From stay-at-home mom to professional.... how two women did it

MARLENE BERGLUND

Marlene Berglund never even considered working outside the home. She resigned from her teaching position when she married in 1974, and spent the next 20-plus years caring for her growing family. “You can always work

later,” she says. “There are so many years in a lifetime, and the children are young and small for only such a [short]time.”

Later came in 1997, when the youngest of her four children enrolled in high school at Maranatha Christian Academy near Superior. Berglund took a teaching position there and stayed for four years. When her baby headed off

to college, Berglund did too, at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

“I hadn’t planned on getting a masters degree in anything – I was just going for six credits to keep my certification up,” she says. “I happened to pick up a special ed class, and a few weeks into it the teacher said, ‘You know, Marlene, you really need to get your master’s in this.’ I guess I didn’t have a really good reason not to.”

At the same time, Berglund applied for a special education assistant job with the Superior School District and was turned down for lack of experience. Undaunted, Berglund worked in the department as a substitute. She landed the full job a year later.

Berglund’s days fell into a pattern. For two years she worked at Superior Middle School from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., then drove to the football field near UWS. “I would go in the backseat of my car and do my studying there,

until my classes started at 5,” she says. “I don’t think I could have done it had any of the kids been home. It was just easier to focus on what needed to be done without other distractions.”

Nowadays, no one questions Berglund’s experience. A special ed teacher with master’s certification in three categories, she is the “swing person” on staff, able to work wherever the need is.

“We all have things hidden inside us that we didn’t know were there,” Berglund says. “It’s fun to discover some of those things and start putting them to use.”

TRACY RYKS

Tracy Ryks was conflicted about staying home. A marketing specialist with an irrepressible entrepreneurial streak, she was director of sales for a small financial software company when she got pregnant with her first child in 1992. “I did feel that I wanted to be home with my kids. But I couldn’t not work. I had to do something.

“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.”

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