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COVID Community Follow-up

The state and county-imposed restrictions on life during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected us all, no matter our age, gender, family status or residence.

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The state and county-imposed restrictions on life during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected us all, no matter our age, gender, family status or residence.  Parents must deal with children at home all day, families often are finding themselves with the loss of an income, and the those living alone are finding themselves even more isolated.

Many Longmont women are finding their livelihoods and professional experiences impacted in diverse ways, especially if they are entrepreneurs or leading a business.  Kristy Neary opened Training For Warriors just a year ago on Boston Avenue, overlooking the St Vrain Parkway.  TFW offers a variety of fitness options, including group sessions, individual training and customized fitness analysis.

Obviously TFW relies on human contact for all of its services and having to close down in March made continuation of the existing business model impossible. Like many other fitness sources, Kristy has transitioned to online video classes and delivers “daily, high-quality, interactive programming” to many of her existing students.  Kristy is even loaning out some of her equipment to students who are taking advantage of the video classes.  However, many clients still prefer the in-person interactions that TFW offered so successfully before.  

TFWKristy, Photo by Sheila Conroy, Longmont Observer

TFW has had great support from their loyal customers, but new sales have stopped. Kristy’s business plan relied on growth for the first few years of the business, and now that is just not happening.  Not the best way to celebrate TFW’s first anniversary.  Kristy explains “As a service-based business, we are affected by contagion of virus and fear. The virus will not go away all at once and we are planning to have to continue to run at reduced capacity for the next year.”

If the shutdown continues either fully or partially for six months or more, Kristy believes that “unless both antibody tests and vaccines become widely available”, it will be a very long time before her business can approach “normal”. Kristy’s new business model means working to grow her video offerings to a wider at-home audience. “It's challenging because we need capital to pivot operations to a model that is sustainable in this new era.  But it is a catch-22 because we are down in overall revenue and we have not been eligible so far for any type of government assistance so we have no access to additional funds that we need”.

But even these troubling and difficult times have a silver lining, and Kristy has “been blown away by the showing of support from our community!”

Gillian is a senior managing executive in the development division of a large pharmaceutical company whose primary focus is the development of cancer-fighting drugs.  She works out of the Longmont office and manages a team in San Francisco.  Her business life included around a dozen domestic flights a year, as well as 9 or 10 international trips, visiting the company’s overseas offices or attending conferences.

The COVID-19 crisis has fundamentally changed Gillian’s business life.  No more travel and she now works from her Longmont home.  She describes her day now as wall-to-wall tele-conferencing, often participating or conducting virtual meetings and conferences on Zoom from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm, and of course weekends are still not often completely her own.  Her colleagues have differing attitudes to the new working life, especially those with children, although most are happy to make the change. In the Development division of the company, for which Gillian works, business activity has not been affected, but the Sales and Marketing side of the company that sells directly to physicians has seen its trade seriously affected.

Gillian does not think her work life will ever return to the “normal” of before.  She is participating in her company’s plans for the gradual opening of their physical offices, which include serious revamping of heating and air-conditioning systems as well as reorganizing office spaces.  She is in no hurry to get back to the office, especially as right now this would mean enforced social distancing and restrictions on coffee making, food use, etc.,  She does not see much change through the end of the year, especially regarding travel, as her company is being cautious on behalf of its employees.  So, she will continue as long as necessary life as it is now, working at home, having dinner delivered from Urban Thai, and ordering from the online Farmers Market website.

Schools have been one of the most affected parts of the economy, and Longmont’s Crossroads School, is no different. like all schools, Crossroads is figuring out distance learning day by day.  Barb Bultheis, Executive Director of the downtown Longmont school that prides itself on taking in students that are at-risk teens and have often failed elsewhere.  Students are having varying levels of success; teachers are working hard to stay connected through phone, text, video calls, porch drop-offs, and more. Just as Kristy at TFW with its one year anniversary, Crossroads has had to postpone its 10th Anniversary celebration,  Barb has also seen a silver lining, as “our donors have responded generously and so far we're hanging in there.”

Barb-B-at-Crossroads Photo by Sheila Conroy, Longmont Observer

When asked how the school has been affected by the COVID-19 restrictions, Barb replied that activity has declined, of course, but she feels that they are OK for the rest of the school year, but “continued distance learning will be challenging.”  Crossroads is hoping to go back to in-person classes in August.

Changing from traditional classroom and one-on-one teaching is always difficult, and perhaps with Crossroads’ unique student body, it is even more so, for students, their families and teachers.  The big question for schools and businesses is trying to know when life will be normalized and how long that will be.  Barb thinks that the best case is three to six months.  “But we’ll see”.