VocationVacations
Cooking up career change
* For Brian Kurth, founder of VocationVacations, changing lives is a daily event. It’s nice work, if you can get it….
words by > Sally Howard
A tangible glow of good feeling emanates from Brian Kurth, the founder and president of VocationVacations—the demeanor of a man whose stock-in-trade is making dreams come true. “Aft er two and a half years, you’d think I’d get blasé about all those feel-good, life-changing tales,” he says. “But I don’t. I just got off the phone with a woman named Judith who had ripped out our ad last spring and couldn’t believe she’d eventually got up the courage to call. She and her husband are going to “vocation” as bed-and-breakfast owners; she was almost crying with excitement. that’s a daily reminder why I’m in this.”
Brian’s story isn’t very diff erent from those of the clients (who he refers to as “vocationers”) who he has helped toward a change of career since his company began in 2004.
Kurth cut his teeth, as many start-up entrepreneurs before him, in the corporate world—albeit in its more colorful outposts. In his early career, he left the US for Tallinn, Estonia, where, in the heady days aft er the country’s independence, he helped to set up an office automation company.
Returning to the US a few years later, he moved to Chicago, where he tripped up the corporate rungs of the telecommunications ladder. Wanderlust again took hold and he accepted an assignment in Budapest, Hungary, as a marketing director for Matav, a joint venture between Ameritech (now SBC) and Deutsche Telekom. Returning once more to the US, Kurth became the director of business development for a dotcom startup in Chicago. Aft er getting laid off in the bust that followed, he took a six-month road trip across the US and Canada. During his travels, he concluded that the time was right to dust off his idea for a new business—an idea that had been born during his commutes along Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway a few years earlier. Aft er this life-changing trip, Kurth officially launched VocationVacations in January 2004.
“VocationVacations was a great idea, of course,” says Kurth, “We’re off ering baby steps—safe environments in which people can step out and test the waters of a new career. But it also came on the curve of a shift in thought. Post 9/11, we were all thinking a little diff erently. there’s a growing trend of saying ‘I’m done. Money is important, but not as important as quality of life.’ And the fear of change—which can be profound—is giving over to the fear of the status quo, of being stuck in an unhappy life.”
VocationVacations packages, which typically last around a week, come in a diverse range of choices, from makeup artist to rancher, radio shock jock to kennel owner. Brian’s vocation mentors are typically respected in their field and are keen to give something back. these days, many of them now contact him, having heard about VocationVacations from one of its many press outings.
Brian’s vocationers range from 18 to retirement age, but they are typically 35 to 55-year-old professionals looking for a change of pace, and possibly career. the company’s most popular category is culinary. “And surprisingly, not chef restaurateur,” says Kurth. “For that, you can go to a culinary class. But chocolatier, brew master, that sort of thing—you can’t just walk into a brewery and say ‘hey, I’ve always wanted to do this!’ I guess we’re breaking new ground here. We find that a lot of brew master packages are gift ed by wives to their husbands.”
Brian discovered pretty soon aft er launching that his young company was a media darling. “It’s the makeover element that the US networks love so much,” Brian says, eyebrows raised. “A blessing and a curse. We get reporters who are aft er sensationalist stuff , who want to take one of our existing VocationVacations and add in a bunch of humor and focus on the Billy Crystal city slicker type thing. You know, taking some guy out of New York and landing him on the cattle range. We do have a minority of those ‘fun’ vacations, but that’s not what we’re about. We’re dedicated to people like Judith, who’ve been clinging onto their ad for months, dreaming of change.”
Which VocationVacation, then, would Brian like to road test, should his breakneck work pace calm a little? “Well, we have an animator coming on board in New York, which has always fascinated me. And a new VocationVacation we have just coming on the books: dog-sledding trainer in Alaska. that I’d love to do. Sadly, with VocationVacations going so well and with all the travel, I don’t even have time for the pet dog I’d love to have.” www.vocationvacations.com
*Brian’s tips for career change
1. “First and foremost: dream. Ask yourself, ‘what did I want to be when I grew up?’ I don’t care that you’re 40 or 50 or 60.”
2. “Find a mentor in your dream job — through Vocation Vacations, or go out there and find your own. You’ll be surprised how willing people are to help.”
3. “Finally, the Nike adage: ‘Just do it.’”