Giving away the store

Tasha Beauchamp built a company, Elder Pages Online, then gave it to her employees

Sebastopol resident Tasha Beauchamp kept the part of her job she liked the most and gave the rest away. (Photo courtes Tasha Beauchamp)

For most of her career, Tasha Beauchamp was research scientist doing projects funded by the National Institute on Aging. Her area of specialization was family caregivers. In 2007, she started her own company, Elder Pages Online, creating websites, blogs and newsletters for elder care managers and other senior living specialists around the country.

“I got very tired of doing the grant mill in academia,” Beauchamp said. “I really wanted to do much more in the applied sector, where it really was going to touch people. My basic feeling was I have 40 hours a week, and I want to touch the most lives possible for those 40 hours.”

Elder Pages is a niche business, but with an aging population, more and more people are seeking out elder care managers to help them manage the difficult decisions around aging: Is it time for Mom to go to Assisted Living? How do you find a good one? How to find good home care? And the million other tricky questions that arise as the population ages and families try to navigate what Beauchamp calls “our very dysfunctional and disjointed elder care network.”

Beauchamp is the person who develops the content that fills her clients’ websites, blogs and newsletters. She writes with two markets in mind: for people who are planning their aging parents’ futures and aging boomers who are planning for their own.

“Everything is evidence based,” she said. “We write to the ninth grade level. It's warm and friendly. But there's research behind it. I'm a research scientist, and it’s based on the science.”

Over the years her business blossomed. She added several employees, like former Sebastopol Waldorf parent and web designer Ben Klocek, who now lives in Idaho.

Then Beauchamp started thinking about her own retirement. She thought about selling her business, but figured she could only sell it for about two years’ worth of income. Moreover, she wasn’t ready to retire completely. She just wanted to get out from under the hassle that comes with running your own business. She still wanted to write for the company—her sweet spot.

The answer? In 2023, she gave her company to Klocek and Aria Mikkola-Sears, another employee in Portland, who had worked for Elder Pages on and off since high school.

“So they now own the business,” Beauchamp says. “I just do the writing. So I don't have to do sales. I don't have to do contracts and invoicing or stay on top of the latest technology. They manage that.”

Her job with the company still keeps her busy—and well-paid—but now she’s doing the thing she enjoys most. And it gives her time to do other things, like enjoying the meditation class at the Sebastopol Senior Center.

Her approach shows that creating a succession plan for your business doesn’t have to be the sort of cut-throat affair of TV dramas. It can work for everyone.

“We’ve taken over the operations part of the business, and she’s sort of our professor emeritus,” Klocek said. “I think it also takes a generous heart like Tasha’s to see that it's not so much about the exit strategy, but the legacy of all the people she's helped and continues to help through the gift of her time and energy. We’ve put in an inordinate amount of sweat equity this year filling her shoes.”

Find out more about Elder Pages Online here.