Climbing Down the Corporate Ladder and Up the Mountain

BLUE JAY, Calif. — For demonstrating dedication and willingness to get the job done during more than 30 years in the corporate world, Bill Benner, 53, earned his place on the throne, which turns out to be a stack of 50-pound peanut bags, the closest thing he has, or wants, to an office chair.

There he sits, chatting with customers and friends near the front door of his shop after resigning as vice president of operations and human resources for Builders Emporium seven years ago, shedding his suits and ties and fleeing the city, like a hound-chased fox.

He makes bird feeders now. His handcrafted inventions are among more than 350 styles offered at Wild Birds Forever in a town with a fitting name, Blue Jay, located in the San Bernardino Mountains near Lake Arrowhead.

He owns and operates the business with his wife, Mary Kay Benner, 41, who used to be a regional sales manager for Westcorp Software Systems Inc. This less-confining life suits them, she said.

“The other day I put on pantyhose and heels for the first time in a long time, and I could barely walk.”

The Benners, like many people you meet in this mountain retreat, used to be somebody else, somewhere else. The guy churning out caramel apples at the chocolate shop was in sales. The guy at the waffle house worked in the aerospace industry. The folks making beds and serving coffee at the inn were in corporate sales and marketing.

In their former lives, a small voice spoke to them as they sat miserably in traffic or trudged through jammed airports. It whispered to them as they lay in bed after clicking off the nightly news: drive-bys, car chases. No change in the weather.

As they sat in meetings, their minds wandered. Through layoffs and mergers, through smog and a burgeoning consciousness of mortality, the voice became louder until it was, finally, a desperate scream: “I gotta get out of here!”

And so they did. They made their break, became their own bosses, leaving behind cherished expense accounts, lucrative salaries, stock options and friends who thought they had gone mad--all for the sake of leaving madness behind.

“It takes me five minutes to get to work,” Bill Benner said. “We’re going to live a little longer because of the choice we made.”

The allure of small-town life and the impulse to be your own boss reflect a broader shift among many Americans in the definition of success, said Kim Gordon, author of “Bringing Home the Business” (Perugree/Putnam, 2000).

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In the past, success was the domain of those with high salaries in corner offices with high-profile corporations. Now, according to one study Gordon cited, the three primary considerations have become family or relationships, time for family and friends, and being in control of one’s life.

“It’s a very good and apt description of what Americans are now seeking,” she said. “Right now, 24 million people own their own home-based businesses, and one-third of all Americans do some or all their work in a home office.”

A record 898,000 new firms with employees opened across the country in 1998, the most recent year for which figures were available. That represents a 1.5% increase over the previous year, according to the Small Business Administration.

Raymond Boggs, vice president of small business and home office research for the International Data Corp., said the number of home-based businesses is increasing even faster, at an annual rate of 6% to 7%.

Of course, it doesn’t always work out, said Leslie McLellan, director of marketing for the Arrowhead Communities Chamber of Commerce. Some arrive in the Lake Arrowhead area only with romantic notions of hiking through golden dogwood autumns, sitting by the fireplace as snow flutters in the night like silver feathers.

“Then they realize they have to drive in it,” McLellan said. “Winters drive some people out. . . . They give up their corporate jobs and buy a business, but they have no idea what that business is about. They come in and say, ‘Oh, we should advertise?’ We lose 15% or so of our members [every year] because there are people who don’t make it, but there are far more people coming in than there are leaving.”

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According to the Small Business Administration, only 50% of small businesses survive their first year. By the 10th year, between 80% and 90% have failed.

The Arrowhead chamber, serving a growing area of about 12,000 people, also has seen its membership steadily increase to nearly 450. Three years ago, the chamber initiated an entrepreneurs’ group. Six people showed up for the first meeting, and by the end of the first year there were about a dozen members, said John Lorenz, who heads the group. There now are 65 members.

“My standard line now is, ‘So who were you in your former life?’ ”

Formerly an executive with Pan Am, Lorenz said technology and, in particular, the Internet, are allowing people to strike out on their own, work for themselves and live where they want to live.

The Benners started their storefront business in Anaheim Hills, where they were living, but the business didn’t fly, so to speak. Mary Kay initially kept her job with Westcorp while Bill got the store going, but even with her income, Bill had to go back to work, leaving the store to the care of his daughter.

He found a job as consultant for a retail liquidator.

“I had to walk in the store, tell everybody the store’s closing in nine weeks, and I’m the guy here to do it. All of a sudden you got a black hat and a six-shooter strapped on you.”

It was, for him, the final straw. Seeking new ways to make the business work, Mary Kay fired up four Web sites. Business picked up, and the ensuing profits allowed them to leave the city and move to the mountains, pursuing a lifestyle they had long envisioned. Internet sales now account for more than half of their business.

In addition to bird feed and feeders, they sell bird thermometers, birdhouses, bird T-shirts, bird books, bird cards, birdbaths, bird nest builders, bird earrings, bird videos. You name it. . . .

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They consider themselves hobbyists, not experts, but in the course of building their business, they have learned a great deal about birds and bird lovers.

“Chickadees and western bluebirds normally will nest twice a year, sometimes three times a year,” Bill tells a customer. “Keep the hole away from prevailing winds. A little sawdust inside helps. They can’t smell, but they think it’s a freshly bored-out cavity. It helps them in their decision process.”

The Benners needed no help deciding to abandon their former lives.

“I’ll never work for someone else again,” Mary Kay said. “I can sleep now. Before, I would always lay awake thinking about sales meetings and quotas and deadlines. Now I sleep.”

About a mile down the road from their home, Bruce Jessel wakes early. By 4:30, he can’t wait to go to work.

Jessel is at his desk at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory by 6. By 7, he’s making caramel, a 2 1/2-hour process--if you do it right.

He and wife, Neva Jessel, bought the shop in November 1997. He had worked in sales for Scott Paper Co. almost 27 years before the company merged, and he went to work for Sunshine Biscuits for two years. Then it, too, merged.

“I was very despondent,” he said. “I felt it was too much for me to handle. I was tired of the mergers. I was tired of the rat race, so that’s when I left the corporate world.”

At the time, he and Neva were living in Torrance and had a second home in Lake Arrowhead. One day they were giving guests a tour of the village when they walked into the chocolate shop. Jessel told the owner she had a nice store.

“Wanna buy it?” she asked.

As a matter of fact, he did. For four months, he thought about it, weighing the risks against the prospect of going through another merger. Without even studying the books, he decided to take her up on her offer.

“He had never cooked a day in his life,” Neva said. “He didn’t even boil water. When he told me he was going to be cooking fudge, I thought he’d lost his marbles.”

That’s a typical reaction to those who risk their savings to run their own businesses, but Bruce was confident he could make it work.

“I wasn’t the least bit nervous. I knew I could do it. I felt like I was on a mission. The only thing that bothered me was that I used my IRA to buy the store, and I didn’t know how long it would take for the store to do well.”

But basic principles--good product, good service, hard work--prevailed. It didn’t take long before the store was turning a profit, allowing him to invest in the business as well as retirement.

Neva keeps telling him he needs to train someone in case he gets sick or wants to take more time off. He works seven days a week, although he tries to leave early on Wednesdays. Neva works five days a week.

He keeps looking for ways to improve and expand the business.

“The mail-order business is really doing well for us. We ship all across the country. We shipped 300 apples to a guy in Maryland last Christmas because he said he couldn’t get apples like ours anywhere else.”

Initially, Bruce told Neva they might keep the store a couple years, then retire. He’s 62, and she’s 59.

“Now he’s talking about 10 years,” said Neva. “I say huh-uh. No way, cowboy. We have five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.”

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It won’t be easy to change Bruce’s mind.

“I’m the happiest guy in the world. This is the highlight of my life. I’m doing something I never thought possible. As you get older, you lose confidence in yourself. You wonder, ‘Can I still do this? Can I get better? Is this it?’ I’ve got so much confidence now. Maybe there’s something else out there for me. Maybe this isn’t it.”

The Jessels say they have never questioned their decision to leave the rat race, but on the lower level of the village, in a restaurant overlooking the lake, Bob and Mary Baker remember doubting themselves after only one day in business.

It was a helluva day, a restaurant’s “perfect storm.” There were plumbing problems and a busted water heater, forcing them to close. When a repairman cut himself, they searched through snow trying to find his finger. A snowplow slid into the lake. Then, before they could catch their breath, the first in a series of 50-year storms hit.

After three weeks in business, they had grossed $17.

The first time Bob and Mary Baker had left the restaurant, there was a 5-by-7-inch card in the window. “For sale,” it announced. They were living in Huntington Beach at the time. Bob was a logistics engineering department manager for Ford Aerospace, and Mary was regional coordinating director for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Mergers were taking place, and the writing was on the wall for Bob. If he survived the layoffs, he would probably have to relocate.

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It was November, and restaurant patrons were bundled up and seated outside at card tables. In the kitchen was a conference table with three antique waffle irons and an 18-inch J.C. Penney griddle. The waffles, however, were delicious.

Someone with management and customer service experience could really turn this place around, Bob thought. Then he saw the card with a telephone number on it. His now-famous words were, “Well, it never hurts to call.”

That’s how they came to own the Belgian Waffle Works nearly 10 years ago.

“It was the beginning of the adventure,” Bob, 60, said. After considerable remodeling and installation of a kitchen, they opened on a Saturday in March 1991, the day the water heater died. Water was everywhere, and they had to close the restaurant. While it was being fixed, the repairman sliced his hand.

“We were rummaging around in the snow looking for his finger,” Mary, 56, said. “We found it, and I put it in a plastic bag and took it to the hospital so they could sew it back on.”

In the meantime, a snowplow clearing the area in front of the restaurant hit a patch of black ice and swerved into the lake. By late afternoon, they had gotten the restaurant ready to open the next day. Then more plumbing problems surfaced, and they were back at work with mops.

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When Sunday came, more snow arrived. It was being measured in feet, not inches. The village was shut down. Roads weren’t plowed. The Bakers were able to open the following Saturday, but another storm hit on Sunday. The following Sunday, the third storm hit.

“By that time,” Mary said, “I’m sitting here thinking, ‘Bob, our whole retirement’s tied up here. Why did we leave our lovely little house in Huntington Beach? We could be playing with our grandchildren instead of sitting in 20 feet of snow.’ Our electricity at home went out, so for three days, we were sitting in front of the fireplace eating hot dogs wondering what in the world we had done.”

Bob was never one to give up easily. Admittedly, it was a rocky start. They had invested heavily. It was all they could do to make payroll. For the first time in their lives, they had to ask creditors--some of them neighbors--if they could make partial payments.

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Friends and family members who visited them were roped into helping in the kitchen. Bob was up at 6 in the morning, shoveling snow leading to what was then the least desirable business location in the village. They were working 18-hour days.

But the waffles still tasted great.

In nine years, they’ve gone from $17 in three weeks to $500,000 a year. Last year, they served 81,000 customers. They have built an outdoor patio, and the wait to get in can be two hours. Their waffle mix is sold in stores and hotels.

And, every once in a while, they look up to the sky at sunset and see pinks and purples and colors they have never seen before.

“One night,” said Mary, “I closed up the shop and drove home. I got out of the car, and, I swear to goodness, I had never seen anything like it before. The lake and the trees were black, and the sky was the most beautiful mint green I had ever seen. It looked like a Van Gogh painting. The stars were just coming out, and I thought, I have to run in and tell Bob about this. Then I thought, ‘No, this is mine.’ I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it. I thought if I turned away, I would lose it.”

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When they drive to Laguna to visit their son, they wonder how they put up with the city for so long. As difficult as it was to begin new lives, it was worth it, they said. They have found joy, success and beauty in the mountains.

At nearby Skyforest, Richard and Patty Teachout, after a long day, look out at a sweeping view of twinkling lights connected by Mt. San Jacinto to the east and Catalina Island to the west.

They are still in the midst of making improvements to the Storybook Inn, which they bought in March 1999. They have taken two days off in the past year and three months. But at night, when it’s quiet, they, too, see beauty.

“The view puts everything in perspective,” Patty said. “This is what life is meant to be.”

One of the final tasks Richard Teachout performed in the corporate world was to lay off 600 employees.

“It helped me make the decision that this had to happen,” he said. “It was a brutal year of my life, letting people go, and I said, ‘I can’t deal with this anymore.”’

They were living in Sonoma when they decided to quit their jobs and buy the inn. They used about half of the building for their residence, leaving seven rooms and a cabin for occupancy.

They had lived in Lake Arrowhead before, from 1975 to 1991. Richard, 48, was working for Lilyette, a brassiere company that was bought out by Maidenform. Patty, 42, was working for Playtex. Both were commuting “down the hill” to their jobs.

When Richard’s two sons and Patty’s daughter, all from previous marriages, were getting ready to go to college, they realized they had to find higher-paying jobs, so Richard took a promotion in Chicago, then Phoenix then New York, then San Francisco. Patty found work as national sales manager for Birkenstock.

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There wasn’t a day, Richard said, when he didn’t think about returning to Lake Arrowhead. Last year, they got their chance. Built in 1941, the building was in need of considerable repair.

“A Realtor stopped and spent an hour telling me how stupid I was to buy the place,” Richard said. “I had just spent my entire life savings. Everything I have is invested in this property, [and] the Realtor was telling me I’m an idiot.”

They have made some $300,000 in repairs and upgrades to the building and filled it with antiques. There remains a lot of work to be done, but business has been better than projected.

“There’s a big difference from managing several hundred people to now making beds and waiting on people for breakfast and being available to people 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “But I’m a lot more at peace with myself.”

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The hours are long. Patty is up at 5:30 to walk the dogs, Chewy and Tate, then begin to prepare breakfast. After breakfast, assisted by two housekeepers, she cleans rooms. The rest of the day is spent planning weddings and other special events at the inn.

“I can easily work 100 hours a week,” she said. “I don’t mind it because there’s nowhere I would rather be, and I wouldn’t trade places with anybody.”

The change in work and lifestyle is about more than finances. They like the fact that their youngest child, a 14-year-old daughter, can grow up in the mountains; and, in storybook fashion, love is involved.

“Richard has changed a lot,” said Patty. “He’s a much nicer man. I’ve always loved him with all my heart, but when we were in New York, he was a little hard to be around. I think we’ve put 20 years on his life, and I enjoy being with him again. I think we’ve fallen in love all over again.”

When they get a moment, usually late at night, they sit and admire the lights. The rat race looks different from up here. They know that down below, people are in bed after watching the news, perhaps anticipating the coming dawn, hoping for light traffic, listening to a small voice inside their heads.

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Duane Noriyuki can be contacted at [email protected].