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CommunityMilitary spouses make their own job opportunities
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Nineteen-month-old Christian Rust of Great Mills explores his reflection in a mirror during a class at Kiddos Baby and Toddler Gym in California while his mother Susan looks on.
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‘‘OK, kids, let’s bounce! Shall we bounce?”
Leonard, whose husband is stationed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station as a weapons systems officer in the F-18 aircraft, opened the gym in August 2007. ‘‘I was ready to do something for myself,” said Leonard, who moved to St. Mary’s County with her family in June 2007. ‘‘[I was ready to] have something for myself, something fun” after staying home with her two young children for two years, she said.
It was at a preschool in South Carolina, during one of her Marine husband’s previous tours of duty that Leonard got her inspiration for the gym. The preschool had a waiting room with brightly colored mats. ‘‘I thought it would be great to have a bigger [play area], and incorporate activities,” said Leonard. But she faced some challenges as a military spouse. ‘‘It’s hard to get established” in a new place, said Leonard, who opened the gym just two months after moving here. Also, she can’t always depend on her husband to help out, since he is often out of town or deployed.
On the other hand, said Leonard, ‘‘You already have that network of other military moms, and they’re all willing to support you.”
Similarly, Kristin Dugan, owner of The Jump Yard in Lexington Park, a recreation facility for small children with inflatable bouncers, slides and obstacle courses, said that being a military spouse can come in handy when it comes to marketing: ‘‘Word gets around pretty fast through the military wives.”
Dugan’s husband, a Navy helicopter pilot, transferred to Pax River in July 2006. Dugan, who had seen a similar facility in Virginia Beach, decided to open The Jump Yard because there was ‘‘nothing around here for kids to do. I wanted a fun, safe place for younger kids.”
When Dugan was setting up the facility, members of the VX-1 Spouses’ Club helped out. ‘‘They were the ones who helped me paint, do the bathroom stalls, put down flooring, [and] bring in the jumps.” The business opened its doors in March 2007.
Dugan said she prefers owning her own business to working for someone else. ‘‘I can set my own hours, my kids can come here ... What [could be] a better place to have my kids?”
It can be difficult for the spouses of military members to pursue their chosen careers while moving from place to place, said Linda DeBroeck, work and family life consultant at the Fleet and Family Support Center at NAS Patuxent River. ‘‘Spouses are coming here with degrees... A lot of times it’s difficult for them to get into the positions [they want] without state licensures,” said DeBroeck.
Many spouses start home-based businesses such as Creative Memories, Pampered Chef, Avon and Mary Kay, DeBroeck said. The advantage of a home-based business is that it is often portable, she said. ‘‘If they leave here in another three years, they can take that business with them.”
The Fleet and Family Support Center provides classes for military spouses to help them find work while living a military lifestyle. One of the classes is called ‘‘Portable Careers,” and uses a curriculum developed by Staffcentrix, a company that helps military spouses become employed as ‘‘military spouse virtual assistants” in fields such as administrative support, medical transcripting, and editing and proofreading.
The center also touches on entrepreneurship in two of its other classes, ‘‘Spouse Career⁄Life” and ‘‘Career Connection,” said DeBroeck. But DeBroeck said that in her time at Pax River, she’s only spoken to ‘‘a handful of people” who have started brick-and-mortar businesses in the community.
For The Jump Yard’s Dugan, the success of her business has been ‘‘beyond my wildest dreams.” Summer camps and schools have started booking her facility, and the gym is filled with birthday parties on the weekends.
But both Leonard’s and Dugan’s husbands will be transferring again soon - Leonard in June and Dugan in about a year. As a result, both owners are looking for buyers for their respective businesses. Though both hope to start new businesses at their next duty stations, they have both made the decision to sell, instead of hiring people to manage the businesses. ‘‘It’s too hard to manage from afar,” said Dugan.
