Rising like phoenix

T+D, May, 2003

The bombing of the world trade center destroyed businesses, if not buildings, within its radius. But one has reemerged.

As for many entrepreneurs in New York City, the events of September 11, 2001, were devastating for Betty Herard. But the key to the revitalization of her business, and indeed the touchstone of her entire career, has been flexibility.

Herard had successfully operated her technology training school for five years when the terrorists struck. She founded the business in 1996, with a primary mission to provide corporate training, but she also offered classes in such applications as Quark XPress and PowerPoint to the general public. Having her own facility in a central midtown Manhattan location eventually led to a sideline that was lucrative, but that ironically ended up being the blow that nearly crippled her business: renting out classroom space to other companies and organizations.

A few years earlier, Chase Manhattan Bank had approached Herard about renting some space. "It wasn't a service I originally wanted to provide, but I didn't see it as competition to our own offerings," she says. Eventually, she found that a "really big market" existed for the classroom rentals, and attracted such clients as Netscape, MicroStrategy, and InstallShield. As she added and improved space, as well as her own curriculum, the business benefited from what she calls "the balancing act."

Things were on a bit of a downturn in early 2001. "It was the economy's impact on our industry. Many of our client organizations no longer existed," Herard says. Then came the attack on the World Trade Center.

"After September 11, we lost everything," says Herard, who notes that her facility is one block from the Empire State Building--a landmark that many feared would be the target of the next attack. "Our location had always been our biggest attraction. But [after September 114, the building was being evacuated almost every day. Our clients were afraid to come here."

As for Herard herself, she'd been in an interview with a magazine editor at the time of the attacks. "I didn't realize the magnitude of what had happened until I left. I just roamed around the city, thinking I had lost both my home and my business," she says. Her apartment is just across the street from the training facility. Eventually, Herard went to stay with friends in Harlem for a couple of days: "I knew terrorists weren't going to try to kill anyone there!" she laughs. Her apartment building was evacuated the first night that she went back home, and "it was two weeks before we really settled back in," she says.

Herard's flexibility served her well as she regrouped and made plans to save her business. She turned her attention away from the almost-nonexistent corporate client base, and began focusing on providing training programs and services for workforce investment programs, which are funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. "We started training the unemployed and underemployed, as well as people affected by September 11," she says. Her clients now include victims of domestic violence, people with HIV, senior citizens, and small-business entrepreneurs. Although she hadn't anticipated the difficulties in actually getting paid for her services-"We ran that program for five months without a dime"-the overall result has been positive. "One good thing that came our of the tragedy is that it expanded our business. At the end of 2002, we're doing better than ever before."

Haitian by descent, and speaking French as a first language, Herard came to New York when she was five years old. As a student at a Catholic school in Brooklyn, she found that American kids could be "very mean. They beat us up and made fun of us." But what she also found was a talent for math. Unfortunately, she says, "Girls and women weren't encouraged to pursue math and science careers. I was guided to the more 'female' career of nursing." Although Herard thrives on interpersonal contact, she learned that patient care wasn't for her, so she moved to the administrative side, working as a statistician. Once there, she discovered an affinity and aptitude for computers, which was encouraged by her boss. "Computing was in its baby stage when I started. I was working with punch cards," she says.

Having learned many business skills as a student leader at Hunter College--she administered a US$1 million-plus budget--Herard began to think like an entrepreneur. "I grew to like the creativity and flexibility of working on my own, and for myself," she says. She spent three years as an independent data-management consultant. But Herard didn't discover her love for training and teaching until her stint as a network administrator at Medgar Evers College (part of the CUNY system): "I led a ream that installed 12 academic computing labs. We had more than $1 million in new equipment and realized that no one knew how to use it. People were frightened of computers. I was training brilliant PhDs."

Herard started teaching courses, which she found tapped some forgotten ambitions: "I'd always had aspirations to be an actress. The classroom became my stage."