Not much of a boat topic here, but after meeting a good handful of you, I will welcome any advice on the following:
Courtney and I are in a pickle. The short version is that I was losing more contracts than I was signing when we lived in San Antonio. I studied architecture, interior design and urban design in college - graduated with an accredited degree. The professional licensure program is very long and involved - I've taken and passed two of my three licensing exams. I will take the third in October. While in Texas, I owned a design-build firm. At first it was ideal - there was some good design work and clients were receptive to paying for design. Over a couple years, I found myself attracting clients that wanted design for free ... so I entertained them by becoming a general contractor - I could design their project and then build it. A little more time passes and I'm working construction more than design. By 2009 I had watched about $3.5 Million worth of contracts walk out the door because the clients had lost so much portfolio value, or lost jobs & couldn't pay for what they'd signed up for.
Courtney had been a stay at home mom and had a very strong calling to pursue her career. Her degree is Healthcare Administration, with additional work towards elderly care & dementia. She's a licensed nursing home administrator and was offered a job in Centerville. The original plan was to get 2-3 years experience under her belt and begin looking for work in a more metropolitan area. We thought I might be able to find some work, too.
Centerville and southern Iowa has been rough. The culture is something we cannot change, nor something we can tolerate for very much longer. Granted, there are a handful of good people around and we enjoy visiting with them, but on the whole this is not a place we want to raise the kids. She recently changed jobs - locally. She had been recruited for several months from a local employer and by Christmas last year he had made an offer that was too good to pass up. Courtney is the Director of Senior Living and "manages" a start-up home health, independent senior living community, assisted living community, and a skilled nursing facility (nursing home). Her boss is 50% owner of the assisted living facility. Another guy, who lives in New Jersey, owns the other half - as well as 100% of the other businesses. The big owner visits once a year and is pretty much hands off - it's a philanthropy thing for him - he contributes considerable financial sums to community services out here. The 50% boss is local & as Courtney learns more and more about his businesses in town, she is discovering that he's kind-of built a house of cards. In the short time that Courtney has worked for him, on more than one occasion she's felt like she's being set up to be the "fall guy" so that when something goes bad her boss has someone to point the finger at. When you add that up with the culture shock that hasn't quite grown on us, we're about ready to panic.
Soooo ... She and I had switched places in 2009 and I became the stay-at-home dad. We want much more for our family than we see as realistic here. With a healthcare administration degree and a couple years (consecutive & current) experience as a full-on facility administrator it shouldn't be too difficult for Courtney to find work somewhere else. I, on the other hand, have a problem. I've been self employed since 2003. I can't get hired locally because I'm over qualified. $10/hour is a good paying job out here, unless you're in the medical community or gov't employee. We've just about decided that I should start looking. Anywhere and everywhere. If I can find an appropriate job at an architecture or interior design firm, then she can start looking wherever that may be for her own employment. We don't hesitate at thinking Twin Cities - Minneapolis would have a fair number of design firms to look at. I've looked at Nashville, TN, too. We'd like a larger, metropolitan area with lots of things to do (and preferably, an NBA team) and a good place to raise kids. I guess I'm asking to open up the network. If any of you are friends with, or go to church with, an architect or someone who might have some insight on where I could look for work ... I'd appreciate any information. Any advice from those that have been through something similar. What worked? What didn't?
For those that are interested, my website is
www.daniel-ia.com - The portfolio page needs some serious work, but I did the website myself and I don't write code. As soon as I can figure out some small thumbnails that enlarge on roll over/hover I will update. Not all projects in my client's list were ground up design and construction. Several were consulting jobs where I helped with preliminary design and budgeting, feasibility analysis, etc.
