Training can be key to getting new start

Thao Moore is starting over -- again.

As a child, she fled with her family to this country from Vietnam. Three decades later, her management job in Woodbury moved out of state.

This time she stayed put, stepping off the corporate ladder to pursue her passion for gourmet cooking and her dream of working for herself. The result is Green Mangos Catering, a small-but-growing start-up she launched with her husband, Thomas, a silent partner in the company.

A serious foodie, along with her husband, Moore offers cuisine that often comes with an Asian or French twist, including her seafood specialties. She has catered everything from intimate dinner parties to events for businesses or organizations hosting dozens or hundreds of diners.

With unemployment soaring and a deep recession looming, many more jobs are likely to vanish in layoffs and the financial upheaval that is removing entire categories of manufacturing and other jobs from the economy. Not everyone who gets laid off or displaced will become an entrepreneur, but times like these can stir the imagination.

Moore's transition from insurance executive to chef offers one example of how to manage such career changes.

Although the path she took wouldn't work for everyone, Moore's story underscores the crucial value of retraining programs in assisting those who get laid off to gain new skills or pursue education that will enable them to rejoin the workforce.

"If anybody asks me about success stories, I always mention those two," Alan Walk, a vocational counselor in the dislocated-worker program at the Minnesota Teamsters Service Bureau in Minneapolis, said of Thao and Thomas Moore.

Training was the key

Several factors have contributed, Walk said, including her business background, sound planning and savings and a spouse's income to count on during her culinary training.

The bureau is one of several nonprofit agencies that administer dislocated-worker programs. Services are free to those who are eligible, typically people laid off through no fault of their own but because of plant closings, downsizing or mass layoffs, Walk said. The programs coordinate with big employers about layoffs involving hundreds of employees as well as with individuals who get laid off.

A primary focus is finding short-term training to help clients obtain certifications, diplomas or new computer skills.

As Moore discovered, grants are available to help with training costs, although clients often find jobs without getting new skills, Walk said. One-time payments can help dislocated workers with utility or house payments.

A dozen or so people arrive at the bureau when initial screening meetings take place every two weeks, Walk said, up from just two or three 18 months ago. Some are making return trips, having lost jobs they had gotten after earlier layoffs.

Of the hundreds of clients his office sees a year, Walk estimated that fewer than 5 percent start their own companies. Dislocated workers with visions of entrepreneurship may get a boost next year. A new U.S. Labor Department program -- Project GATE (Growing America Through Entrepreneurship) -- will offer services to eligible dislocated workers 50 and older who have the skills and experience to start a business.

Moore was working at State Farm in 2005 when the company announced that it was moving its Woodbury operations to Lincoln, Neb. She and her husband, who works in information technology at Target Corp. headquarters, had decided to stay here so that he could pursue his career.

Moore attended a meeting for dislocated State Farm workers, and eventually met Walk.

Cooking up a new career

Her way forward quickly came into focus: job counseling, grants that would pay part of her tuition, and enrollment in the culinary program at the Art Institutes International Minnesota.

"I didn't think they'd give me a grant to go to culinary school," Moore said. "I thought I'd have to stay within the insurance industry or in business. I never thought this was even possible. It wasn't until I went to that first meeting that I realized that they just want to assist you in returning to work, regardless of what field you go into."

Moore had always loved food and cooking, but she realized that she needed to pursue it as a vocation after the day she spent half an hour studying the peppers on display at a local grocery store.

"From that point on I knew what I wanted to do," she said. She spent about 18 months taking culinary classes, beginning in 2006. She worked at Oceanaire to get more kitchen experience but knew working nights and weekends in a restaurant was not for her.

Her family's experience, with her parents leaving behind their careers to bring three young children to this country, helped build the character and independence she needs to run her own company, Moore said. "What my parents went through definitely made me a strong person," Moore said.

To keep overhead low, Moore rents a commercial kitchen in Minneapolis. She brings in on-call cooks and servers for events larger than she and her husband can manage. "We wanted to be smart with our money," Moore said. "We don't incur the expenses until we have the revenue."

She catered her first event in April and has been busy since. She estimates that Green Mango's 2008 revenue will be $25,000, a figure that may double next year.

"When Tom and I started this business, it was not about the money," she said. "It was about pursuing something I love to do. My goal when we first started was to make enough to cover our mortgage. Anything above that was a bonus, and we've more than exceeded that."

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury. His e-mail address is todd_nelson@mac.com.