The Risk Takers

Sometimes changing careers becomes imperative. Markets

change. Family situations shift. A job no longer satisfies.style="mso-spacerun: yes">

A career switch may be tough, but those who have done it—and

not only survived but prospered—say the emotional and physical investment is

well worth making. Here’s how four Southwest Florida business professionals who

created new professional identities for themselves.

A new career?

No objection here.

Five years ago, Otis Mehlberg faced a turning point. Would

he continue to capitalize on his law degree as a district attorney in

Wisconsin’s Rock County? Or should he rescue his brother’s cultured marble art

business in Fort Myers?

He weighed the payoffs of his steady job versus the

dissatisfaction of continuing to work in a field that wasn’t making him happy.

Then 32, Mehlberg asked himself, “How will I feel when, 20 years from now, a

younger person asks me if I’m fulfilled? Is the security worth the loss?” He

sought the counsel of his father and two career attorneys. Without exception or

hesitation, they said, “Go!” He decided that if a career only means money,

rather than helping people, he’d missed the point.

With that, Mehlberg started working in his brother-in-law’s

cultured marble production shop. He later bought into the business and, with

the equipment he already had, turned the company’s focus to the manufacture of

solid-surface countertops. The next step will be taking the company, StoneRich

Inc., into the high-end market for kitchens and master baths with a new

technology called engineered stone.

It helps that the company is in a segment of the market

that’s roaring along at 20 percent growth a year, Mehlberg admits. Customers

also appreciate that the company’s president used to be a prosecuting attorney.

“It lends credibility,” he notes.

StoneRich makes 80 percent of sales, virtually all from

referrals, directly to homeowners. Having worked in sales before getting his

law degree, Mehlberg understood the value of going all out for customers. His

policy of using his business to help others continues to guide the company and

its 14 employees. Sales are poised to double again this year.

To others considering switching careers, Mehlberg offers

this advice: Be teachable. “I’m not bright enough to come up with all the

answers,” he says. “But I can listen, take an idea I’ve heard from any person

anywhere, and make it better.”

Taking risks builds confidence.

Over and over, Debbie Briscoe of Fort Myers has taken on

reasonable risks, confident that should a venture flag, she will be able to

come out from under. Her confidence grows each time she steps outside her

comfort zone and succeeds.

Through the 1990s, Briscoe metamorphosed from a paper jockey

in the billing department of a private, 12-member internal medicine practice

into the business development manager for Columbia/HCA, which managed three

hospitals and 600 doctors. Along the way, she transformed antiquated paperwork

procedures into efficient, technology-driven systems. She invented and refined,

then taught her employers how to upgrade their practice. “I love to map a route

to a desired result where steps along the way don’t yet exist,” says Briscoe.

But she did her job a little too well: The company laid her off because her

position was no longer needed.

Briscoe’s next venture, an 18-month position she termed the

best she ever had, was collaborating with an MBA classmate and chief executive

officer of a dot-com on a local Internet startup called Whoodoo Studios, a Fort

Myers-based search engine. She took a pay cut to work 24-7 as a stakeholder,

vice president and director of public and investor relations. Climbing another

learning curve, she applied canny business acumen, developed a sales team and

foresaw online advertising strategies that would end-run around the coming

industry nosedive. Still, funding dried up.

Reassessing in 2001, Briscoe decided her next priority was

to balance her professional and personal life. As a now single mother of two,

she looked to Gartner Inc., a global information technology research firm, for

a simpler role where she had only to manage herself and clients, not an entire

company or hundreds of workers. As a 36-year-old global account manager in

Gartner’s Fort Myers office, she’s still in the business of fixing clients’

problems. This time, she’s taking Fortune 100 companies’ information technology

into 21st century. But this time, her salary is based on commission. “Working

without a salary is a different risk and requires a different mindset,” Briscoe

says.

Briscoe’s rapport with company executives recently landed a

promotion and two major Gartner corporate accounts. “I’ve never been afraid to

try new things,” says Briscoe, who put herself through graduate school. “What

I’m doing now is dynamic, a good match for me.” With her current 40- to

50-hour-a-week job on track, the next step is a doctorate in business and

information technology.

She offers these words of advice for professionals

considering a jump to another career. “The best you can do is make a decision

based on current knowledge and gut feeling,” she says. “If you make a mistake,

you can benefit. Just harden your skin and grow.”

Experimenting with various professions.

Bill van arsdale’s only regret is that he didn’t discover

his current career sooner. It wasn’t for lack of experimenting. His eclectic

route has included segments as a schoolteacher, business phone system

consultant and salesman, home renovator, treasure hunter and producer of video

travel guides. “You never know what a

business is until you get into it,” he says.

Van Arsdale learned that he makes more money in sales than

in production. Now, at 50, established as a residential realtor with Premier

Properties (specializing in his family’s home base of Old Naples and Port

Royal), he treasures his network of friends, neighbors and colleagues. Still,

he notes, “It’s not who you know. It’s who likes you.” The goal is to invite

clients to consider him as their personal realtor.

With a family and the future expense of putting his three

children (aged 2, 11 and 13) through college, Van Arsdale has postponed taking

his ideal, permanent job: traveling to beautiful places, dressed in shorts and

T-shirts (which he got a taste of when he worked as a videographer and treasure

hunter). He’s curtailed his travel to a circuit of exquisite homes in Naples.

By putting in 50-hour, seven-day weeks, he’s made it work. The payoff: a life

offering daily opportunities to meet people from around the world.

Van Arsdale’s eclectic professional experience shapes some

unusual marketing strategies. He publishes the Old Naples Restaurant Guide, in

which he’s the only realtor advertised. He sets clients’ houses apart by providing

a walk-through video available on cassette and, soon, on his Web site at

www.billvanhomes.com.

Van Arsdale believes everyone lives through high and low

points in their careers. It takes faith to survive them. “Fear is part of the

human condition,” he observes. “And the one thing I’ve learned is that the only

antidote for fear is faith.”

Taking time for transition.

Former real estate appraisers, teachers, athletes and

computer executives make up part of the Grubb & Ellis/VIP-D’Alessandro team

in Fort Myers. They’ve brought a wealth of lessons learned from past lives to

start from scratch in a career that requires experience. And John Kremski is no

different.

By his last semester in college, Kremski, now 44, knew his

future lay in commercial real estate sales. But it took almost 20 years to get

there. He started as a residential real estate appraiser and quickly moved into

city planning, where he rose from assistant planner to director of planning for

the city of Fort Myers. He could have retired in that job. Instead, Kremski

asked himself, “Do I want to do this for the rest of my life?”

Kremski liked meeting with developers and community groups

on large-scale economic development projects. And he recognized the value of

working with influential decision-makers. But he wanted more challenge and room

to grow, even if it meant taking the plunge from a steady salary and municipal

benefits to the uncertainty of working on commission as an independent

contractor. At that point, he says, “You hold your nose and jump.”

Now, two years into his new career as a commercial real

estate adviser, Kremski admits he’s a bit surprised that it took nearly that

long to complete the changeover, even powering along at 60 hours a week. He’s

kept up independent consulting work as a planner through the transition.

Planning, which contributed half of his first-year income, will represent just

one-tenth of his time in his third year as an adviser. “What planning I do now

helps clients and friends or leads to new real estate business, which is much

more fun,” he says.

Changing careers has been harder than he anticipated. Yet

Kremski thrives on the technical challenge and highly competitive environment

of commercial real estate. He finds his established network of contacts

helpful. The biggest advantage, though, is “knowing how to get around the real

estate market.” Despite a current shortage of “appropriately priced” commercial

properties, he’s satisfied with his results and foresees no limit to

opportunities for growth.

With any new endeavor, it’s easy to get discouraged and

retreat to a safety net. Yet Kremski has taken his own best advice: “Never give

up,” he says. “Have confidence. And be ready to tackle anything that comes

along. Because everything changes.”

Ten Tips for Surviving a Major Career Change

Experts Melinda Milas and Patricia Varley offer essential

help for handling a job transition. Vilas is co-owner of Sarasota-based Coach U

and Corporate Coach U, the world’s largest virtual training school of personal

and business coaches, with 6,500 students in 36 countries. Varley is a