From Minimum Wage to Rooftop Gardens

Teresa Carleo’s client roster reads like a who’s who in New York real estate development. But her success started with the question, “What am I going to do with my life?”
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Reinvent Your Career: Success Tips from Teresa Carleo

When Teresa Carleo started her landscaping business 20-plus years ago, she was literally building a business from the ground up. Her only experience consisted of fond childhood memories of working in the garden with her parents. So she started at the bottom by taking a minimum-wage job watering plants.

Carleo worked to expand her knowledge, eventually breaking out on her own and founding Plant Fantasies Incorporated. Success didn’t come without struggle, but, today, Carleo’s thriving business offers a wide range of services—from flower arrangements and ground-floor landscaping to rooftop gardens—for some of New York’s top real estate developers. Here, she shares a few of her success tips: Read more

Reinvent Your Career: Success Tips Fran Lessans

Want to reinvent your career? Women everywhere are doing it. Some start from scratch by going back to school and learning a totally new set of skills. Others, like Fran Lessans, take the expertise they’ve gained, find an underserved niche and apply that knowledge to creating a new career. You can read Lessans’ story here, but first, read on to learn some of the success keys that helped her reinvent her career and go from being a nurse to leading Passport Health, a nationally recognized company specializing in immunizations. Read more

An in-JEAN-ious Idea

Alison Barnard believes smart entrepreneurial risks are worth the rewards.

When Alison Barnard researched the idea for a blue jean boutique—where women could try on different brands, sizes and styles of jeans and receive input from denim experts—she knew she was on to something good. She also knew that if she didn’t pursue the idea, someone else would. “I knew I had to act on it,” Barnard says.

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