Lydia Corser of Greenspace with her daughter
Starting a business, especially for moms, is an experience akin to childbirth. She can see ahead to the years of happiness and success, but getting there is sometimes difficult and painful.
Then there's the kind of birth that Lydia Corser experienced with Greenspace, and that's something altogether different.
Greenspace, most Santa Cruz residents know, is our local clearinghouse for green household products. Whether you're building new, remodeling, doing routine maintenance, or just cleaning the counters and dressing your children, Greenspace has the eco-friendly product you'll need.
Greenspace was also the dream that Lydia Corser had, though it didn't turn out as she expected.
"I have a 15-year career in interior design," Lydia starts. "I was schlepping around green resources in my car. About the last ten to twelve years, my husband and I talked about starting a business like this."
She got involved with Eco Design Resources, which had expanded into Santa Cruz, and soon hired Morgana Doud to manage it. Though they hadn't known each other previously, they became good friends.
The owners of Eco Design Resources soon wanted to sell, but once Corser and Doud teamed up with two other partners, they decided to start a new business, and thus Greenspace was born.
"The four of us started Greenspace," Lydia remembers. "They had the capital to start the business and we found this great space, and Morgan was to be the manager -- I was to have my design business in back."
Soon after they took possession of the space, one of their partners became sick and died. Only months later, Lydia learned that the woman who had become her friend and business partner had been murdered by her husband, Marshall Doud. Lydia's plan to stay in the back room dissolved immediately.
"The day after she died," Lydia remembers, "I went to Dave [Corser's surviving partner in the business] and I said 'you guys made this happen,' and he said, 'I'm just going to lock the doors and walk away'."
Greenspace in Santa Cruz
So the day after Doud died, Lydia took over the management of the store, in grief over losing her friend and without any preparation for running such a big operation or doing sales. And within months the predicted recession became reality.
"I've pretty much been working 24/7 since then," Lydia says.
Though she was well-versed in the products they were selling in the store, Corser had a crash course in store management, working with customers, and managing staff.
"I learn every day from my customers, I'm humbled by it," Lydia says. "People call me an expert and I just laugh -- there's no way to be [in such a fast-developing industry]."
All that on top of being the wife of a contractor and having a daughter, now eleven, who needed her attention as well.
"She has been incredibly supportive, even though she's jealous of Greenspace like a little sister," Lydia says. "It takes so much time and attention and energy."
But her daughter, she says, was part of the inspiration for the business. "When I had my daughter it really renewed my dedication to living green and eating organic," she says. "When you have a child and you look at the dangers of the world, you start looking at your lifestyle."
As she has learned all the aspects of the business, Corser says she's feeling calmer, and that this is reflected in her daughter's well-being as well. "She sees me being calmer and healthier and happier," Lydia says. "It's amazing that how you are is reflected so strongly by your children."
The help of a talented spouse has also improved Lydia's ability to cope with the business. "He's a general contractor so he does all the "honey-do" things around here," she jokes. "Things come in broken and I can't get a hold of the company and they don't care. I can't even imagine how I could have done this without him."
"Emotionally he's been a rock for me," Lydia says. "He didn't know Morgan that well, and I think that was good. It was good that one of us didn't."
Morgana Doud's death was a struggle for both mother and daughter, but also a source of strength.
"My daughter was good friends with Morgan, too," Lydia says. "So there was a lot of counseling that first year -- for both of us."
"I keep her picture on my desk. I think because it was such a longheld dream of my own and that I could carry it forward with her in my heart means a lot to me," Lydia says. "The anniversary of her death was a couple of weeks ago. I went to the end of the trial and it was really hard."
Corser says that she feels that Greenspace is moving forward and she is confident that it will survive this economic downturn.
"It's a strong passion of mine to bring the dream forward to help people: to make [green products] available, to make it easy, to be a place that they can trust that we have really done the research."
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