Testimonials

For several reasons, one of which was the tanking US economy, it wasn't prudent to sell our Florida business in 2008 and make the leap. However, we already had initiated several of the elements of our plan. We sold our Florida home in 2007 and Yvonne became pregnant right on schedule last January, to fulfill the plan to have our baby in Costa Rica, where our daughter would be living out her childhood. Her birth in Costa Rica would give her duel citizenship, which we thought would be a priceless gift to our new child.

With this major element of our plan in motion, this called for rethinking and brought us to Residencias los Jardines. We decided that we would come to Costa Rica for the baby's birth and do our best to run our business from afar while here. Then after the baby was a month or so old, we would return to Florida and hopefully our business would still be afloat, and ride out the economic storm before making our permanent move to Punta Uva. The two big unknowns were (1) having a baby in Costa Rica and (2) running our Florida business from Costa Rica. Here's how it has worked out so far.

Running our US business from Costa Rica

Our business Graphic Exposure, Inc., is small and personal. It's a "mom and pop" kind of thing. We provide custom screen printed and embroidered apparel for businesses, mostly corporations and restaurants, for employees and for resale. We have a small production facility in Tampa with several employees that produce and ship our products to our customers in the US and a few in the Caribbean. Yvonne and I have always been hands on, working every weekday onsite with our crew. Yvonne runs all aspects of the office, including receivables, payables, orders blank garments from our vendors for us to print as well as shop supplies, banking, payroll, and a host of other office type things that would drive me crazy. I deal directly with our customers, generate art and graphics for them, prototype new products and printing techniques, troubleshoot production problems, work with our staff and plan my next trip to Costa Rica. So how could we pull this off from Costa Rica? As it turns out, surprisingly well! Here are the tools that we needed and were able to set up:

Here's how we made the transition:

First, we shifted every function of our business possible to "online". In many cases, just out of habit, we were still doing things the time consuming old fashion way, either through mail, or by phone. From banking to ordering goods, these days almost everything can be handled via the internet. Yvonne managed to shift about 95% of her daily tasks to the internet, which she can now do from anywhere.

We brought in my son, Jesse, who is now 22, as our trustworthy eyes and hands onsite, to accomplish the few remaining things that we cannot do from Costa Rica. He was unskilled in our line of work, but we really just needed someone we could trust and would follow our instructions. Under Yvonne's supervision, he collects and sorts the mail, makes bank deposits, writes a few checks, files some paperwork, and faxes to us the bills and other important documents that are still stuck with snail mail. At the end of each day, Jesse affixes shipping labels and Invoices to cartons that we print in the Florida office from our computers here in CR, and UPS does a daily pick up. He then does our daily computer back up.

For my part, through my Skype phone and video connection, I keep in constant contact with the daily operation of the production shop. Jesse opens and closes the shop everyday and is my eyes and ears regarding our employees. I can have a video pow-wow anytime with production staff individually or together, just as if I were there. Any questions about a print, I simply look at it as if I were right there in my office doing the same thing. The only real difference is that sometimes I'm doing that poolside with my laptop via the WiFi connection. Damn sun sometimes puts a glare on the screen, but I'm working on perfecting my laptop positioning.

Regarding customers, we forwarded our business phones and Florida cell here via Skype, and we answer the phones without missing a beat, and at no charge. Skype gives us a Florida local number to forward calls to, so it's basically free. It's weird that Yvonne and I can both be using Skype on different calls from our two laptops at the same time, with only one account. An unexpected advantage. The connection is so clear that no one actually knows that we're out of the country…..and we really don't want to rub it in.

We are fortunate that most of our business is done over the phone, via e-mail or fax. We have established customers that reorder products and that we create new products for, but with today's busy schedules, they really don't need or want to take their time to see me personally… which works our just fine. I receive and send art for approval via e-mail, so no changes there. I use several freelance artists that don't live locally anyway, so this system has worked fine for me. Products that our customers want to see can be viewed online, or we send samples directly to them as we always have.

Developing new business certainly would require personal visits, but for this short stay here in Costa Rica, we can manage with the clients that we currently service. If I were to stay for an extended time, I would train a sales person for that purpose to send to potential clients.

We moved our remote office to Costa Rica September 15 and everything has worked much better than we expected. The key to this success without a doubt has been our good fortune of finding and renting our residence here in Residencies los Jardines. Within the first 3 minutes of walking in the door, we held our breath and plugged our laptops into their system. We were up and running instantly. The comfort and security of having on premises management is also reassuring and was a huge part of our decision to use this as our office and residence.

In the past 5 weeks, we have lost internet service about 3 times. The first time the power went out for about 30 minutes. The other times there was work being done locally on the internet cable and we were down for about an hour each time. These instances were perfect excuses to go to the pool right outside our door for a midday break. A one hour loss of communication isn't the end of the world for our business After all, we're just printing t-shirts, we're not doing pediatric brain surgery. Besides, Skype provides us with voicemail and the faxes and e-mails are all there waiting.

So that's it. Yvonne and I could not be happier about how this is working out. I don't think I would try this on the Caribbean coast, because the internet isn't quite as reliable or fast there…but here at Residencias los Jardines, our business life is Pura Vida!

Having a baby in Costa Rica

We did our homework a few years ago and found that there are many hospitals in the San Jose area that we would feel safe and comfortable with the serious and important task of managing the birth of our baby. We have friends with good experiences in several hospitals. The winning decision went to Hospital CIMA in Escazu, a few minutes drive away. We made a trip last June for a hospital inspection and interviewed several doctors, as well as midwives. CIMA blew us away with their state of the art facility, professionalism, and staff. We settled on using Dr. Andreas Rauff for the delivery. Rave reviews from his patients and after meeting him, we felyt a great deal of confidence in him.

Years ago, I was a Fire Department Paramedic in Clearwater and St. Petersburg, Florida for some years, so with this medical background and experience, I developed a huge respect for what can go wrong and the need for top quality emergency care. My standards are very high in what I looked for as the place to have my child, and I knew what I was looking for. Believe it or not, CIMA exceeded the standards of my local excellent hospitals in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.

Once the decision to have the baby at CIMA was solid, we began the search for a close place to live and operate our remote office. We saw several, but Residencias los Jardines was heads above anything that we saw. Here were some of our considerations:

1. Proximity to CIMA: We timed it at a casual drive from 7 – 15 minutes, depending on the time you would be traveling and traffic.
2. Security: A pregnant mom and then later a tiny newborn…yes, security was a top priority, not only for the home itself, but our vehicle and also the neighborhood.
3. The grounds. Would there be anywhere to walk, a place to swim, get fresh air? Remember, our Costa Rica experience for many years has been the beautiful and lush tropical Caribbean coast. Could any place in the central valley give us a little daily taste of one of the things we love most about Costa Rica?
4. Neighbors. Would there be anyone nearby to help us in an emergency or just for the comfort of knowing we aren't alone? This is Yvonne's first baby, so going it totally alone with no family or friends would be a challenge.
5. Proximity to grocery stores, a place to by diapers and other baby things, etc.

Residencias los Jardines scored a "10" on all factors. From the close proximity to the hospital, to security, the incredible neighbors, the awesome quaint neighborhood, the local huge grocery stores……everything here was perfect for our plan of having our baby in Costa Rica.

So, as the story goes, Yvonne went into labor nine days early and she had our beautiful little girl, India, at CIMA a week ago, October 17. Everything went smooth and absolutely perfectly. The hospital, doctors , and nursing staff were phenomenal. Dr. Rauff is excellent and we recommend him highly. CIMA even had room service to their incredible restaurant. And the food! I had one of the best steaks I have had in Costa Rica in 20 years of travel here! Our command of Spanish is horrible, but that wasn't an issue. Almost everyone there, down to the cleaning lady spoke English.

The hospital is everything that we wish we had in the US. Above being superior in service, equipment and a sparkling facility, the total price was incredibly inexpensive. In fact, I keep thinking they must have made a mistake. I got a quote months ago, but thought they must be leaving something out, as they always do in the States. Our total bill, including all hospital and doctor fees, was $2,400. Yvonne ended up with an epidural, which required an anesthesiologist….which was included in this bill. That's about 25% of what it would have been in the States. For us that was important because we didn't have maternity coverage on our health insurance back home.

With a green light from the doctors, we brought our one day old baby back to our house in Jardines the next day. Our beautiful, well equipped house is a perfect safe place for our family. There are several neighbors, including Brian and Lita who have been so helpful and gracious to us here. We have a few nearby experienced moms lending advice and their world famous Costa Rican hospitality. Believe me, Costa Ricans LOVE children! We feel like we are among family.

So in conclusion, if anyone reading this feels froggy, then by all means make the jump to Costa Rica! So far, we are very happy that we followed our heart and had the faith and guts to make this move. Life truly is good in Costa Rica.