Chester County Leadership: Susan Springsteen, President, H2O Connected

Susan Springsteen's leadership profile was published on VISTA Today in November 2021.

Susan Springsteen, the President of Coatesville-based H2O Connected, spoke with VISTA Today about growing in up in Delaware; her passion for riding horses; rescuing a pony from meat-buyers after its boarding stable went out of business; and how the experience made her realize that she could do anything she set her mind to.

Springsteen also discussed attending Wheaton College in Illinois, where she dropped out before returning and changing her major; working in money management for decades; becoming an entrepreneur who, with her business partner, developed a product that could prevent toilet overflows; and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for her company.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born the oldest of two children and grew up in Northern Wilmington, Delaware. We lived in a housing development right behind the Concord Mall.

What did your parents do?

My mom was a homemaker. She stopped working when I came along. My dad owned a leasing company and was gone for most of my childhood.

What memories do you have growing up in Wilmington?

I have great memories of our family traditions that surrounded Thanksgiving and Christmas.?My mom was a fantastic cook, the house always smelled great.?In the winter there was a wood fire burning in the fireplace every night. I would come home from the barn, frozen solid, and warm up by the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate, while my mom would patiently listen to the escapades of my day!

I also remember trying to ride every horse I could get my hands on.

When did that bug bite?

I think before I could talk! Before I could even read, I’d get volume H of the Encyclopedia Britannica out of the bookshelf and look at the pictures of the different breeds of horses. My favorite was the Lipizzaner pictured in a “high school” dressage movement called the Levade, so I guess I was destined to be a dressage rider! No one in my family rode, so I would beg my parents for pony rides, and I loved getting out of the car to pet horses grazing near the side of the roads.?

Did your parents accommodate you or try and put you off?

Originally, they thought I would grow out of it. Then when I was 9, they gave in to the incessant begging.

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and even back then horses were expensive, so I am still grateful that they made the sacrifice so I could have my weekly lesson.

When I was in junior high school, to pay for extra riding lessons, I convinced my mom that I was so hungry, I needed to eat two school lunches, which were 45 cents apiece.?I figured out I could survive on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and water, which was 20 cents, and I saved the rest for riding lessons!?My instructor would roll her eyes when I paid her with quarters!

Other than a love for riding horses, what else about your childhood stands out?

So many life lessons!??When I was in 4th?grade, the girls would play a game during recess called “Hi-Lo Waters”.?A girl would hold each end of a jump rope and we would all line up and jump over it.?The jump rope would be raised after each round.?Anyone who didn’t clear it was out and the winner was the one who could jump the highest level.??

I was an above-average jumper, but certainly not the best – Vicki Jenkins could jump a building!?Even so, each day at the beginning of recess the girls would ask me to set up the game – who should hold the ropes, what the lineup should be, etc.?At first, I didn’t understand why they were asking me – after all I wasn’t the best.?Shouldn’t the best jumper lead the game??Then it dawned on me that I didn’t have to be the best performer to be the leader.?Those roles required different skill sets. That was a real “AHA Moment” for me.

Another lesson centered around my first Girl Scout Cookie Sales contest.?Back then, we sold cookies door-to-door.?I wanted to win this contest in the worst way by selling the most cookies.?For weeks I walked far and wide by myself, knocking on doors and selling scores of boxes of Girl Scout cookies.?I was feeling pretty good about my chances …. but I came in second to Janine Finch.?I found out later that her father was an executive with DuPont and had taken her cookie sign-up sheet to work and distributed it throughout the company.?She never had to knock on a door.?That was my first lesson (of many) in the brutal reality of “Life is not fair”.

When I was twelve, I was riding a pony named Snowflake.?He belonged to a boarding stable in northern Wilmington that was going out of business. The horses were scheduled to be sold at the New Holland Auction. We all knew that the New Hollard Auction was where meat buyers would purchase the ponies by the pound. I was afraid that Snowflake would see France from the inside of a can.

At the last minute, the stable owner told my dad we could have Snowflake for $50. My dad agreed if I could find a place to keep the pony for $30 a month. All the horses were already loaded up on the truck for transport to the auction, so I grabbed the pony off the truck, locked myself and the pony in the stable office with a phone and a phone book (it was 1972 – no cell phones).?I started making calls to any place that sounded like a farm. I finally found a farmer who agreed to keep the pony in a paddock with a run-in shed for $30 a month. Snowflake was mine.

Susan, where does that determination come from?

I think the fear of missing out on what’s important to us must be greater than our fear of what it takes to get it. And I really wanted to save that pony!

My mom raised us with the idea that we could do anything we put our mind to, and I believed her.?When we step outside of our comfort zone and are successful, we develop the confidence to step outside our comfort zone again at a larger level, which is how we grow.?

Did you have any jobs growing up?

Read Susan's entire leadership profile on VISTA Today.