A partnership that tests boundaries
The Robinsons have been there. When Maureen’s butter crunch sales began to take off, Rob was a self-employed painter and sandblaster of heavy-duty logging equipment. Her busy season, fall, coincided with his downtime. She needed a machine to wrap candy and wasn’t sure what to look for. He seized the chance to go shopping for a “cool, different” piece of equipment. Meanwhile, he was becoming disenchanted with his own business, which exposed him to toxic fumes. Soon enough, he was working for his wife as the equipment guy, the purchasing guy, the numbers guy and the maintenance guy. “That wrapping machine only works for him,” says Maureen, who has a staff of 25. “We like to joke that it’s a woman and she’s in love with Rob.”
For Paul Charters, a lifelong jock who now teaches Pilates at his wife Evelyn’s studio in Richmond Hill, Ont., a muscle spasm triggered an unlikely career shift. After more than three decades teaching phys ed and pumping iron in the gym, he was initially baffled by the subtle exercises that his wife taught. Then one morning he woke up with a spasm in his back. “I spent 10 minutes getting him to release,” Evelyn says. “He stood up and said, ‘What the hell did you do?’ He realized there was something to this stuff.”
Finding a new path—together
His epiphany was perfectly timed: Evelyn, 54, was run off her feet teaching classes wherever she could find a space. Paul embarked on yearlong training in Pilates mat work, and began to pick up the slack. As his interest grew, so did her commitment to expanding her studio. Two teachers came from England to train Evelyn, Paul and 10 other instructors in a Pilates method called Body Control. That same year, 2003, he retired from the job that had rewarded and defined him. The pair lives on a 25-acre property, lush with trees and perennial gardens, but Paul needed a focus besides pruning and mowing. He found it in teaching Pilates. “It takes courage to leave at the pinnacle of your career and start at the bottom of something else,” says Evelyn with obvious admiration.
The couple has now been working together at the studio for more than five years. They teach in their home, which once belonged to Evelyn’s parents. In fact, the basement studio used to be the rec room where Evelyn and Paul held their wedding reception back in 1973. (It’s also the ideal spot for playing ball with their toddler grandson.) Students appreciate their complementary teaching styles — her fluidity, his technical focus. “I have to tell him he’s better than he thinks he is,” says Evelyn of Paul.
When it comes to the finances, they’ve had their moments. As Evelyn puts it, “Sometimes the way I run my business takes him out of his comfort zone. In my mind I intuitively know where we are financially and I have a sense of when we need to rein in a little bit. He’s more organized. He needs to know where we are on paper.” Yet she wouldn’t have it any other way. “He’s been my anchor and I try to keep him lifted.”
At Milsean Chocolates, Maureen Robinson makes a similar comment about Rob. “I couldn’t have done any of this without what he contributes. I don’t have the patience for numbers. Because he does, I can focus on coming up with neat things to do.” She’s already mulling her next idea: a celebration cake in a jar, suitable for any occasion from anniversaries to promotions. All she has to do is put a new cardboard sleeve on the birthday cake. Oh, and one other thing —convince Ol’ Blue Eyes that she has another winner.
This article originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of More
