David served 22 years as an active duty Marine working his way up from Private to Staff Sergeant and then from Second Lieutenant to Major. During those years, Jenny varied in jobs as we moved so frequently. She had been fortunate to start with medical billing roles early on. She was able to continue finding openings at each new duty station, although sometimes had some chances to be a full-time mom and run her own business for a while. She became very proficient at medical coding and was leading a very successful career.
After retirement, David used his technical and leadership expertise in the corporate world. His first post-military role was with a company building a new Unemployment Insurance system for the State of Michigan. After completing the first rollout of that system, he changed gears and moved to Indiana to assume a new role as Regional IT Manager for Amazon. Over the next several years his roles evolved and grew and we ended up relocating to the Phoenix area.
In 2017, David was ready for a change and decided to pursue an entrepreneurial path. He started with the purchase of an Old Time Photography studio. It seemed like a sleepy little business that had been run for years by a couple of older ladies and made a little bit of money but not a whole lot. Well, it stopped being sleepy very quickly. We learned a lot very quickly and started making changes. Suddenly we were getting really, really busy. About a year into this, Jenny quit her medical coding job and suddenly we were both committed to the business full-time. Scary!
Over the next few years, we continued to build the business. First we added another store – a gold panning attraction. When we first bought it the store only offered gold panning and exactly one size for everyone. At Jenny’s suggestion, we added a gemstone mining sluice and the impact to the business was phenomenal. We also started adding different gold panning paydirt options that became very popular with our customers. We also created another business (because 3 is a magic number, right?). This one was our hat shop – selling a variety of hats but mostly cowboy ones since we are in an old west tourist town.
For several years, customers have pestered us to have our gold panning and gemstone mining materials available online for them to purchase and enjoy from home. We have tried to put something together a few times but hopefully this will be the site that blossoms! We hope to provide a good value and some good dirty fun for everyone.