REHOBOTH BEACH – Sometimes, as a writer, you agonize over a headline or core theme for a story, and sometimes it’s handed to you on a silver platter (or in a glass jelly jar).
Maria Boulden spent the first 40 years of her career as a driven executive, moving through the ranks and running huge commercial teams at DuPont. She then spent another five years at Gartner, the multi-billion-dollar management advisory firm, helping chief revenue officers leverage the company’s vast research and content to drive their profitable growth.
Here’s an executive who led familiar DuPont businesses to dominant market positions and took the “massive Gartner toolbox and chose the right combination of tools to enable her C-suite clients to dominate their markets.”
But early in her career, she came close to walking away from DuPont after the passing of her father and, just a few months later, the severely premature birth of her son. With doctors suggesting her sub-two-pound son faced “a cruel future IF he even survives” and DuPont executives suggesting a lesser role would derail her career, she stepped away from her leadership track and into a Six Sigma Black Belt and Master Black Belt position focused on profitable growth, negotiation prowess, and commercial excellence.
This work ultimately defined her professional career and enabled an even steeper career trajectory for the decades ahead.
Fast-forward 25 years. As she turned 60, she knew it was time for another disruption. She decided to start a jam business called JamSessionJams. Her canning had provided a stress break for decades, and she had family and friends in her Landenberg neighborhood and in her new Rehoboth Beach neighborhood who wanted to buy cases of her creations.
And here’s where that silver platter headline comes in. Amid the discussion about her pivot, she pulled down a plaque her now-25-year-old son (yes, the preemie who is now a thriving engineer) had made that memorialized a “compliment” she had received in her corporate life. It says, “Properly Terrifying.” She said, with a smile, about the new step in her journey:
“I went from being the ruthless b**ch to the sweet little jelly girl.”
“Here are all the factors that led to my decision,” she continued. “My Gartner job was definitely a downshift from DuPont. The United [Airlines] crews on international flights from Newark to various destinations in Asia didn’t know me on a first-name basis anymore. I could remember what I did on weekends because I actually spent some of them at home. And even though life at Gartner was easier, I still felt like life was passing me by.
“I live at the beach, and there were still days I didn’t have enough time to take the few steps to the ocean with my husband. Just the way I had life recalibrate me 25 years ago (with her son and father), I was starting to see that happening again as our friends get older and pass on. I knew it was time for another disruption. And the JamSession was born.”
So what does this mean for other Delaware jam and jelly makers who might be worried she could revert to her previous corporate mindset?
Absolutely nothing.
“I am purging toxicity from my life,” she says. “It’s like this fun little ecosystem where people aren’t ruthless, people aren’t properly terrifying. They respect you are a small business. And we help each other. I don’t want to be called terrifying anywhere around my jam business. Not in any way. I don’t have a problem being that on a corporate board. I don’t have a problem being that as a consultant or as an operating partner. But I don’t want to be that as a business owner making jam. After all, our tagline is “Love on a spoon,” and I love spreading it.”
Maria took time to answer a few follow-up questions…
So why were you called “properly terrifying” and “ruthless”? Because when you have the privilege to lead an organization, you recognize early that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” I learned the hard way that trying to take someone who is a low performer for whatever reason and coach them up to the middle, drags everybody down, and it’s not doing them a favor either. So, I was fast on the trigger when there was somebody that was a drag on the organization, I helped them find a better fit. And if the organization had a lot of them, I fixed it. Fast. I didn’t consider that ruthless. I considered it doing what everybody needed, including the company. And I tried to give everyone the softest landing possible. Everyone. But I did that on a macro level over a period of time. That got me the ruthless tag.
Is there a piece of advice you’d give to someone starting a new business? Just like in corporate life, surround yourself with great people. In a small business, you’re the janitor, you’re the CEO, but you’re also the person that has to find partnerships and cultivate them. Delaware has an amazing small business incubator for people in the food industry at the Sussex Kitchen in Georgetown. I couldn’t do what I do if they didn’t offer the support and guidance they offer. I also partner with amazing farmers as well as the incredible small business owners who stock my jams. And that was a real revelation for me, having driven so fast and so hard for so long at an executive level (and with a lot more help), it’s fascinating to build this little business one jar at a time with local partners.
Have you had to develop any different skills? Despite a degree in Chemical Engineering, the science behind safe canning is very technical and takes a lot of care. Second, I know how my CFOs managed the balance sheet. But it’s different when it’s your personal balance sheet. And third, my calendar has driven me almost the entirety of my adult life. Now the only ruthless in me is how I focus my time for family, friends and life. I’ve learned to run my own calendar and not let it run me. I even schedule the commercial kitchen from 7-10 a.m. so I still hit primetime sun at the beach.
Where did the company name come from? The Jam Session isn’t when we make the jams; the engineer in me has to be totally focused. Just like studying when I was in school (she graduated summa cum laude from Drexel University), I can’t have any distractions like music. The jam session is when my husband Ron and I sit on the beach, listening to the Pandora Aerosmith station.
Do you see building JamSessionsJams into a high-growth company? It’s a great question that has been the topic of much soul searching because I think I could. I’ve had to pump the brakes on the demand for my jams before it gets bigger than I necessarily want right now. If it starts becoming a job, I don’t think I want it. I love working with local farmers to create a product, working with the commercial kitchen in Georgetown to physically make that product, and then working with other small businesses in Delaware to sell that product. I’d love to give employment to people who have a hard time finding it. But I also love time with my family and friends. So balance will be key in how big I let this get. I really need to give some thought to that and honestly can’t answer it right now.
Local farms are struggling in Delaware… It bothers me a lot because they are figuratively and literally the salt of the earth. These are wonderful humans. I work with the owner of Kalmar Farm in Harrington — Tommy Eliason – who’s the exclusive supplier of my hot peppers for our Tommy Hots (candied hot peppers). There’s a growing cult following for them and the many things we make with them. I love that I can enable success for both of us—and we’re having a lot of fun with it too. I’m really proud of that and would really like to explore what else I can do to be part of the solution that makes that struggle easier.
Let’s circle back to being a woman-owned business. What advice would you give to a woman getting started? Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. As a young girl, the uncles I cherished in my Italian family pushed my parents not to “waste money on college for daughters”. They challenged me that I “couldn’t handle Chemical Engineering”. Fortunately, my parents were strong believers in education for all four of their kids (three daughters and one son). They made sure I understood there’s nothing any other demographic could do that I couldn’t do. Yes, we all face barriers in this world. And maybe I did have to fight harder to overcome them. And no, it wasn’t always fair.
But when you put it in your mind that you’re going to be the best you can possibly be, to be unstoppable, you don’t listen to people who say, “You can’t.” Today, when people say I’m lucky, I tell them I’m not lucky. I’m blessed beyond measure, and I worked my ass off. Be unstoppable, commit yourself to being better every day, and recalibrate yourself anytime you’re drifting from what you really want in life. Now, I’m off to prep for that batch of chocolate cherry jam I’m making tomorrow…
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