Tracy Ryks was unsure of what to do. While she was pregnant she knew that she wanted to stay home with the baby once he was born. She also knew that she wasn’t ready to just give up her career either, says Agweek.
“I started my first company when I was eight months pregnant,” she says, laughing. “I had one month before he was born to get it all set up.”
Tracy’s company grew, a little bit too successfully. By the time she was expecting her second child two years later something had to give. “It just really wasn’t working out,” she says. “ … I had a nanny watching Mac, and I started thinking, I’m still not home with the kids, even though I’m home.”
Ryks sold the company and committed to being a stay-at-home mom — for about a year. Her husband took a pay cut to advance his career, and Ryks began doing freelancing marketing work part-time. “I would get up in
the morning at 5 and work until my husband went at 7. Then I would work when the kids slept from 1 to 3.” Even after a second income became unnecessary, Ryks continued freelancing. “I wanted to keep fresh and keep skills sharp, keep up on what was happening in the workplace.”
By 2005 all three of Ryks’ children were in school, and she returned to the traditional workplace. But her entrepreneurial urges proved too strong to ignore, and after a few years Ryks packed her attaché and headed back to her Home office. She founded the Green Building Conference and started eMarketingMedia, a company providing marketing solutions for small businesses.
In November 2009, Ryks launched Emerging Women Today, a nonprofit aimed at networking and empowering professional women in the Twin Ports, Particularly women new to the area or returning to the workforce. “Things are still changing and evolving, and women are still learning how to navigate in the work world, learning how to balance work and family,” she says.
Ryks notes that the influx of strong, talented women has changed the professional world. “The workforce today is more family-oriented. They will have better options.”
Photo by Leonid Mamchenkov