From Jobless Necessity, Judy Clark Founded HR Answers, which Now Serves the Human Resource Needs of Hundreds of Businesses in the Northwest US

Judy, as she describes on Twitter, is “eclectic:” she has fostered 47 teenage girls, is passionate about poker, wine and frogs, and owns and serves as president of the largest independent human-resources (HR) firm in the northwest. Her 40 employees are contracted by as many as 400 businesses and organizations at a time. They have been hired by the state of Oregon, the U.S. Soccer Foundation, the University of Montana and even Nike. HR Answers was named one of the fastest-growing companies in the area by Portland Business Journal for six consecutive years. At the face of it all, Clark is living marvelously well.

The company was founded, however, out of necessity and under difficult circumstances.  In 1984, Judy’s job as the HR assistant administrator at an Oregon hospital was eliminated.  “I was told,” she recalls, “that I was superb, wonderful, spectacular, handled the administrative process beautifully-and that we’re laying you off.”  She had always been aware of the possibilities of layoffs, especially in the volatile healthcare-administration industry, but she had always considered herself to be immune. “I always thought that really, really good work was protection-and it had not been.”

This was not the first time Judy had been part of an organization that had closed or been forced to cut staff.  “Every single place I have worked isn’t open anymore. And I didn’t want to lose a job again because somebody else was in charge and couldn’t make decisions. I decided to start my own organization-if I lost that job I had nobody to blame but myself.”

Judy’s private HR service-opened that year in the loft of her home-was a reaction to her unemployment, but not ill conceived or extraneous. She knew that smaller businesses needed HR help and often did not have their own private human-resources branch, and hoped to use her experience to contract that work for herself.

When it came to founding the firm, Judy put in her all. “You have to know how far you will go,” she reminisces. “My mantra was, ‘No Plan B.’ I’m going to make this work.  Whatever it takes, I will make it work.” Her fear of losing focus-and, ultimately, backing into escape routes-kept her from any possible distractions.

Those ‘distractions’ she had to avoid-or make peace with-included Judy’s entire personal life. “As an entrepreneur, there is almost never a down time! I had one child in college and another a senior in high school, and if they were a whole lot younger than that I could never have done this. You have to be willing to devote almost everything.” She pauses. “My daughter works in the firm… We work tremendously hard being objective and clear even when that means complicated or challenging. As a result, I have less Mom time.”

The sacrifices Judy had to make with her family time were made more difficult in 1999, when her four-year-old granddaughter was lost in the Willamette River. Tragedies happen in everyone’s life, not just to people in the news, and these things don’t care whether you’re busy, happy or unprepared. “People would ask, ‘Why did this happen to you?’ And my comment was, ‘Why not me?’ At some point, it can’t always be somebody else.” Clark takes a deep breath and continues with a sigh, “Life happens to you as well. That was a defining moment… the recognition that there is no reliance on the assumption that no bad thing would happen to you. It’s been 10 years now, and changed the whole way I perceive everything.”

 Judy has made it through these challenges, using them to learn how to be a better leader, teacher and person. She serves as adjunct faculty at Portland State University and Washington State University, and is one of only six people in the country certified to teach the “Shades of Grey” sexual-harassment program. She is a staff writer for the Portland Business Journal and a manuscript reviewer for HR Magazine. In 2003, Clark was awarded Woman Executive of the Year by the Portland Business Journal for small- to medium-sized businesses.

 No small feats for a frog-loving eclectic.