Jody Schumacher Branch Manager, RK Dixon Office Supplies
No duplicating this success What started out as a part-time job turned into a life-long passion for Jody Schumacher, branch manager of RK Dixon Office Supplies. It was 30 years ago that Schumacher was a college student in need of a job to help pay for school. So she took a telemarketing position at Northern Illinois Copy Equipment (NICE), where she sandwiched work between morning and evening classes at Rock Valley and Rockford Colleges. “It wasn’t my dream job to sell toner over the phone,” she says. “But in 1982, unemployment was 22 percent, the office technology was growing and I needed to work. I discovered that the industry fit me like a glove.” Schumacher embraced the fast pace of business and the constantly changing challenges and technological developments. Ten years later, at the age of 30, Schumacher purchased the company, becoming the first female Sharp dealer in the country. She grew NICE into a highly-profitable business and became one of Sharp’s top 10 fax dealers in the country. In 1994, Schumacher sold NICE to Danka Office Imaging Company and began working in the company’s mergers and acquisition department. She stayed on until 1998, when she decided to take a break to raise her two young children. While she enjoyed being home with her family, Schumacher missed the hustle and bustle of the business world. “I went from director of sales for Danka responsible for 11 states and 300 employees to Haley and Lucas’ mom,” she says. “It was great, but people in the community look at you differently when you don’t work. I tried to join a golf league for business women, but they wouldn’t accept me because I didn’t work.” As her children became older, Schumacher went back to work, joining RK Dixon as a sales representative. In the last three years, she has grown the managed print services department to more than 55 accounts and was recently named branch manager. “I learned that you can’t sit back in life,” she says. “It’s good to be back. It’s like I never left.” By Paul Anthony Arco 20
» November 2012
“You can’t sit back in life.”
One