Bob German rises each morning and steps out into his rows of trees – maples, oaks, locusts, conifers – on his rural Dallas Center property and gets to work. But this time around, work has taken on an entirely new meaning.

“I’m careful to make sure people realize that it’s not like I’m not going to eat if we don’t sell trees, but it’s something I enjoy,” he said. But he insists “I’m not a tree hugger.”

German isn’t the only one who has left the corporate world in pursuit of greener pastures. Among others in Central Iowa, Tom Berg now enjoys the freedom of his one-man car business and Molly Culbertson says she has finally found her niche after following a winding career path.

German left his job as president of Brenton State Bank Dallas Center in March 2000 after more than 25 years with the company. Growing weary of his 8-to-5 desk job and concerned about his health, he set into early retirement at the age of 49.

“Even though banking was changing a lot, it was difficult [to leave],” he said. “I had two kids who were going to go through college yet. It was difficult in making sure with money that we were OK.

“My interest in the tree business wasn’t going to support us in any way. This is a hobby-type business, but Pam (his wife) says it’s enough to pay for all the toys we have around.”

The Germans, along with another couple, bought 95 acres of land in 1990, which was barren of trees at the time. German and Bill Scott, who co-owns the land, took a forestry class to gain the knowledge they’d need to plant trees on their new property.

“I learned more in that class than any one class I took in four years of college because it was stuff that was all new to me that I could put to use right away,” German said. They became involved in various forestry projects – successful completion of the class required 45 volunteer service hours – and “learned by doing.”

“We didn’t go into it saying we would sell trees,” German added. “We wanted to be able to grow trees and make them look nice.”

German and Scott now operate Valleyview Tree Farm on more than 25 acres of their land, adding various pieces of equipment over the years to aid in their endeavor. Because they do not spend money on advertising, most of their business comes through word of mouth. And with a tremendous amount of growth in Dallas County, business has not been hard to come by. And despite interest from a number of people, they do not sell Christmas trees or cut them down for their own use.

“It’s hard for me to do that because I grow the tree to keep it alive, not to cut it down,” German said. “All I think of is the number of years it took me to grow it.”

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Tom Berg made a similar transition, moving from the corporate world to a hobby-centered business four years ago after being laid off by GMAC Real Estate. Though losing his job was “pretty rocky,” he saw an even greater opportunity to turn his part-time car business into a full-fledged endeavor.

“I think everybody fantasizes about doing something different on their own,” said Berg, who spent 14 years with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate before Meredith Corp. sold the company to General Motors Corp. in 1998. “The corporate world, the corporate culture is great for a lot of people, and it was great for me as well. It was very comfortable with great pay, so there was no reason for me to venture out and look.”

He is now the owner and sole employee of Tom’s Motors, 1605 E. Madison Ave., where he refurbishes cars and sells them from his lot. Though it was a dramatic career change, it was the culmination of more than 20 years spent tinkering with cars in his garage and selling some to defray the costs associated with his drag racing hobby.

“It didn’t take off like crazy,” said Berg, 53. “I hadn’t planned on the amount of capital I needed to get going. With a corporate job, you don’t think about that stuff. So rather than jump out of the gate and borrow a bunch of money to get it started, I sort of eased into it.”

He started off with four or five cars, which he said were on the lower end of the spectrum as far as price was concerned, and now has about 55 cars on the lot. Berg handles the reconditioning of the cars, but farms out some of the mechanical work.

Though Berg, like German, is not out to make a huge profit and lead the business through a dramatic expansion, he said it does need to remain financially profitable. And, he said, it has.

“It didn’t start out that way,” Berg said. “As I got started, I had some days out here when I questioned myself – ‘What am I doing? Is this the right thing? Would I be better off with a blue vest working at Wal-Mart?’”

Despite his hesitations, he loves coming to work every day to practice his hobby. And being his own boss has its perks, too, though he never thought it could happen to him.

“Every decision you make, you’ll reap the benefits or pay the consequences,” Berg said. “There’s nobody watching and you’re all on your own and there are no ramifications as far as ‘what will the boss think?’ And that’s just wonderful.”

Though he says he is trying to cut back on the number of hours he spends at work, Berg says he leaves his car hobby at work. But his long hours have cut into time for other pleasures. He went golfing recently, which he said he now rarely has time for, and his family’s vacation home at Lake of the Ozarks has mostly gone unused.

German, despite having little down time from the tree business, said he has found time to enjoy some of his other hobbies, having bicycled across the country with a group of friends in 2001. He returned this weekend from a bicycling trip in the Grand Canyon.

Both men, however, say there are days when they miss the social aspect of their previous jobs. But Berg said those days are few and far between. German enjoys entertaining visitors at Valleyview Tree Farm, many of whom come to pick out a tree from their selection.

“I enjoy that as much as anything else,” he said.

SLOW PROGRESSION

With dreams of becoming a magazine editor, Molly Culbertson graduated from Iowa State University and worked her way up the ladder at Meredith Corp. to become editor of Country Home magazine. But, like German and Berg, she eventually learned that life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned.

After a few job changes during her career, she found her way to Orchard Place, an organization whose mission continues to elicit her passion and her desire to help children, “especially those kids who didn’t get a fair start.”

“I was really at a point where I felt like I had been given so many opportunities to learn a lot and try to develop skills in various areas,” Culbertson said. “I wanted to see if I could turn those skills and lessons learned into something that made a difference at a real basic level.”

After more than 13 years at Meredith, she moved to Birmingham, Ala., to become executive editor of Coastal Living magazine, a new launch by Southern Progress Corp. Then years later, she moved back to Des Moines to work in communications and public policy under Gov. Tom Vilsack and Lt. Gov. Sally Peterson.

“I do feel like I’ve learned all along as I go,” Culbertson said. “But in some ways, I feel like all along it has led me to this work.”

With more than a decade under her belt on Orchard Place’s board of directors, Culbertson gave serious thought to taking a permanent job with the organization and joined on as vice president of stewardship and advancement nearly two and a half years ago, although she said she didn’t jump at the opportunity.

“It seemed to me doing something that I really hadn’t done before because I really hadn’t been a fund-raiser in any capacity,” she said. “But I liked the idea of being more involved with an agency whose mission I really cared about. And when I started learning what the job was, I realized that a lot of the skills that I had acquired in the magazine business, as well as the public policy lesions I had learned in the governor’s office, were very translatable.”

Culbertson said that after a succession of jobs, she feels she has finally found her niche, one in which the passion for her work “never dwindles.” Last year, Orchard Place held its first spelling bee, raising $110,000 through the competition between teams of adults. In recent months, the organization’s administrative offices and Child Guidance Center moved into a new building at 808 Fifth Ave., thanks to a gift from Des Moines philanthropist Myron Blank, doubling the guidance center’s capacity.

“I’m amazed at the number of people who want to collaborate to make things better for the community,” said Culbertson. “And that’s what I love most about this job.”

Despite finding themselves far from where they expected to be at this point in their lives, Culbertson, German and Berg all say that they love what they do. Through job changes, layoffs and early retirement, they have all found themselves in a spot in which their day-to-day work just doesn’t seem like work to them.

“You think about how many hours you’re putting in at corporate America, and they were long days, especially if you’re traveling,” Berg said. “And sometimes you reflect on that and think ‘I’m giving this company my life.’ Out here, you don’t ever think about how many hours you work. You’re just here.”