What was it like growing up in that Cold War environment?
It was sad because a lot of people were separated.  A lot of people had grandparents they had never seen because their parents had fled and the older populations stayed because they were thinking nothing of it, and then once the communists came they built up the walls.  By then it was too late.

Did that have an impact on your immediate family situation?
No, my family was lucky.  None of us were in the east, and we didn't have relatives living there.  But there were school teachers or neighbors you couldn't visit, sometimes you had to ask for visitation rights, and that could take years.  So we were very lucky, I have to say.

What was your perception of America growing up?
Well, when I was really small, like 12 or so, we thought Americans were like John Wayne, with horses and everything.

Oh no!
But as we got older and watched more of the news, we realized America wasn't quite like that.  Not everybody lives in Texas.

Right.  How old were you when you moved from Germany?
24.

What were the circumstances?
I met my husband in Germany, I was working as a translator and he was a journalist.  We would show up at the same trade shows.  I had to cover them as a translator, and he would always be there.  We just kind of met.  He was a New Yorker, so he invited me to come see New York City.  We pretty much decided to get married very quickly.  We met in December and got married in April, so it wasn't a very long courtship.

So then you moved back to New York?
We got married and I filed all of the necessary paperwork and we lived in New York City for three years.  We really enjoyed New York City.  We lived on the Upper West Side, and I found a job in about two weeks with a German company, I was very lucky.  It wasn't easy living there at first, my spoken English wasn't great, it was school English, but it improved drastically by living there.  My husband worked for McGraw-Hill, the publishing company, before he was asked to move.  Then we moved back to Germany, where our first child was born.  We lived there for four years.

What informed your decision to move back to the US?
Both of us having lived in both places, we really felt that the United States was a better place for us.  We loved the fact that it wasn't as densely populated as, say, a small village in Germany.  If you've ever been, it's very crowded, it can really get to you (laughs).  When we lived there, it was very expensive to own even a small piece of land.  Here, in the United States, we could afford a house on a decent piece of land for a lot less.  We moved back in '93 and bought our first house in Connecticut.  That was nice.

Were you guys commuting into New York City?
I stayed home with our first child, but my husband did commute for a long time.  That's what brought us to Maine:  After eight years, he just said he couldn't take it anymore.  It takes three hours out of your day just to get to work.  But we like Maine, even though finding work has been interesting.  There've been a lot of changes in his career, and we had to come up with things to be able to stay in Maine.  We've had to put ourselves on the backburner in that regard.  We kind of thought it was better for our kids to have more time for them instead of just thinking about our careers.  A little less money, but you actually see your kids and what they're doing.

That makes sense.  After living in both Germany and New York, was it hard to adjust to the more homogenous population and lifestyle here in Maine?
Well, I would love it if my kids grew up with a little more diversity, but that just isn't here.  And my kids have traveled a lot, that's something they've always found beneficial, they've enjoyed that.  When you're here in Maine you can feel a little isolated.  My daughter and I have had this conversation, where she told me she thought things here were a little generic.  And I had to laugh because it's partly true.  They love growing up here, don't get me wrong, but when they're 18 they’ll really be ready for something else.  And I think that's a good thing.  As I said, they’ve been lucky, they've traveled, they've been exposed to different experiences and are open to a lot of things.  If you're open-minded then you're all set.  But I've heard people say they don't like to go to Portland because of all the traffic.  What traffic?  We used to live in Frankfurt and the car traffic is horrendous.  Portland’s nothing.

Does your family ever make it over here to the States?
They come quite often.  They all like to come in the summer, of course.  We see each other at least once or twice a year.  E-mailing and calling each other doesn't compare to really spending time together.  It's good to embrace that.

How did you come to own the UPS Store here in Brunswick?
It was one of those things where we were thinking of something that would make us not so vulnerable in Maine because jobs are so scarce here.  We found that in Maine, that's what you have to do.  For my husband, it can be hard to even find the publishing industry, and people can be hesitant to hire somebody with a marketing MBA because they're worried you might not want to work.  So we’ve had to make some changes and really make sure we have something steady.

How long has the store been here?
It's been here for ten years, but we bought it four years ago.  It used to be a “Mailboxes Etc.,” which was bought by UPS, then UPS renamed those stores The UPS Stores.  Actually, in the beginning that did us a disservice because people just thought we shipped things, they didn't know about all the other services like copying and notary and renting mailboxes.

I certainly had no idea.
It definitely hurt us in the beginning.  It's hard enough to keep up with the big guys.  We're lucky to have in-house accounts with small businesses.  That's my bread and butter, really. 

What's the most difficult decision you've ever had to make?
I think the most difficult was to leave Germany, to emigrate.  That's who I am, I'm German.  I mean, I wanted get married and obviously that's why I did it, but to give up friends, even at 24, that's quite a decision.  You realize you’ll never have those kinds of bonds you hear people talk about, like having friends for 20 years.  I could have had that, and that's a little sad, but that decision was made when we decided to get married. 

What would you say is your biggest accomplishment?
Well, sustaining a happy marriage for 20 years is something I'm proud of.  That doesn't seem to happen all that often today.  But I would think that raising two kids and running a business is a big accomplishment (laughs).  That's not always easy, and often times you put yourself under pressure because time is scarce and you wonder if you can do it.  It gets hectic, having a teenager and a 12 year-old boy.  So yeah, I guess I'm most proud of that.
That most certainly is a major accomplishment