In a Good Place
Gehrke: Supporting schools with an eclectic incubator.
Photo courtesy Judy Gehrke
Every Sunday, on a block of Manhattan’s Columbus Avenue between West 76th and 77th streets, an event takes place that is part business incubator, part social experiment. As executive director of GreenFlea, Inc., Judy Gehrke (MBA ’73) presides over this weekly happening or, as she describes it, this “mini-laboratory for budding entrepreneurs.”
The businesses in question aren’t of a high-tech nature, however: GreenFlea is an indoor-outdoor market that is home to an eclectic mix of some 240 vendors selling everything from handmade jewelry (think cufflinks made from old typewriter keys) to custom-made furniture (perhaps a coffee table constructed from recycled barn siding?). Incorporated in 1985, founded by parent volunteers (Gehrke took the reins in 1993), and located on public school grounds, GreenFlea has raised an estimated $7 million over the years for the five schools in its immediate area.
No, Gehrke didn’t describe a burning ambition to run a flea market in her HBS admissions essay. “The path you start out on is certainly not always the path you end up on,” she remarks philosophically. A native of Milwaukee (her father worked at the Miller brewery), Gehrke attended Northwestern University, where she was introduced to poster design while working in a print shop. From there she went to the Pratt Institute for a master’s degree in package design and discovered a talent for managing creative types: “My group always asked me to be the team leader, maybe because they didn’t want me to mess up what they were working on too much,” she laughs.
From her time at HBS, Gehrke cites first-year Marketing with former HBS professor Marty Marshall, as well as the lifelong impact of the case method. “You have a very small period of time to read through something and form an approach, which makes you quick on your feet,” she says. “As a result, I don’t need months and months to agonize over a decision. I can get a sense of the whole landscape all at once and move forward.” Obviously, she notes, that skill can come in handy when juggling the many demands of GreenFlea, a moving puzzle of vendors, each with his or her own personality and demands. (Gehrke’s is the only full-time position; twelve employees help out on the day of the market.) “It keeps you young, it keeps you interested,” she summarizes. “It’s definitely not the same old thing every week.”
Gehrke adds that HBS reinforced her aptitude for planning and efficiency. “Last summer I ran the business while I was on vacation in France with an email and phone call from time to time,” she says. “I’ve focused on systematizing everything so that, hopefully, I become very replaceable.” (At 62, Gehrke expects to work at GreenFlea for another four years or so.)
As she approaches twenty years of managing the market, Gehrke reflects on a nontraditional career trajectory that includes a series of corporate marketing jobs and a housewares business that she launched in 1978 and shuttered two years later. “I used to be very concerned that I wasn’t making the most of my education,” she says. “I think that’s an issue for women in particular, who often fall off from professional careers as they get involved with family.
“My sense is that no matter what I’m involved with, I’ll still bring the same tools to bear on it as I would if I were working at a Fortune 500 company. I approach the smallest problem in the same fashion as I would if it were a multimillion-dollar situation,” Gehrke adds. “The professionalism that you bring to a task, whether large or small, is ultimately what makes you feel comfortable at the end of your working career. I think women need to hear that more.”
