Laura Olson presided over the bar and restaurant scene in Seattle. Over the course of her career, she owned eight bars and restaurants around the Capitol Hill and Ballard neighborhoods. 

When she was just starting out, she met with a lot of roadblocks getting a loan for her first business, a hot dog restaurant. Persistence paid off, however, and she began taking on running more businesses.

"I opened all of those from the ground up and had one thing built concurrently as I was just starting up another and had a great time in my 20s. I closed some, sold another one. I decided to keep two then got unsolicited offers I couldn’t refuse," Olson recalled.

She and her husband both worked in the service industry for years before the birth of their first child gave them a reason to hit pause on their nightlife-oriented jobs.

"I found myself pregnant with my first child having just sold my last business without an idea of what I wanted to do. Restaurant world wasn’t going to work with a new family," Olson said.

Although she had gone to college for hospitality management, Olson had started out doing recruiting for tech and accounting and returned to tech at DocuSign and Amazon’s tech division as a transitionary job.  

The growing family eventually moved back to embrace Olson's roots in Hayden in 2020.

"We were able to work remotely and we had two kids at that time. I got kinda burnt out with tech and got the itch," Olson said. "We wanted to be closer to family with more space and I grew up in Hayden." 

Entrepreneurship was again beckoning the Olsons, but they were looking for something different from the bar scene this time around.

"The Dinner Party had a for sale sign and we come from hospitality, we love wine and thought this could be a nice dip into the retail world while still giving us a 9 to 5 type of job," Olson said. 

She noted it may have been one of the worst times to jump into the wine industry, but Olson and her husband, Joe, decided to make the business their own, eventually renaming it Base Camp Wine and Co. and tailoring the business to better fit their personalities. 

"There were definitely some hoops to jump through," Olson said. "The wine industry itself is down significantly the past two years, but at the same time, that’s made it kind of fun to find out what are we going to make different that makes us stand out a little bit."

In rebranding the name of the business, she hoped to capture the sense of fun she had in returning to Hayden.

"Hayden has always been my base camp and we wanted to kind of evoke this sense of home and adventure in the base camp. Now, it's where you can start your wine journey," Olson said. 

From chemistry to window coverings

Science and especially chemistry was always a great motivator for Dan White when it came to his career, but after a time, working in the field began to take its toll.

White had gone to NIC and Eastern Washington State for college.

"When I was going to college for my chemistry, I would install window coverings as a side job," White said.

He found work in North Dakota in an environmental lab and eventually moved back to North Idaho, finding work in a different environmental lab in the Silver Valley.

"As I was doing that, I picked back up in the industry doing side work," White said. "It's always stuck with me and then I left a career in chemistry to pursue window coverings."

He worked for his parents as they are beginning to slow down and started my own company with Matthew Guerrero.

"I always liked interior design, but I didn’t go to college for it because I always thought I’d get into something medical in the sciences, but it just didn’t hold my interest," White said.

Instead, interior design and the challenge of running a business seemed called to him and since he already had experience in the window industry, he made the leap.

Working with builders and homeowners and designers has given him more excitement and pride to build something for himself. 

"I get to wear many hats as a business owner doing marketing and more," White said. 

    Dan White of Coeur Window Coverings.
  

    Base Camp Wine Co. in Coeur d'Alene.
  

    Coeur Window Coverings hosted a grand opening for the business on Sept. 4. Owner Dan White went from working in chemistry to home design.