by Bob Cohen, Senior Vice President, Career College Association.
Reprinted with permission.

There’s something old fashioned about believing in yourself, your talent and in the small businesses nearby that might benefit from services tailored to the small business marketplace. That is certainly the case of Peggy Hartman-Shields, 48, who parlayed an interest in graphic arts dating back to high school into a new career designing websites for businesses in central Pennsylvania.

A native of Mifflinburg, PA, Hartman-Shields spent many years working as a clerk and administrative assistant for a local home healthcare agency. While she liked her jobs, changes in federal reimbursement policy shrank the organization’s workforce of 400 employees to about half its size. Mifflinburg is Amish country, better known for horse drawn carriages than its economic horsepower. In looking around for other work in a tight job market, Hartman-Shields says she found herself “over qualified or under educated.” With the home care agency in turmoil, the hand writing was on the wall.

For Hartman-Shields, at least part of the message was go back to school. She selected a web design program from Westwood College Online for several reasons. She says other academic programs might have cost less but did not offer a curriculum attuned to the most contemporary web software technologies. She found the real world instructors “awesome,” and, with a son getting ready to graduate from high school, Hartman-Shields found the flexibility of Westwood’s online program extremely important too.

Hartman-Shields began getting clients while she was still finishing her bachelor’s degree and, by the time she graduated from Westwood in 2006, her book of business was practically full, and her company, Projects by Peggy, Inc. was ready to launch.

Hartman-Shields describes small business as her niche, focusing on companies who cannot afford the big budget efforts of large design firms or the payroll cost of maintaining an in-house IT professional staff. Hartman-Shields literally launched her business in her living room, although a remodeling this year turned a garage into a home office. With the help of two part-time employees and a consultant, she now has over 100 clients at present, and has even produced the town of Mifflinburg welcome page.

Of her Westwood education, Hartman-Shields says it was not only a confidence builder, but it also helped her better understand the web design area itself: those things that she knows she will never want make a personal specialty (like object oriented programming) and those that she might never have tried otherwise. And without Westwood? “I would probably still be at a homecare agency and playing [at web design] on the side,” Hartman-Shields says.

Her income level has tripled since those homecare days and there are other benefits. Hartman-Shields suffers from fibromyalgia, a debilitation that among other things disturbs sleep patterns. Un-tethered from an 9-5 job and a daily commute, she says owning her own business gives her a better work-life balance and the ability to knock off for a nap as the need arises.

Napping or not, Hartman-Shields is certainly awake to the possibilities of turning education into a life changing experience: “Get an education. Find out what you are good at. Then make it your business,” she advises others.