Out of the ashes, Tubbs Fire survivors find new careers amid personal challenges

Like many others who were displaced by the Tubbs Fire five years ago, Wes Hardy was forced to scramble within a new environment.

Hardy was a renter in a Fountaingrove condominium and had planned to relocate his Santa Rosa fitness business that same week in 2017. But the wildfire turned his world turned upside down.

He bounced around like a nomad living in different residences — including a recreational vehicle — and ended up splitting with his business partners and leaving the industry that he worked in for about 30 years.

“I was sort of needing to do something differently,” said Hardy, a 56-year-old Sonoma County native.

He said he endured post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of the blaze. He also said he knew he needed to make a career change as part of reexamining life after the tragedy.

The result?

A one-man venture making furniture in an “outdoor urban rustic” style that he showcases through his Instagram account.

“I was in a place where I needed to make a career change … I needed to jump out of my business, which was a perfectly functioning business before the pandemic,” Hardy said. “The fires, I felt, almost enabled me to do that because they leveled the playing field with me. They just sort of took everything that meant anything to me and turned it upside down.”

Hardy is not alone.

Other local fire survivors -- in the aftermath of rebuilding their lives -- took a deeper look and focused their energy on a job that matched their own passions.

There are notable examples, such as Allison Messner, a technology entrepreneur, who created Yardzen, a platform where homeowners can work remotely with landscape designers or architects. That business idea emerged after receiving landscaping bids for her Tubbs Fire rebuild that were much higher than she expected.

Shawn and Cynthia Hermosillo created their own wine label after reevaluating their lives when they lost their home.

The phenomenon is not unique. Psychologists for 25 years have been studying what they term “post-traumatic growth,” according to a 2020 Harvard Business Review article by Richard Tedeschi, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

“We’ve learned that negative experiences can spur positive change, including a recognition of personal strength, the exploration of new possibilities, improved relationships, a greater appreciation for life, and spiritual growth,” Tedeschi wrote in specific reference to the pandemic.

The global health crisis is another traumatic event that also has spurred career changes across the country, especially through the greater acceptance of remote work.

That was the case for Lisa Mattson, who serves as creative director at Jordan Vineyard and Winery in Healdsburg.

Firefighters saved Mattson’s Fountaingrove home, but it suffered major damage from smoke and water. The blaze also ripped through the landscape and destroyed about 60 nearby trees.

In the aftermath, Mattson and her husband, Damon, re-imagined the landscape. They planted cactuses and succulents, adding more fire-resistant and drought-tolerant plants. The couple also opted to do most of the work themselves, saving their insurance money for repairs to the structure.

As Mattson delved more into the intricacies of landscape design, she developed a passion and created a side hustle to help local clients.

“My brain naturally gravitated toward the idea of how to design plants and different textures; and how you would lay them out,” she said.

The pandemic had Mattson reexamining her own priorities, especially as winery visitations were halted at the onset of the crisis. That made her realize she wanted a change from running a marketing department.

At the end of the year, she will leave Jordan and focus on landscape design through her firm: Sonoma Succulents. She also will be a marketing consultant on the side.

“I was like, ‘Life’s too short,’” Mattson said.

Not all such changes were dramatic, such as the case of Annie Barbour.

Barbour was a longtime veteran of the grocery business who was set to retire at the end of 2017. The Tubbs Fire took her in a new direction as she lost her Coffey Park house.

In the aftermath, she became a block captain in the Coffey Strong neighborhood group, which was an essential player in the rebuilding. In her role, Barbour became a specialist in compiling information on builders for fellow survivors.

Her advocacy work also took her to Paradise, the rural town leveled by the Camp Fire in 2018, to help those fire victims. Such work ultimately led to her current role as the California Liaison for United Policyholders, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for consumers over insurance policy debates.

Barbour did volunteer work for the group, such as helping victims of the 2020 Glass Fire. But when the funding grant for the position materialized, she readily accepted.

“Working in a grocery store is one thing. Working at something that you're passionate about and that you can relate to people and make a difference in their lives is something completely opposite,” Barbour said.

As part of her work, Barbour said she enjoyed advocating on behalf of others, and that trait has become one of her strengths in her new job.

“I love what I do. I love that I can take lessons learned, (and) I can alter how our recovery was for rural areas. And I have that mindset now where I can say, ‘You guys have this issue, this issue, this issue. Let's figure this out,’” she said.

Over the past year, Hardy has built up his furniture business, inspired by a grandfather who was a woodworker and at one time was employed by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

He has invested more money on equipment purchases to chase his dream.

He displays some of his pieces at his duplex where he lives and shares his work as part of art therapy. He specializes in taking reclaimed wood and re-purposing it into something that can be of new use, such as a clock or an outdoor table.

“I would love to spend my time making pieces for other people on a small-time basis. I don't have any big industrial plans,” Hardy said.

“I'm not a 25-year-old kid. I'm a 56-year-old kid.”