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Entrepreneurial Edge
A trio of area business people chart singular successes simply by being themselves
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Business New Haven
4/1/2002
By: Linda Mele
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The 'Vision' Thing
A coach with no whistle or clipboard, Carole Jacoby helps clients take the long view of their careers - and their lives
As people think of coaches, names like Vince Lombardi and Geno Auriemma immediately pop up. But don't suppose that Milford resident Carole Jacoby might appreciate a 25-gallon jug of Gatorade dumped on her head. She's not that kind of coach.
Jacoby is what is known as a professional personal and business coach - “one who helps others define their lives” or company's goals, and further helps clients devise a path to make those goals a reality.
Her five-year-old Orange business is called LifeVisions. Jacoby has helped hundreds of people, both individually and as part of a team or company-wide program, start down the path toward fulfillment of those goals.
After a number of years in the non-profit, public/mental health and education sectors, Jacoby contacted a career coach to help her decide what to do next in her own life and career. It wasn't long before Jacoby realized what she wanted to do, so she started down the path her coach had helped her to define.
After ample research, Jacoby concluded that a career as a life/personal coach would allow her to employ the skills she had honed in her previous jobs as a special education teacher, non-profit youth and family service bureau counselor, a psychiatric consultant and a psychotherapist.
Jacoby received her certification from the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, Calif., has also earned the designation of Professional Certified Coach from the International Coaches Federation and has completed courses at Corporate Coach University. Jacoby also has master's degrees in counseling and special education.
Personal coaching is particularly well suited to working with those who want to create balance in their lives, Jacoby says.
For those who try to be all things to all people - the “super-mom” theory run amok - Jacoby helps them sit back and take a long-term view of what's going on in their lives, identify where conflicts are and define ways to balance or mitigate them.
“It's a partnership,” Jacoby explains. “I don't have all the answers and I'm not here to give advice: I'm here to help my clients discover what they need to do to move forward in whatever it is that they are dealing with in their personal or professional lives.”
Jacoby works with corporate teams, executives and managers to help them “discover their potential, identify and reach their goals and align their life visions with their corporate visions. She calls it “the ultimate balancing act.”
Most recently Jacoby has made presentations to employees of People's Bank, Merrill Lynch, Yale University, Connecticut Mental Health, Southern Connecticut State University and Padgett Business Services, among others.
Jacoby's latest venture is the development of all-day retreats that transport individuals and/or teams away from familiar home and work surroundings to neutral locations where they can concentrate on themselves.
There are women's retreats, mid-life transition retreats for men and women and life-balance retreats. The day-long sessions can also be customized.
Does coaching work? Well, Jacoby retains her own life coach - whom she generously credits for guidance in her quest for fulfillment.
Dream Weaver
Everything old is new again for Paula Weaver, who recreates memeories from whole cloth
When Paula Weaver finally made the decision to leave the corporate world and strike out on her own, it was not a decision made on the spur of the moment. Weaver and her husband Ken became enamored of Civil War reenactments and she learned there weren't a lot of quality uniform manufacturers out there.
“It's a very special market, made up of people who demand absolutely authentic reproductions,” Paula Weaver says, “right down to the buttons and thread.”
Today, some eight years later, she's very glad she took the plunge, although the journey wasn't always an easy one. Thank goodness Ken kept his full-time job. Before she even began, she studied everything she could find out about Civil War uniforms - the kind of cloth they were made from, the design, the thread and the buttons.
“We attended a lot of reenactments and took a trip to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to look over their collection of uniforms,” she says.
Once she knew what she wanted to produce and how it should be produced and after taking measurements, she decided to make her own patterns. She needed help to get her business going.
Weaver contacted the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) and asked at least a thousand questions about the right way to set up a business. Armed with information about how to keep her books and what is and isn't tax deductibl, she made her first uniform and K&P Weaver LLC was born. Eight years later, Weaver still loves what she does and she has plenty to keep her busy.
Going back to the beginning, Weaver refurbished a room in her Orange home that's dedicated solely to the business with special shelving, a cutting table and several industrial-type sewing machines.
And, don't forget the dressmaker's dummy she uses to fit the uniforms, all of which are custom made. An example of her attention to detail and authenticity is the fact that she researched the military's Quartermaster's Department and makes all garments to their specifications, including hand-sewing where necessary.
While Paula was getting the business up and running, Ken developed an interest in vintage baseball teams and even put together a team of his own. It wasn't long before she was checking out the number of stitches to the inch and the overall workmanship on the period baseball uniforms and accessories the men wore.
And, it wasn't much of a stretch to add vintage baseball uniforms to the company's growing list of authentic clothing and other items such as hand-sewn, reproduction, leather baseballs made according to the original specifications.
The company doubled sales in 2001 over the previous year and the Weavers hope to do even better this year because of a licensing agreement with Major League Baseball. While researching the baseball uniforms, Weaver found out that making certain uniforms might infringe upon licensing agreements with Major League Baseball. For example, the New York Yankees owned the rights to vintage teams such as the New York Highlanders and the New York Gothams (now the San Francisco Giants), Weaver says.
While researching at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, she made invaluable contacts which, eventually, led to a licensing agreement under the Cooperstown Collection label to make reproduction 1880s lace-up style shirts.
“The Kahn's Hot Dog Company owns the concession rights for the Cincinnati Reds games. We were asked to make a dozen vintage uniforms for their 'Kahn's Retros' to wear during games,” Weaver says.
When asked if she sewed her own clothes, she chuckles. “I did for many years,” Weaver says, “but I don't have time to these days.
The Grass Is Always Greener
Orange Hills' Smith Morgan isn't handicapped making her mark in the traditionally male environs of country-club management
Judy Smith-Morgan first picked up a golf club at age eight. At one time, her handicap was down to a pretty respectable 14. These days, she doesn't have much time these days to work on her game - now she owns and manages the club.
“Today my handicap is 24,” acknowledges Smith-Morgan, “because I don't get to play as much. At one stretch I won the club championship five years in a row.” Those days, perhaps, are over, superceded by a higher calling.
Smith-Morgan is general manager/co-owner of the Orange Hills Country Club in Orange, a family business that dates back more than 50 years to her grandfather's nine-hole course.
“My mother and father took over the business and slowly bought land surrounding the course until we had 135 acres and were able to expand and build an 18-hole course,” Smith-Morgan recalls.
Smith-Morgan attended the University of Connecticut and earned a degree in marketing in 1983. From there she headed to Washington, D.C. and took an office manager's position with a consulting firm.
After several months she returned to Connecticut to attend graduate school, receiving her MBA in restaurant and hotel management from the University of New Haven in 1986. She became a full-time instructor at UNH before she returned to the family business. She remained on the staff at UNH for several years as an adjunct instructor and was advisor to the school's Student Catering Club.
Since 1988, Smith-Morgan has been responsible for day-to-day operations of the business while her father and siblings take care of course maintenance and other aspects of the business.
There are 17,108 golf courses in the U.S. today; 72 percent (some 12,335 in all) are open to the public, according to the National Golf Foundation (NGF).
The average 18-hole daily-fee golf course records 30,000 rounds annually, employs the equivalent of 13 full-time workers and generates about $992,000 in annual revenues.
Orange Hills employs 50 full- and part-time workers. “Every year the business increases about ten percent,” Smith-Morgan says - “as long as Mother Nature cooperates. Too much or too little rain can be disastrous and affect the bottom line and projections.”
According to the Connecticut State Golf Association (CSGA), there are 26.7 million golfers age 12 and over in the U.S. In Connecticut, the CSGA serves 165 member clubs and more than 53,000 member golfers. Orange Hills is a member and Smith-Morgan was recently named a special advisor to that group's management committee - the first woman to hold such a post in the organization's 103-year history.
Whichever way the wind (or rain) blows, golf is big business in America. At the end of 2000, there were 707 courses under construction and 1,049 in the planning stages nationwide.
And, since 1986, overall spending by golfers in the U.S. on fees and equipment increased from $7.8 billion to $22.2 billion each year (1999 figures).
In addition to her golf-related positions, awards and memberships, Smith-Morgan is active in the life of her community.
She was elected in 1995 and again in 1999 to sit on the Town Planning & Zoning Commission, where she is currently is that group's vice chairperson. Smith-Morgan was named Businessperson of the Year by the Orange Chamber of Commerce in 1998.
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