Pamela Swingley is a seasoned software executive with more than 20 years experience working with technology companies of all sizes. With a passion for early stage companies, she managed the marketing strategy and programs for three successful startups: Onlink Technologies which was acquired by Siebel, Shoplink Collision Estimating, a division of ADP, and Gate58 Marketing. In 2005, she founded Savvy Internet Marketing, a consulting firm specializing in online marketing, website design and usability. Pam holds a BS degree in Human Development from UC Davis and an MBA from Saint Mary’s College in Moraga.

To an outsider, Pam’s career looked like a major success story but those in her inner circle knew she was not happy. Three hours a day in a car commuting was tiresome and Pam felt she was missing out on quality of life. Her 81 year old father needed more attention and Pam worried about his glaucoma. He was forgetting to take his prescription eye drops several times a day and was close to losing his vision.

Pam developed a text messaging system to remind her father to put in his eye drops. It was a great solution for Pam’s father to manage his medications and maintain his independence. After realizing that other families could benefit from this type of service, Pam assembled a software development team to create RememberItNow!   Read Full Story

Quintessential Jill-of-all-trades, Jo Laurie has experienced many career changes in her life. As a young student in her native England, Jo was pushed into the empirical sciences in school and specialized early on in chemistry, physics, and math. She is dyslexic and these disciplines were meant to help her focus on her strengths with numbers and equations.

Jo was successful in the sciences and in the British system under Margaret Thatcher; she was paid to attend university (free tuition plus a stipend) and earned a BSc (Hons), a degree with honors in Psychology. While Jo was stimulated intellectually, she yearned for a more creative outlet. So she left England and headed to New York City to reinvent herself and test-drive a new world. Read Full Story

An academic by training, Jacqueline Edelberg earned her PhD in Political Science and taught at the University of Osnabrück in Germany as a Fulbright scholar. After the international teaching stint, Jacqueline returned to her beloved Chicago with her husband, Andrew ready to give birth to their first child. After a very complicated and difficult delivery, Jacqueline was relieved and fortunate to have a healthy baby.  The experience ignited her maternal instincts and she wanted to focus completely on nurturing her infant daughter for the next six months.

While Jacqueline relished her new role as a mother, the pangs of career guilt began to set in for this professor-turned-mom who craved intellectual stimulation and challenge. Struggling with the proverbial question of “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Jacqueline took the advice of a dear relative who shared that raising a child is a special time in a mother’s life, and a very short one at that. She cautioned Jacqueline to enjoy this time with her daughter and to be confident that the work would always be there when she was ready to go back. Little did Jacqueline know that her future career would be to mobilize a grass roots movement rehabilitating neighborhood schools in her Chicago community and across the nation. Read Full Story

It all began for Candace Alper when she was on maternity leave. In Canada, new moms are able to take up to a year off which has led to a growing number of mompreneurs in the country. Having a year to herself and her new baby, Candace was able to take the time to think about her life and her career. With an infant daughter, she started singing the songs all moms know and love but she would incorporate Hannah’s name to personalize the tunes.

Before long – “If You’re Happy and You Know It” became “If You’re Hannah and You Know It” and the idea of Name Your Tune was born. Candace’s husband, Eric works in the music industry and he supported the idea of the new business venture and also brought significant skills and expertise to the table. From the beginning, the focus has been on making music fun for children and parents alike. By customizing songs with a child’s name, this wife and husband team have been able to take classic children’s songs to a new place. Read Full Story

Born the youngest of five children in the small town of Sumter, South Carolina, Ginger Hodge was a bit shy as a child.  With the love and support of her 3^rd Grade teacher, Ginger found the confidence to embrace her imagination and create unique ways to entertain herself and those around her.  Those who know her best love that she always seems to have a new song, game, joke or story to share.

Ginger landed her first job performing singing-balloon-a-grams while attending the College of Charleston. After graduation, she struggled to find her own way by dabbling with a few restaurant, real estate, and ad agency jobs. When she finally found her niche, in the movie industry, she was able to use her unique passion for entertaining others to market family-friendly films. But Ginger’s true passion for living wasn’t fully ignited until she published her first children’s book: When Donkeys Fly. Read Full Story

Finding it hard to sit still at a desk job, Anne Roos had many occupations over the years before she found her dream career. She was a high school teacher in northern California but didn’t feel supported by the administration and soon burned out because it was not a good fit. All along she had been pursuing her passion on the weekends as a harpist for weddings, concerts and special events. But could she actually make money as a full-time musician? Read Full Story

Kim Daly has worn many hats during her professional career from an Executive Briefing Program Manger to the Director of Global Travel Operations. In her previous life, Kim was working a full 40-hour week and spending 20 additional hours running errands and doing a plethora of other miscellaneous tasks. Her free time was hardly spent doing the things she wanted to do. She soon discovered that there were many people in the same position– their lives were lost to mundane chores.

So, Kim created The Urbane Concierge for people like her. But rather than simply start a personal assistant service, she wanted to offer something special. For 30+ years Kim worked as an event planner and global travel arranger, and her clients demanded a unique experience. And that’s what she vowed her new company would offer. Kim’s concierges are experts at delivering intangibles beyond simply serving your needs. They become an extension of yourself, anticipating your requirements and accomplishing tasks the way you would want them to be done. That’s why all her services are customized and Kim wouldn’t have it any other way. Many people start businesses out of necessity, and that is certainly the case with The Urbane Concierge. Kim was ready for a change. Read Full Story

Mary McManus, Boston Marathon finisher,inspirational speaker, published poet, entrepreneur & former award winning social worker turned adversity on its head after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome in December, 2006. Mary turned to writing inspirational poetry to heal her life. She never imagined the path that would unfold before her. Read Full Story

For 25 years Carol Covin enjoyed a career in the computer industry as a software engineer but in 1997 something significant happened that would change the course of her career dramatically. Carol’s colleague, with inoperable stomach cancer, found an obscure cancer treatment developed by a scientist in the late 1970s. It was held by a private scientific library the scientist endowed to hold his papers before he died in 1986. Carol’s friend followed the scientist’s suggested cancer treatment protocol and his 30-pound tumor was gone in six weeks. Read Full Story

Janet Sanders went to law school because she wanted to exercise her philanthropic muscles. After reading an article in Time magazine about a parent/child support center, she aspired to open a similar facility in her native Philadelphia. By pursuing a law degree, Janet thought she would gain the skill set and professional competencies necessary to realize her dream. She did in fact hone these transferable skills, but her career went in a different direction than she had planned. Read Full Story