”
Forrester serves on the Greater Roanoke Workforce Board and has volunteered as an advocate and speaker with the Alzheimer’s Association. She enjoys volunteering for political campaigns but hasn’t recently.
She’s married to her favorite person in the whole world, Jay Forrester. They have two Australian Labradoodles, Duke and Holly.
Forrester enjoys building things, refinishing furniture and helping others design their own unique spaces. Recently, she started reformer Pilates. She shares that her husband has a newfound joy with his motorcycles, and she “hesitantly loves riding on the parkway with him.”
There is nothing professionally that she wants to do that she hasn’t already done. Personally, she would like to live overseas again and one day live on a farm with chickens, goat, ducks and a bunch of labradoodles. And a garage where she can refinish furniture and bring it back to life with a newfound flavor. Preferably, the farm will be in Lancaster County where she can fulfill her longing to be near the water.
To her, Roanoke will always be home and the best place in the world to have a business and family. She is open to possibilities and landing somewhere else.
“I’m simply in a place of leaning into my feminine, at home in my skin. I spent most of my life wanting more, wanting rock me awake experiences, climbing the ladder, fighting. To only realize, what I truly want is already inside of me,” she shares. “Ebbing and flowing with what comes before me instead of yearning for an unmet goal. I don’t know what the future holds, and I don’t have any yearnings stirring inside of me, other than to be still wherever my feet may land.”
Then she adds, “I do want to learn to play the drums and get my helicopter pilot license. But I’m in no hurry.”
The story above is from our January/February 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
