Mom, daughter discover beauty of change as they launch shop
Pamela Hines was passing through the Rochester airport in April 2008 when she became fully aware of how fractured her life had become.
As she was leaving on business, which she did on a weekly basis, a security employee told Hines that she was in the airport so often, he had come to recognize her — despite seeing thousands of faces daily.
Hines knew all along she was leading a taxing life, but when a stranger suggested the same thing, she realized she needed to make an adjustment.
The result was the downsizing of Hines’ career, from corporate executive to small-business owner.
Her new venture, Jackson & Hines, is a beauty products store that opened in January in Pittsford village. The boutique, named for Hines and her sister, Kathy Jackson, offers skin care items such as lotions and oils, cosmetics, chocolates, teas and candles. The company slogan is “There’s beauty within,” and Hines believes it’s an opportunity for women to “take a moment, explore and discover themselves again.”
More personally, she sees it as atoning for the years when she took little time for herself.
“I realized that’s what was missing for me,” Hines says.
Over nearly three decades she worked for such stalwarts as Eastman Kodak Co., ITT Industries and Coca-Cola Co. and had advanced to a level of responsibility that required her to travel constantly. Business trips to China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and parts of Europe may read like a list of dream destinations, but for Hines, they were anything but joy-filled excursions.
“I’ve traveled all my life,” she says. “There is no glamour in it.”
Her time with Coca-Cola required her to travel to the company’s Atlanta headquarters and elsewhere during the workweek and to fly home to Rochester to be with her family on the weekends.
“I felt like my personal life had to be accomplished in 48 hours,” says Hines, who worked for the soft-drink maker for about six months.
It was while she was leaving from one of her weekend retreats to Rochester that the airport worker made his remark and sparked her revelation. Within roughly a month, she quit.
“I had the best summer of my life,” Hines says.
Teaming with Hines in the new business is her eldest daughter, Elena O’Connor, who experienced her own epiphany shortly after her mother’s.
An opera singer living in Manhattan for six years, O’Connor returned home to Rochester in August 2008 for a family reunion and realized that the place she once considered stifling and dull was perfect for her. She told her mom a few weeks later that she was moving back to her hometown.
“I felt like something was missing,” O’Connor says.
The duo created a business concept by mid-fall, and O’Connor was back in Rochester in December. She brought with her experience as a makeup artist from working in New York City at Face Stockholm while pursuing her musical ambitions.
“It’s such a simple way to connect with someone,” O’Connor says of helping others with their looks. “A tube of lipstick can make someone’s day.”
While O’Connor takes an artistic approach, Hines applies skills gained from her years in the corporate world. She designed the business plan, selected the store’s location and keenly monitors the inventory.
“I am more structured, she is more creative,” Hines says.
The mother and daughter share a trust deeper than any business partnership. Their relationship takes precedence over the business, they say, and both feel as if they can’t let the other down.
“We have each other’s happiness in mind,” O’Connor says.
Hines makes that evident by ensuring O’Connor’s singing career still comes first, and the Penfield High School alumna has performed at several local events this summer. As for Hines, she vows not to return to the corporate environment, having found satisfaction in a new lifestyle to go along with her new project.
“This is what life is supposed to be like,” Hines says.
CRAMIREZ1@DemocratandChronicle.com
Store details
What: Jackson & Hines.
Address: 39 S. Main St., Pittsford.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Phone: (585) 385-6995.
Web site: www.jacksonandhines.com.
