It might have been fate, or just a coincidence, that spurred Tricia Beran’s latest business. The Scottsdale resident was prepared to launch Reflections, a video-history service dedicated to preserving family memories when she heard Rabbi Micah Caplan of Congregation Or Chadash give a Yom Kippur sermon on the importance of capturing one’s values and life lessons and sharing them with family.
When Caplan challenged his congregation to examine their lives and leave their loved ones what are known as “ethical wills,” the challenge rang true with Tricia. “It was absolutely aligned with one of the things I wanted to do,” she says of ethical wills.
Adding that component to her new business was a natural evolution for the businesswoman, community leader and wife of fellow entrepreneur Andy Beran. “Her growth from employee to mother to joint entrepreneur to solo is fascinating,” says Andy, owner of Quality Transport Services of Arizona.
The Berans have been active in Jewish communities since they married in New York. When they lived in Sacramento, CA, Tricia was board president of a Jewish Day School, and Andy was a board member and president of the Jewish Foundation of Sacramento. In the Phoenix area, Tricia is active in AIPAC, and both are active in Congregation Or Chadash.
Joining their Jewish community helps the family establish relationships. “We found, especially as we moved around, that it was always an anchor for us,” Andy says.
Those relationships and personal connections are what Tricia focuses on with Reflections. Before her father passed away 13 years ago, she encouraged him to tell her about all the changes he had seen in the 20th century. “He’d tell me wonderful stories, but I didn’t capture them,” she says.
To avoid similar regrets, she and Andy hired someone to interview his parents. The basic interview cost more than Tricia expected, and she realized she could create compelling life- history videos at more affordable prices.
She took classes in interviewing and in using video equipment and software. While researching the video-history business, she came across the idea of ethical wills. “They complement the legal will, an ethical statement to family and friends,” she says.
Rabbi Caplan’s sermon reinforced the idea. Caplan said he got the idea for the sermon topic from So That Your Values Live On, a book co-authored by his cousin and friend Jack Riemer. “Property goes away, but nobody can take away your values,” he explains. Yet when he asked the congregation how many had received ethical wills, only three or four of 1,100 raised their hands. So he challenged the congregation to take action – to start thinking about their ethical wills.
Tricia and Caplan offered workshops to encourage people to create ethical wills. Once people hear about the idea, they are very receptive, Caplan says.
Caplan, whose own father died at age 39, says sharing life experiences need not wait until old age. Ethical wills can be changed and edited over time and video versions add another way to connect with the past.
Reflections takes advantage of family gatherings such as graduations and weddings to have family members talk about their favorite memories and family traditions, and share their thoughts about what is important. Tricia combines photos, video and audio to create a unique gift for the person being celebrated. “What I love is that you get the mannerisms, the chuckle, the smile,” she says. Most of her customers have been in their 60s and 70s. Tricia asks customers about their goals, gives them questions to think about and then records the video at their home or in another comfortable setting. Interviews take about two hours, and she edits them down to 10-minute, 30-minute or documentary-length videos.
Among Reflections’ first clients was Deb Rochford, associate director of the Jewish National Fund in Arizona. Tricia interviewed Rochford’s 89-year-old father about his childhood in an orphanage and his service in the U.S. Navy, and Rochford’s 84-year-old mother about her childhood in Colorado and her perspective as a woman partnering in business with her husband. Tricia incorporated family photos in the video, which includes Rochford’s parents’ wishes of health, love, respect and peace for their children and grandchildren.
The result was a Mother’s Day present that Rochford calls beautiful, filled with unexpected detail and emotion. Rochford has shared copies with her brother and sister and all their children.
“It will be with you forever,” she says of the video history.
An Entrepreneurial Couple
Entrepreneurship is a family affair for the Berans.
Both Tricia and Andy graduated from Dartmouth College (where they met) and both have MBA degrees. Both also had long careers at Intel Corp. Their careers with Intel took them to Arizona, around the world and back to Arizona.
Tricia retired from Intel in 1998, in part to help care for her school-age daughter who had a medical issue that took a few years to resolve through surgery. After Andy retired from Intel in 2005, the couple started their own small business. They began a digital printing and sign-making company in Scottsdale named Signs by Tomorrow. They grew it to two locations and then sold it in 2008.
The Berans travelled, visited their daughters on the East Coast and volunteered for six weeks helping disabled adults in Sderot, Israel. But Andy became “pretty bored and started looking for another opportunity.”
In 2010 he found Quality Transport Services of Arizona, a service whose vans are equipped to transport clients in wheelchairs or on stretchers to medical and other appointments. Former Phoenix police officer Jason Schechterle, who was severely burned in a crash and survived multiple surgeries, and his partner were looking for a buyer whose strong business skills were a better match for the growing QTS.
assistance from their homes or assisted-living centers to doctors’ appointments, dialysis or rehab treatments, and social engagements. QTS serves more than 80 medical and assisted-living facilities including Banner and the Phoenix VA. QTS also serves individuals and families needing wheelchair transportation.
At QTS, Andy works on business development, marketing and strategic planning, while the management team handles the day-to-day operations. In the last three years, the company has grown to 35 employees and operates 25 vehicles equipped with ramps and lifts. Andy estimates that QTS completes tens of thousands of trips a year.
QTS operates in a competitive market, but Andy says what makes it more than just a simple taxi service is that drivers
do more than pick up and drop off passengers at the curb. “Our drivers interact with the passengers,” he says. “They greet them at the door or even at the bedside, help get them ready to go, ensure they are safely secured in the vehicle, and then upon arrival, reverse the process. Our drivers don’t leave until the passenger is safely in the hands of the medical facility or doctor’s office or where ever the destination is.”
Adding “the human side” means passengers, who may use QTS several times a week, become part of an extended family. Drivers
might call relatives or 911 in emergencies, or they might help celebrate happy milestones. “The relationship between the drivers and the passengers becomes an important part of the whole transportation process,” Andy says.
Andy calls assisted transportation a “linchpin service” that allows an aging population to stay in their homes while they have regular, easy-to-use transportation to medical facilities and stores.
Entrepreneurs’ Life Lessons
When the Berans operated their sign b
usiness together, they commonly shared the workload. Operating separate businesses forces each one to stretch to handle tasks or learn skills instead of looking to the spouse to do it, Tricia says.
Having the two separate businesses also gives the couple a lot more to talk about, Tricia says. They share stories and anecdotes about their days, and they can discuss issues common to any small business such as making the best choice of where to invest limited resources.
“With your spouse in business, you have a trusted person to run things by,”Tricia says.“They have your best interests at heart. It may make scheduling vacations a little more challenging, but the rewards make it worthwhile.”
For more about Reflections visit www.ReflectionsVideoHistory.
For more information about Quality Transport Services of Arizona visit www.qtsaz.com or call 602-371-1000.
Josh Weiss contributed to this article.
