Case Studies

Smoller Insurance Agency

I started working with Smoller Insurance Agency right after they hired their first ever employee. As a third-generation family business this was the first time anyone outside the family, outside of Grandfather (Cy), Father (Mark), and Son (Billy), was working in the business. At that point Cy had passed away, Mark was comfortable with where the business had progressed, and Billy had a vision to modernize and grow the business while honoring the family values that had been passed down over the generations.

I was initially hired by Billy for a single project – implementing a complicated and robust software system which would automate many tasks and provide an instant user experience for their clients.

As Billy and I continued to work together I discovered the software program he was working with was not the best fit for the vision he had for the company. I put together a comparative analysis of other insurance software that might be a better fit. We found a much better platform and I worked with the team to onboard and implement it in 1/3 of the time we anticipated it would take for the original system. Not only did Billy save money on the platform itself, but also in staff training time. The team was much happier learning the new one as it is more intuitive!

The next project I was invited to participate in was strategically aligning the business in order to get the company poised to acquire other small agencies and continue to grow and build the Smoller Insurance Agency Legacy.

Since then, I have helped Billy create the company vision statement, modernize their financial process and formalize their financial projections, launch a new website, formalize the social media and marketing plans, as well as publish an employee handbook and create an on-boarding process. I helped him hire new employees taking the agency from a 3-person business to a 7-person company with more hires on the horizon.

Watching the growth success in just one year of working together, has both been exciting and rewarding for me. I look forward to helping Smoller Insurance Agency with many more projects as they continue to develop their legacy and move on through the third generation to many generations to come.

To learn more about the Smoller Insurance Agency check out their full story.

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“I can’t thank you enough for everything you have done in helping create this rising Phoenix.”

-William ~ Newton, MA

Temple Shalom of Newton

Everyone had to pivot when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. As a board member of Temple Shalom of Newton, I witnessed firsthand how are clergy and educators worked tirelessly to provide content and services to a diverse congregation under lockdown conditions. As we emerged from the worst of the pandemic and got into the summer of 2021, it was time to start the immense planning of High Holy Days activities.

Temple Shalom had hired a new Executive Director just before the pandemic shut everything down, and he was not yet familiar with previous High Holy Day’s processes, or the dynamics of our diverse congregation. The Clergy invited me to project manage the more than two weeks’ worth of events and programming and assist the new Executive Director as someone with institutional knowledge of what had been done in the past. I was honored to take on this challenge and spent the next three months coordinating outdoor tent spaces for services, communication to more than 500 families about programming, a touchless ticketing system that was new to our congregation, live streaming of services for those not comfortable coming in-person, and all the details that go with it. I coordinated lay leaders, speakers, musicians, and congregant participants focusing on creating an atmosphere that made everyone feel appreciated and informed.

We had to be ready for anything and plan contingencies for every aspect. Successfully, we navigated rain during outdoor services, over capacity due to walk-ins that had not registered for outdoor services, parking challenges, and speakers and a shofar player who needed to be filmed because they no longer felt comfortable being in-person with the Delta variant ever present.

Perhaps the best compliment I received was the Rabbi’s spouse commenting that the Rabbi was calmer this year during the Covid uncertainty, than in previous years of planning High Holy Days. The Co-Senior Rabbis both mentioned that my participation allowed them to be able to take some much-needed time off during the summer. Having planned hundreds of events large and small, organizing these two weeks was right up my alley. However, the spiritual fulfillment that I received by helping make services and programming accessible to this many people as we did, made this one of the most rewarding projects I have been a part of.

To learn more about Temple Shalom of Newton, check out their full story.

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Co-Senior Rabbiis, Laura Abrasley and Allison Berry

“I am so grateful to you for your incredible work managing this project! I don’t know how we ever did this without you.”

— Allison ~ Newton , MA

“You have been so amazing over the past set of weeks. Thank you again a million times!”

— Laura ~ Newton MA

Hogin Sails

Okay, so this is not really a “client” story, but how can I tell stories without including the very first one!

My stepfather started Hogin Sails in St. Croix, Virgin Islands before I was born. Years later, we were living in Santa Cruz, California and he was the Manager of and commuting to Pineapple Sails in Oakland, California which a two hour commute each way. Eventually, when I was 7, we moved up to Alameda (near Oakland) where my mom also got a job at Pineapple Sails, and they met a coworker Margaret Fago. Shortly after our move to the Bay Area, Bob & Emily Hogin and Margaret Fago decided to establish their own sail loft and resurrected the name Hogin Sails.

For as long as I can remember conversations were always about boats and sailing, covers for boats, fabric, stitching, painting the floor of the loft, and Saturday silk screening parties to make our own logo T-shirts that we handed out to clients. My summers and holidays were often spent at the loft watching my stepfather design sails by marking them on the large floor with string, and my mom sewing panel after panel together.

I started out cutting out numbers out of sticky cloth, moved on to making bags for the sails to go in, and finally graduating to doing sail repairs and making small sails for land sailers myself. I certainly learned how to sew a mean straight line on a sewing machine.

My stepdad was responsible for designing sails and chatting with clients, Margaret was in charge of the boat cover side of the business, and my mother was responsible for the financial and business aspects. I was always intrigued by how she organized the billing, coordinated ordering and accounts payable, and kept the business running. I watched as they hired non-family employees and how personalities affected the business and other values. Any quarter when the business did financially well the family was treated to a fancy dinner to celebrate. The idea of keeping personal life out of the business, and business life out of the home was nonexistent. It never occurred to me back then that it could ever be different.

As a teenager, did I rebel because every outing and every conversation was about sailing or did I just want to experience my own dreams and passions and not interested in taking over the business?

Life always seems to have a way of circling back and ironically, my passion has brought me right back to helping build successful businesses, and family-owned ones at that. And by the way, I married a sailor!

My parents sold the business to another family when they retired, and Hogin Sails lives on as a family-owned business.