WHIM OF IRON

1980—A Business is Born

It’s late November, and Randy and I are sitting in my bedroom in Princeton, New Jersey. The house is quiet and cold—we’re both bundled up—and the feel of poverty is all around us. We had just spent an hour trying to find 56 cents to buy a coke, but after searching all our pockets, behind the couch cushions, and many drawers, we gave up. Randy and I have been living off welfare since July, when I walked out of the bindery. My daughter was off to college, my older son was busy traveling and discovering, and my three stepsons were all pursuing their careers. It had to be hard for my children to watch as their mother floundered, trying to catch my step, but not knowing where to put my foot. It was Randy who finally provided the foothold. As he sat in a chair watching me go back and forth in my rocker, I said to him, “I can’t stand another poor Christmas, Randy. Another Christmas with no money and no prospects.”

“Mom,” Randy responded, “you know how to do so many things, why don’t you start your own business?”

Two weeks later, I picked up my first letterhead from the printer. As I looked at what my ex-husband had designed out of the name I had chosen, CBR Associates, I wondered how I had gotten to this point, and where I was going to take it. I had thought about having my own business over the past few years, but I’m not sure I would have actually started a business on my own. But once Randy gave me the encouragement, I ran with it. Nothing in my past told me I couldn’t! I chose CBR because they were my initials—Cleo Belle Robertson—and the Associates indicated that other professionals worked with me. A business was born, without collateral, credit, experience or much of a plan. None of which fazed me one iota since I didn’t know anything about profit and loss, debits and credits, or marketing and sales, anyway. What I did know was that I needed to make a living, computers gave me a tool and I knew how hospitals ran. Seemed like enough to begin a business with to me.