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Dr. Tiffany Leonida

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When Dr. Tiffany Leonida sits in her office with a patient, she can often hear the voices of her two daughters in the next room.

Her chiropractic clinic is their second home, or really their second playground. The two girls, Lucy and Myriel, often run around in patient gowns, pretending to be super heroes as they fly down the hallways and twirl through the lobby.

If this doesn’t sound like the typical chiropractic office, that’s because it’s not, and that’s the point.

Tiffany said her approach to care may be a little nontraditional, but it has largely been shaped by moments in her own story.

As a kid, Tiffany remembers being sick… a lot. She had strep throat four to five times a year along with whatever cold or flu her siblings had. At a certain point it felt ‘normal’ to be sick as often as she was, mostly because she couldn’t find a way to prevent it and there didn’t seem to be an alternative.

Fast-forward a few years to the end of high school and Tiffany found herself in a chiropractor’s office for the first time. She was an active kid who had pulled a muscle in her neck while doing the high jump. Tiffany figured she’d see the chiropractor a few times, her neck would feel better and that was it.

But what she found, was that as her neck improved so did her general health. She said the rest of her body slowly healed as she worked to realign her body. This experience, coupled with her geeky love of anatomy, encouraged her to study science and go on to chiropractic school.

Tiffany felt empowered as she began to understand how the back connected to so many other parts of the body. For the first time in a long time she felt hope for herself and other people who struggled with their health.

But during her second year of chiropractic school, her story took a sharp turn. Her long-time boyfriend suddenly went missing while on his way to an out of town conference. After three days, the local search and rescue team found his body.

Tiffany was in shock.

She didn’t know how to cope with the loss, so she dug deep into her part-time job at a coffee shop and her school work. She didn’t want to deal with her grief, mostly because she didn’t know how.

It was during this season of keeping her head in the books that she met Alex, a fellow classmate. They began studying together and slowly sharing about their personal lives. Two months after they began dating, Alex proposed.

In a span of two years, Alex and Tiffany got married started a practice together and had their first child.

“We don’t do anything by the book,” she said with a laugh.

The couple started their clinic to focus on chiropractic health for children and families, a passion that quickly became apparent to Tiffany because of her own experience with health.

They’ve structured their work around family and community, Tiffany said. Which translates to having her girls in the office if they’re not in school and getting to know her patients as if they were extensions of her family.

It also means that Tiffany does more than just chiropractic work during the week. Last year she began working with an organization called Parent Life, it’s a ministry that gives Tiffany an opportunity to mentor young parents who lack a support system. It allows her to use her experience as a parent and a medical professional to connect young moms with life-giving support and resources.

“I have this belief in life and its value, but also in women,” Tiffany said. “I’m not just pro-life or pro-women, I’m a blend and I needed to do something about that.”

Working beyond the walls of her practice has also given Tiffany the opportunity to be a part of both the beautiful and difficult moments of other people’s lives. It’s allowed her to enter in to grief and pain in a way that she’s familiar with because of the losses she encountered in her own story.

Tiffany said when she thinks about the layers and layers of her story they seem complicated and jumbled. She feels a little all over the place until she steps back and looks at the broader picture.

It’s when she does this that she can connect her childhood, her losses, her loves, her work and her passions to one another. They build on each other in a way that makes each of those moments more meaningful to her story.

It’s not finished, she said and it doesn’t all make sense, but that’s the point of an unfinished story.

There’s more to come, and that sense of more is why Tiffany keeps moving forward.

Barbara Ball

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While sifting through her grandparents’ handwritten letters sent during World War II, Barbara Ball discovered the name of her future jewelry business.

She repeatedly saw the phrase, “So Honey,” used endearingly by the two long-distance lovers as they kept in touch during her grandfather’s deployment.

The simple yet meaningful phrase stuck with Barbara, and when it came time to name her business, it clicked.

The phrase “So Honey” is more than just a name, she said, much in the same way that the jewelry she creates is more than just pretty combinations of stones.

Every gem and stone that Barbara picks for her designs has intention behind it, because every piece has its own meaning.

Barbara has studied crystals and gemstones since she was 16 years old and found herself wandering the aisles of Euphoria, a local imports store in Lincoln.

“I have no idea how I found that place, I just did,” she said.

Soon, she began learning from the workers at the shop. She started making her own jewelry out of the gems and stones, and her friends started asking her to make pieces for them.

That was three years ago. Now, Barbara spends much of her free time creating unique pieces that not only look beautiful, but also focus on a lifestyle of healing and chakra balancing. Chakra balancing refers to the seven chakras identified throughout the body, which are meant to be balanced at all times.

Every necklace, bracelet and mala that Barbara creates has a specific purpose and property that aims to create a balance among the chakras, and each stone means something different. Some stones are known for their healing properties, while some are meant for elevating vibrations in meditation, she said.

Most importantly, Barbara said she enjoys promoting wellness within the lives of her customers. Many people buy her jewelry because they see it as another part of a wellness trend, but others purchase it because they’re looking for purpose.

Creating jewelry that helps others get through life is Barbara’s way of turning a hobby into a product for good.

Through the ability to help others with gemstones and jewelry, Barbara found a passion that she didn’t even know was there.

“For the longest time, I’ve felt like I was missing something,” Barbara said. “I just could never find something that was ‘me’… And being able to do this, and being able to be super nerdy with it and connect with people is just the best part.”

She describes it as her “crazy passion.”

It’s a passion that’s exploded, to the point that it’s taken over a room in her home for jewelry making. Nestled in the corner of the room are books that sparked Barbara’s passion, the pages are full of information about the different stones, crystals and meanings. Every week she estimates she creates about 25 pieces, from necklaces and bracelets, to malas.

In the future, Barbara said she would like to become even more of a resource for those looking to gems and stones for healing.

Barbara occasionally hosts gemstone sessions where she can interact one-on-one with people who are interested in her jewelry and crystal healing. There, she can not only create a piece that is tailored specifically to clients, but she can explain the deeper meaning behind it.

So Honey has become much more than just a hobby for Barbara.

It’s a place for people who are looking for a new resource. It’s a place for change. Most importantly, it’s a place where she embodies the simple, caring nature of the phrase, “So, honey…” to those that are looking for help.

Albert Maxey

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Albert Maxey is thinking about writing a book about his life, a memoir of sorts.

In it he’d talk about his childhood, basketball career, moving to Lincoln, his education, raising his family and being an artist. There’s a lot to include in a book like that, he said with a laugh, so for now he’s content with telling bits and pieces of his story as it comes up.

Albert said that while he was raised in Indianapolis, he “grew up” when he came to Lincoln in 1957.

“It was a very big transition to come here,” he said. “It’s like having a bowl of milk in front of you and you’re the fly that landed in that bowl of milk.”

The analogy might sound a little strange, but Albert said mostly he just felt out of place. He’d attended an all-black high school in Indiana and there were very few white families in his neighborhood. But he decided to come to Nebraska because of their reputation of strong academics, plus they’d offered him a basketball scholarship.

In high school, Albert’s basketball team was the first all-black team to ever win a state basketball championship – and they did this two years in a row. This got him and his teammates noticed by colleges across the country, and Albert received dozens of athletic scholarship offers during his senior year.

One of his offers was from Nebraska. Despite his early confidence in his decision to leave Indiana, the transition was difficult. There was a definite culture shock, his classes were challenging and it was hard to make new friends.

However, where Albert really excelled was on the basketball court. He played with other talented athletes and soon earned a reputation at UNL and in Lincoln for being a standout player.

After he played his final year of basketball, Albert focused his gaze on his degree in art and education. He’d grown up watching his mother sketch and knew that his passion and talent came from her. Albert had put art on the back burner while he played basketball, but now he was ready to dig in to art… or so he thought.

Albert soon realized that he needed a job to sustain him during school, so after scoping out his options, he started working at the Lincoln Police Department – mostly because it was within walking distance of his school and home.

At first, the job was just to off-set his bills, but he quickly progressed from a part-time employee to a beat cop, sergeant, criminal investigator, lieutenant and commanding officer. Albert was even part of the security team that guarded Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he came to Lincoln. Although working in law enforcement was vastly different than art, Albert said he really enjoyed getting to know his community.

He spent 34 years working for the police department before retiring. Albert again set his sights on using his degree and began to help Lincoln Public Schools adopt better security in their schools. He did this job for 14 years before officially retiring in 2008.

During his working years Albert got married, raised four children and became an active member of his community. Lincoln was slowly but surely becoming his home and he was proud to be a part of the city.

But Albert said he wasn’t the only one who was finding his place in Lincoln, his wife, JoAnn was carving out a place for herself as well. She was an amazing mother, Albert said, but she was also very ambitious when it came to caring for others.

She was appointed as a Nebraska state senator, becoming the first African American female to hold such an office. JoAnn was also the first black woman to serve on the Lincoln Board of Education.

Albert was incredibly proud of his wife and the way she cared for both their family and the community. She suddenly passed away from cancer when she was just 54, leaving a void in both Albert’s life as well as the city she loved so dearly.

There’s a senior center and an elementary school named after his wife, reminders of the person she was and the woman he married.

Life began to settle down for Albert after he retired. He was done with basketball, his kids were grown, his career goals had been met… but there was still his art.

These days Albert spends most of his time in his Haymarket art studio. He likes to sketch his designs with pencil before he starts in with the paint. His favorite thing to paint are portraits, he just loves the way faces tell stories.

He said even though art and his work in law enforcement were so different, being such a visual person helped him identify people when he was a police officer. He recognized different facial features, clothing and even body language, all of which are part of his art now.

Albert said he’s grateful he gets to spend his retirement in an art studio, he’s happy that this season is part of his story. He wasn’t also so sure that he’d get back to art, but today he has.

His story has been about pushing forward, despite the difficulties. It’s been about drive, he said, a drive he saw in himself, his wife, his children and one he hopes to witness in his grandchildren.

Maybe someday he’ll get around to writing down all the exact details of his story, but for now, he’s starting on his next painting.

John Fulwider

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When John Fulwider walks into Leadbelly, the bartender starts making his favorite drink—an Old Fashioned.

While it might seem a small thing to be a regular at a local restaurant, John has aspired to that title for years.

As a kid, John never spent more than three years in any one place. His father’s Air Force career led his family to Texas, Florida, Nebraska, Germany, Virginia, Germany again, Nebraska again, and finally Lincoln.

It’s in Lincoln where John’s story really starts to take shape.

“Lincoln has given me my beautiful wife, my education, my children, my church community, the launching place of my businesses,” John said.

“Lincoln has given me a place to set down roots and call home. That’s something I’ve never had before.”

He came to Lincoln to attend the University of Nebraska, where he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in journalism. John laughed about the fact that he spent far more time reporting for The Daily Nebraskan than actually going to his classes.

Internships and jobs at the Associated Press, Lincoln Journal Star, and The Wall Street Journal came before John took the leap to a startup internet newspaper, Nebraska StatePaper. The startup folded after a few years and John began looking for his next adventure, which led him to graduate school.

“Most grad students are people who loved school,” he said. “But I hated school!”

Two mentors made him love graduate school. D’Andra Orey inspired John’s love of political science, while Denise Bulling encouraged John to turn his research into his second business. She also handed him his first client, so John worked half his time on getting a tenure-track professorship, and half his time building his business.

“I had Plan A for academics and plan C for consulting, and no Plan B, because who needs one?” John joked. Plan A didn’t work out—he came in second in a job search at Texas Christian University—so he cried in his beer for seven days before closing the door on university teaching work and taking his consulting business full time.

Seven years later, John had pivoted his business many times to end up with executive coaching, planning and team-building services for housing, community, and economic development organizations nationwide. He was away from his family more than he liked and it was starting to wear on all of them.

At one point, John got seriously ill while on a business trip and so on top of being away from his wife and two young daughters for six days, he had to quarantine himself from the girls for another week at home. It was miserable, he said, and it was at that point that he decided he didn’t want to travel for work any more.

John launched his third business to focus only on working with entrepreneurial businesses in Lincoln and sixty miles around, allowing him to focus his energy on Lincoln and his family.

There’s a lot of moving parts to John’s story. A lot about his family, his work and his community that he loves to share about with anyone who will listen.

He said so much of his story has been about finding his place, digging deep, putting down roots and experiencing a deep sense of joy in being known. John said that because he moved so often as a kid, he had a hard time making friends. He said he only had one friend at each place he lived, and had to find a new one each time he and his family packed up and moved to their next assignment.

But finding his place in Lincoln has meant the world to him. He’s in awe of the fact that his kids will go to the same high school that his wife attended, that he lives in a neighborhood filled with friends and that he can rattle off his favorite local restaurants and haunts at the drop of a hat.

John loves walking in to Leadbelly and knowing the bartender remembers his favorite drink. He loves anything and everything local, but mostly he just loves knowing Lincoln is his place. It’s a place he knows, a place he calls home and place that knows him.

Ben Pankonin

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Ben Pankonin remembers the moment when his regular life and his work life started to melt together – he was in first grade.

His parents had just bought a Hallmark store and they were finalizing the sale of the shop, which just happened to fall on Ben’s birthday.

It’s almost comical, but it’s a true story. Ben said while it felt a little strange and very grown up to spend his birthday in a law office, this kind of involvement in his parents’ work shaped his story in ways he didn’t anticipate.

“For me, this was just what we did. You pitched in and showed up, moved boxes and did whatever was asked,” he said. “I didn’t really have an alternative; I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal.”

Ben assisted customers at his parent’s shop until he was old enough to see over the counter and then he quickly moved on to running the register. When other kids were learning basic math skills, Ben was counting back change to customers or getting a quick economics lesson from his dad.

Without articulating it in the exact words, his parents were showing Ben how to be an entrepreneur – how to think for himself, solve problems and work for himself. They showed him that this way of life didn’t have to be scary or overwhelming, it could also be exciting and energizing… and soon Ben started to see himself as a young entrepreneur.

During college, Ben studied business and computer science at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He was fascinated by technology, but enjoyed how the social aspect of the business world offset the often isolating bubble of computer science.

He got his first internship by calling up a company and asking if he could rebuild their website. His roommate was confused by Ben’s job because to him, all Ben did was sit in their dorm room and work on his computer.

“What are you doing?” his roommate asked one day.

Ben’s response was simple, “I’m billing time.”

To Ben, working this way felt second nature, and so it was no surprise when he jumped right into a tech startup after graduation. He quickly learned the ins and outs of the startup world, observing what worked well and what didn’t. Although the job only last a year, the experience helped Ben take a closer look at what it took to run a startup.

Ben worked a few other jobs, including a year-long leadership program in Washington D.C., before returning to Nebraska where he began to put down roots in the tech industry again. Within a few years he helped a local IT company go from three to 50 employees, and Ben was enjoying the way his job allowed him to understand the community as well as take a technical approach to his work.

But he was also anxious to do his own thing. Ben stepped away from his job to do some consulting and began testing out a few ideas for his own startup.

In 2012, Ben launched Social Assurance, a marketing software company focused on helping financial institutions utilize digital marketing. It was a concept that filled a major void, but also fit well with Ben’s technical and social strengths.

As he began to spend more time working with other founders and startups, Ben realized that his business wasn’t just meeting a need in the community, it was also meeting a need in his own story. Being an entrepreneur came naturally to Ben. It allowed him space to come up with new ideas, explore a variety of opportunities and watch those ideas and opportunities take on a new life together.

It also made him take a closer look at himself and his own insecurities.

“There’s a lot of risk involved,” he said. “You’re constantly evaluating if you’re doing the right thing, playing to your strengths or asking the right people to help you… and you have to admit that there are a lot of things you’re not good at.”

Being an entrepreneur can be both physically and mentally exhausting, but Ben said he is fortunate to live with a fellow entrepreneur – his wife, Amber. Having two startup-minded people under one roof has both advantages and disadvantages, but Ben said it’s extremely helpful to have a partner who understands the ups and downs of running a business. They celebrate together when things go well, and work to come up with a new plan when things don’t go so well.

Ben said they often joke about whose job is the more stable. They both juggle the logistics of working lots of hours, traveling, scheduling and then making time to spend with each other. Some days it feels like a hustle, but for Ben it’s work that he’s excited to do because it plays to his strengths.

When he looks back at his story he can see moments when things started to make sense to him. Moments when he absorbed knowledge from his parents without even knowing it, and made decisions that were based on his experience instead of a business principle.

His story is one that’s been about watching, learning and doing. It’s been about being honest with himself, others and the community and working to create a space that’s true to himself and the people he serves.

Alex Kolbo

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Alex Kolbo is one of those ‘cool’ teachers. He’s young, fun and he teaches high school art.

Most days there are a few students who hang out in his art room before or after school to work on projects or just to talk with Mr. Kolbo about whatever is on their mind.

Being an art teacher is a job that feels natural to Alex. It tracks well with this own love of all things artistic, plus, it’s relational, which is something he didn’t know would quickly become the best part of his job.

But Alex never saw himself as an art teacher. In fact, ever since first grade all he really wanted to be was an architect.

As a kid, Alex was always drawing. It was a hobby that was encouraged by his parents, teachers and nearly anyone who saw his work. He had talent, but he was a little shy to admit it. He remembers refusing to take compliments when people would look at his artwork. Then his dad sat him down and had a conversation about being grateful for his abilities and taught him how to accept encouragement from others.

But even though he was talented, Alex said he never thought about being an artist. He thought the more practical route would be architecture, because it combined his artistic skills with his math abilities… and he’d heard that architects earn a good living.

Architecture wasn’t just what Alex planned to do, it’s what he told everyone he would do – it was his identity. So when he went to college at UNL as an architecture major, nobody was surprised.

After two years of having a love-hate relationship with architecture – which Alex now fondly refers to as ‘archi-torture’ – he hit a major roadblock. While he enjoyed his classes, the math portion of his degree was proving extremely challenging, specifically his calculus class. He needed to pass calculus with a C or higher and after taking the class three times he was 1 percentage point away from passing the class.

He had two choices: take the class a fourth time and hopefully pass so that he could continue with his architecture degree, or change his major.

Alex went home for the weekend to think over his decision. He said it felt heavy and even a little sad to have his once certain future suddenly full of question marks. Alex met with friends and a handful of trusted mentors who listened to his dilemma and offered advice. He said the most common question everyone asked was, ‘Have you ever thought about teaching art?”

Teaching? Interesting, he thought.

But then came the list of questions and hesitations, the main one centering on if he could provide for his future family on a teacher’s salary. Plus, being a teacher didn’t seem nearly as glamorous as his architecture aspirations.

He was shocked by the fact that so many people had suggested the same career shift, but now the decision was up to him. Within a week Alex changed his major, ending his time at the architecture school and starting down the teaching path.

It’s been nearly seven years since Alex made the decision to become a teacher and he’s currently finishing up his fourth year at Lincoln East High School. He landed the job shortly after he graduated, and quickly found that teaching felt like such a natural use of his passions and skills.

“I love making art, it’s fun, but that alone hasn’t been the most meaningful part of my job,” he said. “It’s the building relationships, and I didn’t realize that would make me feel like this is where I’m meant to be.”

Whether he’s teaching pottery, photography, graphic design or even jewelry making, Alex said his goal is to connect with students and help them think creatively. He said creative thinking isn’t just for art, it’s for life, and art is the tool he’s using to teach his students these skills.

Alex knows that not every kid who walks into his classroom is thrilled about taking an art class. They don’t all have to love or even appreciate art, he said, but he wants them to know that he’s a teacher they can trust and learn from, whether it’s art or something from his own story.

Alex said teaching is something he can see himself doing for a long time. It gives him his own time and space to think creatively, plus it pairs well with his endeavors outside of the classroom. On weekends and during the summer he likes to take wedding and engagement photos, help his wife, Machelle, with her graphic design business, think up art-inspired Instagram posts, go on walks with their golden retriever and hang out with kids in his church’s youth group.

Nearly everything Alex does turns into some sort of exercise in creative thinking. It’s what he loves, what he’s passionate about and what naturally rises to the surface of both his work and hobbies.

It’s seems funny to think of Alex as being anything other than an art teacher at Lincoln East. It’s where he’s invested his skills and his time. And even though Alex is at the front of the classroom, it’s really his students who have shaped his story and encourage him to test his own creativity every day.

Stefanie Urbom

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When Stefanie Urbom meets with patients for the first time she oftentimes uses her own story as part of the introduction.

“My mom had cancer…” she says, honestly, explaining her mom’s surgery, recovery and the number of years she’s been cancer-free.

She does this because a lot of her patients are skeptical and nervous about opening up. They look at Stefanie and think, ‘What could this young, healthy girl know about helping someone like me…’

Their skepticism is valid, Stefanie said, but what her patients often don’t understand is that Stefanie has interacted with cancer in a way that shifted both her personal and professional life forever.

As a kid, Stefanie said she was always helping people. Whether it was kids at school who needed a little extra attention, or a friend with a problem, she liked to be an advocate for the underdog. Which is why it seemed like a no-brainer for her to pursue a career in the medical field.

She graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan and then attended physical therapy school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It was while she was going through school that her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I was devastated,” she said. “I was very scared of the big C word – you just think the worst.”

Stefanie felt paralyzed and limited by her options to help her mom. Sure, she could provide emotional support, but at times that didn’t seem like enough. She watched as her mom lost her hair after chemotherapy, as she struggled with short term memory loss, fatigue and the emotional and physical pain and that followed her mastectomy.

Her mom wasn’t herself, she didn’t feel like herself and that was the hardest part for Stefanie to watch. But the one thing Stefanie could do was research how to help her mom deal with the physical repercussions of treatment and surgery. She quickly realized that her mom could benefit from physical therapy during her recovery.

After graduating from physical therapy school, Stefanie continued to study the use of physical therapy for cancer recovery and also became a certified lymphedema therapist. She realized that while people are often unaware of the benefits physical therapy can have for a patient undergoing treatment for cancer, helping these patients regain their strength, maintain activity level and manage pain are crucial parts of their care.”

Currently about half of the patients she sees have cancer. Stefanie works with them to reduce pain and improve their quality of life.

It’s a heavy job, because not all of her patients make it through their therapy programs, but Stefanie said she doesn’t think about it that way. She goes in to each day thinking about what she can give her patients, independent of how many days they have left. She makes it her mission to help her patients laugh during therapy, to talk about something other than cancer and to help them feel like themselves again.

Stefanie said she tries not to let the sad stories distract her from the reason she does her work, but it’s still difficult. She has hard days and can get overwhelmed by sadness when she sees something that reminds her of a patient who has died.

In the same way that cancer has defined the story of so many of her patients, being a physical therapist who works closely with cancer patients has shaped Stefanie in ways she hadn’t anticipated.

It’s made her a professional who craves knowledge so that she can provide the best care possible and it’s made her a wife and mother who is grateful for her family’s health.

But she’s also realized cancer, even her mom’s battle with cancer, isn’t the only thing that defines her story.

Stefanie is a young mom and wife who tries to balance working full-time and being attentive to her young children and husband. She’s ambitious and outgoing, she loves to have fun but also enjoys the simple things in life.

Her story is about using her own experience to help others. It’s about learning how to lean in to moments that others often shy away from, and seeing people beyond their current circumstances.

It’s also been about stepping back and watching how other stories have impacted her own story, learning from those moments and choosing to keep moving forward.

Her story has been shaped by some hard circumstances, but it’s also a story that she’s still trying to understand herself. She’s trying to figure out what’s next,  how to continue to grow personally and professionally and how to piece all of these elements together.

“It’s a process,” she said, one that builds over time, one patient at a time, one day at a time and one moment at a time.

Brian Lehmann

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Brian Lehmann fits the definition of a classic risk taker.

He’s the kind of guy who wakes up thinking about Indonesia, buys a ticket later that day and is driving a scooter around the country as soon as he lands.

(Yes, that really happened.)

But Brian doesn’t just take risks or hop on a plane for the fun of it. He does it because he’s afraid of what will happen if he stops taking these kinds of risks.

After graduating from college with a degree in photojournalism, Brian got a job at the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado. It was an enviable job to have scored so young, and Brian was doing well as a staff photographer. He was learning a lot, working hard and having a blast going out on assignment.

He was set… or so he thought.

A year and a half into his job, he and his 250 coworkers got the shocking news that the newspaper was shutting down. They were all let go with little warning and no safety net. It was scary, Brian said, but even scarier for the people who had families to take care of.

It was in that moment that Brian realized he couldn’t leave his future to chance, and now was his time to take risks, big risks.

He moved back to Lincoln and relaunched his landscaping and lawn care business. He’d mowed lawns ever since he was 14 and the business had paid his way through college, but now it was sustaining him while he sorted out his next steps.

Brian started thinking long and hard about why he was a photographer.

He remembered how he’d majored in business and dabbled in flying before changing his major to journalism.

He thought about the first time he met Joel Sartore, a Lincoln native and National Geographic photographer. How he traded manual labor jobs for photography critiques and life lessons with the famed photographer who eventually became his mentor.

And he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t do lawn care forever. Sure, he liked it and he was even pretty good at it, but there was no way he could let go of photojournalism or even let it slump into the category of ‘hobby.’

Brian decided that instead of working for a newspaper or even one single magazine, he’d do his own stories, set his own schedule and find stories both locally and internationally. He discovered that he could plant flowers, mow lawns and do landscape design as a way to fund his international trips, and so far it’s worked.

He’s worked in places like Nicaragua, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and India. He laughs about the time he peed his pants while on a horribly rocky boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with some angry turtle hunters, and the time he was arrested in India only to have the local police feed him dinner and Facebook friend him before releasing him.

These are the kinds of experiences that Brian craves when he’s back in Lincoln. His work varies from week to week. Some weeks he’s more focused on lawn care and others he’s gearing up for a trip and doing research about the next country he’s going to visit.

In May he’ll be in Uganda with a group of photojournalism students from UNL and in August he’s heading back to Nicaragua to finish shooting a story about endangered green sea turtles.

Last year his first photo story was published in National Geographic. It was about the death culture in Indonesia, a story he’d had a strong hunch about and following his hunch paid off. In the process he made friends with translators, had coffee with dozens of village leaders and was able to expose a traditional way of life for a small but beautiful group of people.

These are the stories Brian thinks about when he’s adding mulch to a client’s flower bed, walking his dog, Murphy, or sitting in his backyard. They are the stories of people and cultures that have woven themselves into Brian’s own story in ways he can’t quite describe.

Sure, he said, he’s taking a risk to fly around the world with little more than a camera and an idea, but the people he photographs are taking their own risk when they open their lives and share their stories with him. Brian has lived small parts of people’s lives with them through the lens of his camera. What he’s seen has changed the way he sees life, how he lives life and how he wants to spend his time.

But the thing Brian said he keeps coming back to is that he’s lucky.

Lucky that he can run a business that helps fund his passions. Lucky that he’s surrounded by mentors and fellow photographers who help him refine his skills. Lucky that he has the stability to hop on a plane when he needs to and lucky that at the age of 35 he’s doing something he loves.

He’s lucky that he gets to take risks, and he doesn’t want that to ever change.

Shala Hruska

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It’s a Tuesday and Shala Hruska has one thing on her agenda: sew.

Well, not quite one thing. There’s picking up the kids from preschool, dinner, bedtime, ect., but when she’s in the studio she’s focused on her business, and today that means sewing.

Shala has owned and run her hand-made baby shoe shop, Belle and The Bear, for just over four years. It’s a job that she said she “fell into,” but also one that she’s been intentional about growing in a way that’s true to herself and her customers.

Back up a few years to before Shala started her business and her days were a jumble of diapers, feedings and keeping a close eye on her twin baby girls, Alice and Cora. Life was busy, chaotic and a bit overwhelming, but as Shala started to get the hang of being the mother of twins she came across a problem: baby shoes.

All the shoes on the market were either uncomfortable, unattractive, impractical or just too expensive. So, Shala decided to try making some shoes for herself. She took a pink suede blazer that was a thrift store find, made her own pattern and sewed her first pair of baby moccasins.

Getting the shoes to fit right took some time, but as soon as her girls started wearing the shoes she got comments and questions about where she’d bought them. She realized that she wasn’t the only one who had a problem with baby shoes, and she decided to start selling her shoes on Etsy.

Shala began sewing during nap time, late into the night and anytime she could to get her shop up and running. She didn’t expect it to grow much bigger than Etsy, after all, it was just a fun hobby and a way to make a little extra money on the side, right?

Shala wasn’t a business major and didn’t have any huge aspirations of one day owning a shop. In fact, she laughed about the fact that in college she had a million ideas but no specific major until her senior year in college – and she basically picked whatever major would get her to graduation.

So when her baby shoe business took off she was a little shocked. Sure, she thought her designs were pretty darn cute and she loved the shoes for her own girls, but she was amazed by the support and attention she was suddenly getting from the community. There were some big fans of Belle and The Bear, and some big fans of Shala and that felt good.

Despite the chaos of starting a business and caring for her family, Shala loved the fact that she could have one foot in motherhood and the other in the small business world. She expanded her Etsy site into a full-scale website and in 2015 she opened a brick and mortar shop entirely devoted to kids footwear.

Her shop carried her own designs as well as other brands that she knew of and liked. Having a shop was fun. It gave her an opportunity to interact with her customers, offer shoe fittings and it was a space for her designs to be seen and sold.

But it was also hard. Running a shop added another layer of complexity to her business and family life. Shala’s schedule was fuller and her time at home was in short supply.

After a year of running her shop, Shala decided it was time to close and exclusively sell online and wholesale. It was sad, because it felt like the store had failed in a way, she said.

But Shala didn’t close her store because shoes weren’t selling, she closed it because her brand of shoes were selling better than the other brands she carried. Opening and closing her shop showed her what she really liked about her business and what the community valued as well.

“Our shoes is us. That’s what I love and that’s what other people love,” she said. “I thought my dream was to own a shop, but what I love to do is design and make shoes and to have my own brand versus just my own store.”

Plus, Shala said she gets to spend her Saturdays on the soccer field with her kids instead of in the shop, and that feels good.

It’s not that running a business or even her full-time job as a wife and mother have become any easier, but closing her shop allowed her to run her business on her terms. Shala said that’s one of the things she’s learned over the last four years as a business owner – to trust her gut when it comes to her brand…and her story.

Shala didn’t think her story would involve sewing baby shoes, having twin girls or even living in Lincoln for that matter. To be honest, she didn’t know where her story was going to take her. She didn’t realize how much she’d love being a maker, or how connected she’d be with the maker community in Lincoln. She didn’t even anticipate how much she’d love the differences between her two girls and the life and love they bring to her story.

Shala might say that she just “fell into” running a business, but that’s not really true. Being an owner, a maker, a mother and a wife takes work, it doesn’t just happen. Her story is one that she’s built on her passions and her skills, it’s developed and changed over time, but for now it’s her normal and it’s exactly where she wants to be.

David Lawton

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David Lawton said his kids would always joke with him, saying: “Hey dad, what are you going to be when you grow up?”

It was the running joke because David has had a lot of jobs. So many, that he has a hard time keeping track of them all.

He’s done everything from stocking shelves at a grocery store to being a pediatric nurse, an interim dean, an ER nurse and ‘the mayor’ of Chick-fil-A.

Now, at the age of 69, David said he has no clue what’s next. The truth is, he doesn’t know what’s next because the past 50+ years have been full of the unexpected.

“My story is really Claudia’s story too…” he said.

He wanted to make this distinction because he and Claudia have been married for 45 years. They grew up on opposite coasts, David in Santa Barbara, and Claudia in Miami. The two met when they attended Covenant College and got married a few years later.

Despite being somewhat of a poor student, David graduated with a degree in psychology and he and Claudia looked for jobs and a place to settle down. As a nurse, Claudia had lots of options when it came to jobs and David said he had to beg employers for even a manual labor job.

After their first child was born, David decided to go back to school to get a nursing degree, thinking it would provide him with a more consistent way to support his family. He enrolled in a 15-month accelerated program, graduated on a Friday and started his nursing job the next day.

He had originally planned to be a postpartum nurse, but during that time the job was a bit taboo for a man, so he decided to be a pediatric nurse. David said he’d always loved kids and being around them all day felt like the perfect fit. He went on to get his bachelor’s and Master’s degree in nursing and nursing administration and then took a position at the local VA hospital.

David and his family lived in Florida, Georgia, California and Oregon during his early years as a nurse before he was offered a job at Lincoln’s St. Elizabeth Hospital in the early 90s. He and Claudia had never thought about moving to the middle of the United States, they were coastal people who liked views of the ocean. But after a bit of convincing, they decided to at least visit Nebraska. It was January so they packed coats, gloves and boots for their kids, and in true Nebraska fashion they were welcomed to the state with 70-degree weather.

While they hadn’t pictured a life in the Midwest, the job David was offered was a great opportunity to use both his leadership and nursing skills and he decided to take the job. Since being in Nebraska, David has worked for the state’s health department, Clarkson College, earned his Ph.D, worked for the federal government, Concordia University and Bryan Heart.

After his contract with Bryan Heart ended he began applying for other medical jobs but wasn’t having any luck. He suspected it was because of his age, but he didn’t let that discourage him.

It was around this time that a Chick-fil-A was opening and David decided to send in an application. He was the second person hired at the new location and was put in charge of maintaining the dining room.

David took his job very seriously. He’d come in every morning and make sure the dining room, bathrooms and play area were properly cleaned before the patrons arrived. He greeted customers with a smile and worked to learn the names of his regulars who grew to appreciate his attentive and joyful spirit.

“The job was really about anticipating people’s needs,” he said. “If a mom came in with a baby, I made sure she had a high chair or that she had a seat where she could easily see the play area.”

It seemed like common sense to David, but his work ethic and personality charmed both kids and adults alike. He worked behind the counter when he needed to and even cut and squeezed lemons for the chain’s much talked about lemonade.

The staff started referring to David as ‘the mayor’ of Chick-fil-A.

“I liked it,” he said. “I liked being able to serve people and not hold anything back. It was about making people happy.”

His stint at the restaurant lasted about 18 months before deciding to go back into his professional field so that his license wouldn’t lapse. So in September 2016, ‘the mayor’ of Chick-fil-A resigned and started working for a home health company.

While it’s different than mopping floors and making funny faces at kids, there’s a lot of hospitality involved in his new job as well. He said his caseload is full of lonely people looking for someone to check in and care for them, and this role plays well to his strengths.

When David thinks about what’s next in his story, he said he has no clue what the future holds, and he’s OK with that.

After all, he never expected to live in Nebraska, have five educational degrees and have worked more jobs than he can remember.

But what he is counting on is always helping people. He’s a learner and a do-er, he feels most like himself when he’s serving others or when he’s with Claudia and those are things that won’t change, he said.

Maybe he’ll retire one day. Maybe he’ll go back and work at Chick-fil-A. Or maybe, he’ll still be trying to figure out what he’s going to be when he grows up.

***

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Tredway.

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