By Lisa Capone, Globe Correspondent, 12/21/2003
In the prime of his high-tech career a few years ago, Thom VanHorn was commuting three hours a day and working upwards of 80 hours a week in technology marketing. Boasting more frequent flier miles than anyone he knew and once logging 200,000 miles of business air travel in one year, VanHorn would sometimes wake up at night and not know where he was.
Then, in 2001, the economy weakened and -- to hear VanHorn tell it -- something wonderful happened. He lost his job. Now, instead of racing through airports and sitting in highway traffic, the 39-year-old Newbury resident meanders along back roads to Marblehead, where he's the proprietor of Authors and Artists, a bookstore and art gallery that offers general reading books, first editions, rare volumes, and limited-edition prints.
The store had its grand opening last month, and VanHorn has worked 12-hour days, with only two days off, since buying the business in September. But he's not complaining. “I don't even feel like going home some days,” he said. “I think the change of economic conditions gave people an opportunity to sit back and decide what was important.”
Here's what many have decided, according to those who run business development programs at North Shore and Northern Essex community colleges: the perks of corporate employment don't compare with the benefits of working near their families, following their passion, and having more control over their lives. VanHorn is riding a wave of entrepreneurial spirit, say officials at the colleges, both of which are experiencing significant increases in demand for programs aimed at helping new business owners.
At North Shore Community College , based in Danvers , demand is up for Courses such as aesthetician training, jewelry making, and interior design. People are saying “I want to start a business -- this is not just for my leisure,” said Dianne Palter Gill, dean of workforce development and community education, adding that most are “people who have already had a career and are making a shift.”
“We have seen the trend slowly building over the past year,” Palter Gill said. “It has especially in the last six months shifted, and we have seen more and more people enrolling in classes that years ago were leisure classes. Because we have seen a trend in that direction, we have developed a series of courses that are designed to help people start new businesses.”
Most students in the entrepreneurial training program at Northern Essex Community College are between 35 and 60, and about 80 percent of them want to start businesses unrelated to their previous careers.
“They've always had a dream in the background, and they say ‘I'm at a stage in my life when life is finite and I can see that it's finite, and I want to do something that's meaningful to me,’ “ said Paul Jermain, who runs the program.
VanHorn has collected books since college, and said he always hoped to open a bookstore one day. But, said his wife, Traci VanHorn, “he thought he'd be about 70.” Traci VanHorn also recently launched her own business, a public relations agency, after the technology firm she worked for closed.
Similarly, David Colt of Peabody said he's been honing photography skills since high school. Getting laid off from his product management and marketing position at Genuity in 2001 prompted him to start a photography business, David Colt Photography, sooner rather than later. During 20 years of corporate life, Colt, 49, was laid off four times. The latest one, affecting 800 Genuity employees, “sort of pushed me over the edge,” he said.
“It got to a 'how many times do I want to go through this?' thing for me,” Colt said. “This [photography company] has got its own level of stress, no question. But it's a different level of stress. The ultimate success or failure is up to you, and you're not subject to what other people do or don't, other than your clients.”
While Frederick Young, director of the Small Business Development Center at Salem State College, said he hasn't detected a surge in new business start-ups, the center's free courses offered at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill are seeing a “dramatic” increase in demand, said Diane Zold-Isenberg, manager of business and professional development programs at Northern Essex .
Six months ago, those programs drew about 12 students per semester, she said. This fall, 52 people enrolled and there was a waiting list of 15. She added that 50 people -- a previously “unheard of” number -- are waiting to enroll in Jermain's entrepreneurial training program, which Northern Essex will offer again in January if funding is approved.
Rob Weiner of Haverhill and Michael Whitney of Amesbury, both graduates of Jermain's program, no longer work in corporate cubicles. Weiner, 44, said he had thought he would retire as an electrical engineer, but when Analog Devices laid him off in 2002 he became a chimney sweep. In April, he founded Barberry Chimney Services as “an opportunity to do something for myself and not something for a corporation that doesn't appreciate you.”
Whitney, 49, was a software engineer for 22 years until the market for his consulting services dried up. Educated as a biologist and soil scientist,he founded Naturescapes of New England in the spring. Now, instead of designing computer programs, he designs native plantings and builds traditional stonewalls.
“There was a point where the environment I was working in in business had changed so dramatically. It was every man for himself now with no loyalty to anyone,” Whitney said. “I finally hit the wall and looked at it. Why am I banging my head against the wall to be here? Why don't I go where my heart is?''
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