9/11 forced her hand; now she woodworks
Each month "Transitions" profiles an individual who has made significant changes in his or her work life and highlights the techniques used to make the changes.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Barbara Brown, like many people, paused to reflect on her life. "If a plane flew into my building and we all went down," Brown recalled thinking, "this is not what I would want to be doing."
At the time Brown was a buyer for the global life sciences firm
For years she had been turning over the idea of going to the North Bennet Street School, a well-known institution for crafts and tradesmen in Boston's North End.
"I was always interested in using my hands," Brown said, recalling that she started working with leather as a pre-teen, progressed to ceramics in high school art classes, later tried silversmithing, and was "part of the macramé craze and made my own clothes in the '60s and' 70s."
Hand-crafted artistry ran in her family. She had been taught when young to sew, making doll clothes with her mother and grandmother. Brown described her father, an architect, as a frustrated artist who needed to do something practical to earn a living during the Depression.
"He was always talking about colors and perspective," Brown said, and he engaged the family in endless household improvement projects that she dubbed "slave labor" at the time, but in retrospect now cherishes as part of the early foundation for her interests.
But like her father, Brown took the road more traveled.
After obtaining her bachelor's degree in business and managing contracts for commodities giant Cargill in Minneapolis for two years, Brown moved to Europe to enroll at the international business school INSEAD, in France. After graduating in 1982, she returned and settled in Boston.
Even then, Brown worked with the arts but did not commit to it full time. She used her French connections to start businesses that imported works from artisans from Paris and the Picardy region. A position as night auditor at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel allowed her to pursue her daytime importing interests. She was promoted to night manager in 1991.
During that time she bought a three-decker in Revere, lived in one unit and rented out the other two, which covered her housing costs and supplemented her salary with rental income.
But the importing business did not flourish as anticipated. Then, when she was passed over several times for a management training program at Marriott, she left to catch the rising high-tech wave of the mid-1990s. She signed on as a marketing manager for semiconductor supplier Comdel.
"I loved it," Brown recalled, citing the wheeling and dealing of contracts and finding ways to create efficiencies in the business. She later took a position as a buyer of medical supplies for Brigham & Women's Hospital, and after that moved to Millipore.
All along, Brown yearned to be doing something with her hands. But she resisted the urge. Not only would it take her away from her business career, she did not know how she could afford to stop working and go to school.
In 2000, a friend told Brown that the value of her house had probably appreciated substantially. She refinanced, taking a six-figure sum of cash out of the transaction. At the time, she was still unsure when she would quit work and pursue her dream.
9/11 was her wake-up call. Pulling together a portfolio of work from hobby projects as well as drawings, Brown applied to North Bennet Street in the cabinet- and furniture-making program, where the two-year program costs about $25,000. She left her job, attended school full time, and served as a journeyman, or apprentice, to professional woodworkers on the side.
Three months before she was due to graduate, her first job came her way. A buyer of a luxury condominium in downtown Boston wanted custom bookshelves . She got the job because she was the only one who had replied to the customer's advertisement.
She immediately panicked. Not only was the job complex and sizable, it needed to be done fast. "I didn't know how to do it. I had no workshop, no experience, and no help," Brown recalled.
Coincidentally, the owner of the shop where she was apprenticing was leaving the area. When he asked if she wanted to buy his shop, she jumped at the chance. She wrote out a check for $5,000 and the shop was hers. A further stroke of luck delayed his departure , so he helped Brown with the complex job.
She graduated from North Bennet Street and hung out her shingle in February 2005. She chose the name Integrity Woodworking as she had visited a Shaker village and learned the Shakers' reputation for fairness had helped them prosper .
"The general wisdom in the business is that it takes five years to get established," Brown said. But she turned a small profit last year. Her desk job at Millipore brought her close to $60,000 a year, and last year she grossed $55,000 in her new business.
Among the jobs in her first 18 months, Brown built a set of kitchen cabinets in five days, as well as pantries, walk-in closets, and stand-alone bookcases.
In the beginning she also worked part time at Rockler Woodworking in Cambridge. Her listing in the Rockler portfolio book still produces jobs for her. In the summer, she teaches a course on non traditional professions for women at Rindge School of Technical Arts in Cambridge.
"I'm loving it," Brown said, exuding her enthusiasm . "I like being able to give people exactly what they want."
Brown also said she is good at concentrating and that the nature of the work demands it. "I find it very relaxing," she said. "I had a lot of jobs where I was required to multitask. Here, you really need to zero in on your work. You can't let your mind wander when you're working on a table saw."
But she wishes she had started 20 years ago. "I guess everything happens in a certain order for a reason."
Most who dream of carving out their own way in the world, she said, "get talked out of it," though she said pursuing such dreams is not as hard as it would appear.
"You have to throw yourself into it," Brown said, "and hope for the best."
Do you have a career transition story you would be willing to share? If so, e-mail transitions@bostonworks.com. Please include your name, phone number, and a brief description of your career change. 
