Three Moms Balance Home And Business

Nashuatelegraph.com:

Most business meetings don’t double as play dates, but for three stay-at-home moms, it’s the way they balance work and family.

Cara Facques, Naadia Nazeer and Jennifer Mastergeorge, all of Amherst, have nine children between them. Last year they opened Amherst Therapy Connections, a clinic that provides speech therapy for private clients and to local school districts, in Northwood Executive Park on Northern Boulevard.

Running a business while minding little children poses unique challenges and opportunities, according to the women. For instance, they could be making appointments while taking their children to school or they might have to pass paperwork to one another while watching a soccer game.

“The business guy gets to leave in the morning and his wife stays home with the kids,” Facques said. “We’ve had the kids down in the basement, given them pieces of pizza, and we’re having a business meeting upstairs.”

But it was the kids who were responsible for bringing the women together.

Facques and Nazeer had been friends since graduate school at the University of New Hampshire, where they studied communication disorders. They worked in local school districts for years because they lacked the business acumen to work for themselves.But that changed about two years ago when Mastergeorge, who has a degree in business, offered to do the administration. The women hatched their business plan over coffee at J. Beaner’s Cafe on Route 101A, and about a year ago, they opened Amherst Therapy Connections.