Start A Business

Five years ago, Liz left a vice president level job at a Fortune 500 company for a family hiatus. At the time she loved her work, but it wasn’t fitting her life. She had a baby and two young children, and the commute in and out of New York City to a job that was…

Thinking about a complete career transformation? Read this story about Cynthia Lowrance Grano, a Connecticut entrepreneur who turned a commute to Wall Street into a walk through her garden. There was a time when Cynthia wore a business suit every day. Now she dresses more casually to design exquisite jewelry, pillows and sachets for her company,…

Lots of women itching to work again after a family hiatus worry that they’ve chosen the worst possible time to return to the workforce. They already feel great trepidation about the gap in their resumes, and a difficult economy makes it appear that only current professionals will land the few available jobs. While I do…

In the tiny, quaint, affluent village of Southport, Connecticut, Barb Johnson sells an awe-inspiring collection of clothing and accessories to empower women to survive and thrive in remote villages around the world. A visit to her shop, Mama Jane’s Global Boutique, is an education in the museum-quality work of ancient artisans in South Africa, Kenya,…

What does an honors finance and accounting major at Georgetown do after donning cap and gown? “I did what all the smart kids did”, says Katie Sanford, sitting in the clothing and accessories store she now manages with her mother. “I went after the most obvious big business opportunities, interviewed with big banks and then…

For many years widely recognized Career Coach Nancy Collamer has been helping people turn the seemingly impossible into the possible. When we first became acquainted, she was helping women find professional and creative ways to start businesses and earn money without ever leaving their homes. For many who needed the extra income she was a…

Planning to “retire” and start your own business? Design your business to financially and mentally support your time off. That’s sage advice given by Jane Pollak, in her wonderful book, Sole Proprietor: 101 Lessons from a Lifestyle Entrepreneur.  Though you may not want to give up working as you say good-bye to a long held career,…

When Lyn Kimberly of Weston, Connecticut talks about her childhood, there are many tales of a Vermont camp on Lake Champlain. She spent 10 years as a camper and a counselor and later married a man who shares her love of the outdoors. For many years they wedged camping and canoeing trips into their professional…

Though I think most men zoom through their work days with tunnel vision, most women are interrupted by phone calls from school, doctor appointment scheduling and mundane problems that arise at the family home. When you’re waffling about a return to work, it can seem impossible that you would ever be able to take care…

When one half of a couple is contemplating retirement, reinvention can be the result for both husband and wife. That was the case with Gay and Roger Squire, now owners of Squire House, an upscale B&B in Dorset, Vermont. Gay raised two sons and had a brief stint as a social worker. Roger had a senior post at…