Dream Jobs That Become Real

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The story below is from our November/December 2018 issue. For the full issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!

Finding satisfying work is a major challenge for all of us. Here are a few who found what they needed and wanted, even if they didn’t know it ahead of time. 

As most of us have learned, work life is not always predictable. Things happen. Jobs are lost, or become stale, or change. The new boss may be a jerk or the company’s philosophy may change. In fact, the industry may either crash or diminish. Personal growth can redirect interests.

The World of Work is in a state of flux from Day One to retirement for many people. Forbes tells us that a little over half of us are unhappy in our work (52.3 percent). Sometimes, though, that very uncertainty and dissatisfaction create a longing to be doing something that is personally gratifying, to find fulfillment in following our bliss.

We went looking for some people who have done that, and they weren’t hard to find. Here are a few who live in the Roanoke Valley. 

Finding the Dream

Kara Spangler and Matt Parker were doing just fine, functioning normally in a conventional world. Parker, 45, was applying his expensive training as a veterinarian, and Spangler, 44, was earning impressively as an executive. Neither was being fulfilled, however, so they made some changes. Drastic changes. 

Spangler became a certified yoga instructor and Parker, who had run up half a million dollars in debt at a for-profit vet school in the Caribbean, decided he could take care of animals better if he used some of the same healthy philosophies he and Spangler use on their own bodies. Both eat healthy foods and exercise briskly.

She is in the process of creating a business that uses yoga and nutrition to help those whose goal is to become alcohol-free. He has a two-and-a-half-year-old veterinarian business called Roanoke Animal Chiropuncture, which is exactly what it sounds like: acupuncture and chiropractic medicine for animals.

In recent years, the couple came to the understanding that life wasn’t working the way they wanted it to and realized that they—and only they—could change it. “I’m at an age where I’ve let go of what other people think,” says Spangler. Parker nodded. Their primary support comes from each other.

They have reduced their incomes dramatically (his by 80 percent, hers almost completely)—until her business takes hold—but her high-stress, long-hours jobs that she didn’t own are gone and she begins each day understanding the adventure ahead. Parker, who has substantial issues with the way animal medicine is generally practiced, is spreading his message of holistic treatment of animals, in much the same way as some physicians are working with humans—with resistance from mainstream medicine.

Their roads were long and winding: he went to the Caribbean for veterinarian school because “a B student can’t get into Virginia Tech’s vet school” after he had earned his bachelor’s at Tech in biology and served in the military. “I always wanted to be a vet, but didn’t think I could do it,” he says. He graduated and went to work in a clinic.

Meanwhile, Spangler worked in a series of stores as a manager “making big bucks,” she says, “but eventually burned out.”

They met each other, found a lot of common ground and began plotting the future. Nothing was off the table. “I’ve always gone along,” says Parker. “I was never a rebel without a cause.” And he was “making decent money as a vet.” But money wasn’t enough for either of them.

The labor of love has begun for both and when they’re asked if they’re happy, their two smiles become a single big one.

Creating Heirlooms

It took a while for all the pieces to fall into place for Tom Dorathy, but when they did, the direction of his career was clear. The result was Ghent Hill Design & Furniture Restoration, where he uses what he learned as a designer, art director and antique furniture restorer to build and restore furniture for a clientele that rests at the high end. 

After Dorathy, a Roanoke native, attended Virginia Western focusing on design, he went to work printing T-shirts and playing bass in a traveling band, but discovered he “couldn’t make a living.” He became an apprentice at John Davis Antiques where he learned the basics and emerged with a goal of “wearing nice clothes” to work, rather than grubby work duds. That, however, didn’t sit well, either. 

“I couldn’t just sit in an office,” he says. He moved to Bedford to develop a finish line for high-end furniture at Frank Chervan. After three years, he realized he “didn’t want to be a production manager” and Ghent Hill was born.

These days, as president, he designs, builds, stains, stresses and, well, does a little bit of everything to make the business go. He has two master furniture makers working for him and says his clients generally run “in the $300,000 a year” range. They often want reproductions of classics.

He’s found that elusive satisfaction at 46. Dorathy is divorced, has a daughter, Lily, and two stepchildren who live in New Zealand. Ghent Hill sits in a large building, shared with Greenway Self Storage, which he also owns, near Wasena Park in Roanoke.

These days, he gets to “be creative on a consistent basis, to work with people in realizing what they want. I enjoy the relationships. It’s a personal business and when it’s good, it’s great. I get to leave little pieces on earth and I sign everything I make.” His children “grew up in the shop and they have a respect for the work.”

Gratification is constant: “I can’t tell you how lucky I am that I am a commissioned artist … The fact is that I create heirlooms that pass down the generations. That’s pretty (bleeping) cool.”

You Mean That’s a Job?

Evan Walters makes a fairly decent living throwing battle axes at targets, the kind of playing little boys used to do, all the while hearing their mothers warn, “You’ll cut your head off!”

After graduating from Radford University, Walters, 29, did restaurant and retail work before becoming a graphic designer for a couple of huge media conglomerates. The jobs felt like “assembly line work for making ads.” 

Some of the designs involved animation for publications across the nation, as well as for huge websites. “It was,” he says, “pretty well everything they warn you about with being a graphic designer in school: low pay, long hours, caring more about churning out large quantities of ads instead of quality.”

Despite that occasional monotonous feel, “I like graphic design. It’s everywhere. There’s the visual creativity” that is satisfying. But not quite satisfying enough, especially after he moved to Indianapolis and worked at the huge Gannett corporate location. “It was every horror story you hear about corporations.”

Then the axe fell. He found through social media that an axe-throwing venue “was almost across the street from us.” He investigated. He went to a free event, liked it and found that the axe people were hiring, paying a little more than he was earning, plus tips. He coached for a couple of months and caught attention again by designing a couple of axe T-shirts. Long story short: he got a job, full time, after two weeks.

The job has evolved, becoming Bad Axe Throwing, “the largest Urban Axe Throwing company in the world,” he says, with 17 locations throughout North America. The sport is “sort of like bowling but with ... targets and axes.” Walters is the founder of the World Axe Throwing League, “which has about 40 other companies in seven different countries, promoting the sport of axe throwing.”

It has been, he says, “the start of the American Dream.” But don’t tell Mom.

Politics to Novelties

It looked like Zak Moore was headed for a career in politics. He was a legislative aide for Virginia Senator Brandon Bell and incumbents tend to serve as long as they want to. But the unexpected happened: Bell lost in a Republican primary and both their careers in politics came to an abrupt end. 

He had been in politics “since I was 13 or 14,” but “became disillusioned” with the Republican Party and despite being chairman of the Roanoke GOP, left politics. He earned an investment license and worked in Bell’s office for a while. From that office, he continued to buy and sell used books, more as a hobby than as a job. “I liked it, but it didn’t keep me super busy,” he says.

Bell “incubated me,” giving Moore an office and support for $200 a month, allowing him to grow. He grew with all his business online. He added products and moved twice. He’s in Salem now, getting ready to expand from 3,500-square-feet to more than 6,000, mostly warehouse space.

Used books were fine, but they weren’t enough to make a good living. Moore, who is 38, added calendars to his remainder and overstocked book inventory. Then came posters, 3,000 to 4,000 different ones now. “One thing led to another” and another and another and …

He went to shows and found products. “I didn’t set out to do what we’re doing,” he says. But it happened. His family grew (wife Julie, daughter Madeline), as the business expanded. He now has two full-time and two part-time employees (expanding to 10-15 during the winter holidays). He’s become one of the largest calendar and poster sellers on Ebay, Amazon and Walmart, he says. He sells, mostly direct to consumers, a lot of other novelties and he has no idea where the list of products might end.

He does, however, know it’s not political.

A Reluctant Change

Steve Pendleton was just fine—a happy camper—at 45 with 25 years as a Roanoke police officer, when change came in an instant. He and an under-arrest big guy fell out of a paddy wagon and Pendleton’s disk was ruptured. He was off for two months and tried to go back to work, but the rupture was too severe. 

His physician said he couldn’t continue in police work and he says he couldn’t get disability because of a complex mathematical equation that didn’t work in his favor.

Wife Charlotte (who is 62) had been an EMS dispatcher and sold furniture at an antique mall. That proved a life-saver for them both because it became their dual profession. They ran Charlotte’s Web Antique Mall for some years before selling it. Steve, who is 63 now, became the chief clerk while Charlotte was the buyer. He also built furniture and coached a little football.

Charlotte found that the newly-retired Steve “was under foot” at the store, so they decided on their respective roles which would eliminate bumping into each other. “It’s hard to adapt to living together and working together,” he says.

She decorated their 11 booths in the mall and ultimately, they moved from 1,200 square feet to 10,000. Charlotte’s Web had 60 consignment vendors and “it was hopping, even when the economy wasn’t,” says Charlotte. Steve adds, “I could go out and buy an imperfect piece, redo it cheaply and sell it for a good profit.” And he did. Often.

Since retirement—and much less stress—Steve’s neck has been no problem. That “could be the result” of being happy, says Charlotte. As a cop, he had to “run, jump, chase, fight every night. There was so much going on and after 40, it just gets harder. … You have to be in top shape. The job is demanding, even though it’s 90 percent boredom and 10 percent all hell breaking loose.”

They eventually sold Charlotte’s Web—which is still going strong—and they’re “doing estate sales now,” buying and selling and not arresting anybody.

What Change?

For 25 years, Teresa Berry and SARA were inseparable. Then they became separated when she was laid off. But the story didn’t end at that point. It began anew when, after the organization was closed by quasi-governmental Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, she reopened it as a private nonprofit with exactly the same mission. And she was completely in charge, making the rules without big, bureaucratic dictates of every movement. 

The mission remains the same for the 24-hour trauma-focused sexual assault and counseling center, but the approach is radically different. Since taking over seven years ago, Berry, who is 55, has dramatically increased the size of the organization. Even the limits on SARA’s service market have been removed and are now infinite.

In 2011, “I had 25 years of working for a larger entity (BRBH) with little say in its destiny or the services provided,” she says. “When the Community Service Board [the overall operator] closed SARA and laid me off, I disagreed and did some soul searching. I realized that if I walked away, nobody would take it up. I knew I couldn’t get by on my looks and charm and I wanted to feel like I could make a difference.”

So, she put together a package and took over. “People sought me out” to offer help. “They came out of the woodwork” and suddenly she had money (triple), expanded space (with an $85,000 donation from the Roanoke Women’s Foundation), twice the staff, more volunteers and so many ideas that her working hours doubled. She was delighted.

Her husband, David Wells, is retired clerk of court, but serves as the chairman of the board of BRBH and “is understanding” of what she’s doing these days, which is not entirely different from what she did before, but this one’s her baby.

“I’m free of the restraints of a big organization,” she says, “though I’m not free of the financial responsibility.” She took care of part of that by “bringing all the grant money with me and becoming eligible for more grants [as a private non-profit]. I’m a good grant writer.”

Her work, she insists, is “more efficient, creative, better and I’m happier. I’m working a lot of hours, but it’s empowering.” Because “I absolutely love my work. … Knowing I’m making a difference in the lives of others gives me a sense of satisfaction unlike anything else.”

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