By the end of the second year,
she grew to 15 and continued
to expand from there.
"We never meant for this to
become a company, upfront.
It was much more organic
than that. There was a clear
problem that I needed to fix
for myself, then I realized that
there was an opportunity to
help others along the way.
Nothing was handed to us or
dropped in our lap, it was just
less strategic upfront. However,
once we got started, we
became a lot more strategic"
Lauren explained.
auren and Donna quickly
grew the company
with military spouses.
These women were
professionals: lawyers,
doctors, nutritionists, they were
business women who all had a
desire to do much more than
the jobs that were being made
available to them. They didn't
fit into the traditional military
spouse mold, or at least what
many perceived the mold
to be. "I don't think anyone
had any other idea of what
a military spouse was, other
than the 18-year-old trailing 3
kids who could bag groceries
at the BX (“base exchange,”
L
a common name for a type of
military retail store)."
Lauren and her tribe of
women (and some men)
helped change the perception,
"When I got there, there were
only two paths to employment
overseas. Either you applied
from the States and were
sponsored, or you were a local
hire and you could apply as a
dependent to get a job. Those
were the only two paths. They
would only allow spouses to
apply as a dependent. There
was a policy in place that
prevented any jobs over a GS7
from being posted -- which
was basically secretary work. If
the job was a GS9 or above,
it had to be posted in the US
and spouses were not allowed
to apply. This was a problem
because my previous job was
as a GS14. So, I was taking
several steps backward. They
changed that policy after [my
company] grew. I think they
started to recognize that there
were a lot of awesome women
on base who were assets."
t's clear that Lauren might
not have set out to be
an Entrepreneur, but her
ability to spot a problem
and fix it made her one.
I