Saluting my wife for enabling our Entrepreneurial Life: Our 25-year immigration story and her travel business

This Saturday morning (20th of July 2024), I was looking at my wife and best friend of 38 years when she was booking cruises for her clients again through her TELLUS Travels business. She loves what she does, she loves her clients, and she really knows her domain. I could not be more proud of what she has been able to accomplish as a professional travel agent and supporting our entrepreneurial life in a new country where we immigrated to 25 years ago. I felt compelled to reflect on our lives since we immigrated to the US back in 1999 and some of the key takeaways, especially when reflecting on my wife?Rita Salonen?and the choices she made at the time of the immigration.

As background, Rita has been in the travel industry her entire career, starting as a receptionist for a Nordic cruise line, a flight attendant for two Danish airlines, the number one salesperson for two travel agencies, and even a travel guide flying from Finland to the Mediterranean five times a week, helping clients with different things. This article is about Rita, but to give a bit of context, it is important to understand how we ended up in the US and what kind of decisions she wanted to make.

This article should also encourage other women or men who immigrate to another country to get adjusted and build their life in a foreign country. I have written two books for the largest Finnish book publisher at the time. The first book (Onnistu Suuressa Maailmassa) was about setting up and building a business outside your native country. The second book (Rohkeasti Maailmalle) was a follow-up book where I interviewed 15+ immigrants and their experiences moving to a foreign country. The latter book was more personal and included lots of interesting stories where things did not go that well. I am itching to write a third book after being 25 years outside my native country, Finland, and reflecting on business, life, and culture. Let's see if that happens. Let me know if you think it would be an interesting read. This time, it would be for the international audience, not for a Finnish book publisher.

I have always dreamt of immigrating to the US (since high school) and have met a soul mate in Rita who has lived in different countries, such as the UK and Portugal, and serving clients from Denmark. After getting married and establishing our careers in Finland, I got a feeling that I wanted us to try our wings outside Finland.

Many of you know that I am a "readaholic" and read lots of books. I feel that it is everybody's duty to keep ourselves informed, both in personal life and professionally. I have a LinkedIn Newsletter that is focused on book reviews, so you might want to check it out and subscribe to the Newsletter.

One day, I called Rita from my work to hers to ask if she would be willing to move to the US. She said immediately that she was on board with the idea. Our son was 3 years old at the time, so we felt that the timing would be good so he could get adjusted to the right environment. I have dual native languages (Finnish and Swedish), so I spoke Swedish with him and my wife Finnish. English would, therefore, be his third language. Rita was pregnant with our second child, and our daughter was born here in Dallas, Texas, and became a native Texan from birth.

Being Rita as she is, she made without a discussion or hesitation that she wanted to stay home and support the kids in their upbringing so they would have a stabile environment as I was traveling as global CEO for a software company. I had to fly to Europe every month for years, and I also took the role of Chairman of the Board for a major Finnish Microsoft system integrator. She said unselfishly to me:?Petri, I have worked with travel now enough so I can enjoy seeing our kids grow up. I have time to work once they are more independent and grown up."

Of course, I did question whether she would be OK with the decision because the last thing I wanted her to do was "sacrifice" herself to our family and put her career on pause. Her mind would not change. We agreed that once she felt ready to get back to her career, we would figure out what the correct route would be.

When we sold the software company where I was corporate CEO to a large publicly traded US company, I knew it was time to think of something else. I had been able to make the software company successful with an amazing team, and I wanted to renew myself with new opportunities since the United States is the land of opportunity. I resigned from the position of President and COO for the subsidiary of the large company and started our own boutique consulting firm, TELLUS International, Inc. ("TELLUS"), in 2005. TELLUS is a platform where we provide interim management services and partnerships with both software vendors and end-user organizations, and these are typically project-based. TELLUS is turning 20 years old next year, so I am extremely proud to have been able to support our family and life in this new country we immigrated to.

When we started TELLUS with Rita, we had never worked together, and the funny thing was that we honestly struggled initially with our roles and responsibilities. We are very different in nature, and as husband and wife, we had never had to really "test" how it was to work together in a professional setting. After a while, we knew what to do to make it work. We carved our responsibilities within TELLUS; she would be the Office Manager managing everything in HR, payments, and different legal filings besides the million other things that a mom has to do. However, TELLUS' core business, which is management consulting for technology companies and delivering technology solutions to end-user organizations, has nothing to do with what she knows or even wants to do. It was time to think how she could get back to her travel career.

The decision was to form our own Travel Agency in 2006, TELLUS Travels, which is part of TELLUS International but run and managed by Rita. My role is purely IT and marketing support. I am not a specialist in travel other than being a client, so if you call me for your travel needs, I will pass the call to Rita. It made sense to form TELLUS Travels under the TELLUS brand so we could use the same brand name in our marketing. Besides this, it made sense as Rita already had a role in TELLUS International, and we did not want to have dual admin functions.

TELLUS Travels specializes in cruise travel, and Rita has clients all over the world and the highest level of certifications in multiple cruise lines. If you want to cruise in Alaska, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Antarctica, Asia, European rivers, or Hawaii, TELLUS Travels has access to all major cruise operators globally and will also have access to specials that regular consumers do not have access to. You define what your desires are and Rita will take care of the rest.

Many of you know that I work with AI solutions, and having seen what it takes to arrange a cruise for a group of 30 people with different needs, I know that the role of a travel agent will not go away for a long time. It is a bit sad to see that so many order a cruise and then get a negative experience and will never cruise again.

When you book a cruise from TELLUS Travels, you do not pay anything for the service Rita provides, it is the cruise lines that provide the commission. When you provide the specs to Rita, her experience will help her to suggest the correct cruise line, the cabin's location, whether you should take a drink package, whether you should book your own flights, or let Rita book them. There are so many things that go into that. You will always have one person to talk to if you have any questions, Rita will then connect to the cruise line as there will always be somebody else taking the call. When you call a cruise line as a consumer, your history with the cruise line is not passed over, and you have to start from the beginning to explain your needs. But with TELLUS Travels and Rita, she will take care of you from the booking to the ship and back home. She knows what you want and what your preferences are.

TELLUS Travels strives to try out all the different cruises that we sell. We have visited 35+ Caribbean islands, we have cruised the Mediterranean multiple times, we have tried different cruise lines, and we do have our favorites as well. Due to Rita's sales results, we get some perks now and then as the cruise lines want to ensure that TELLUS Travels considers their cruise ships as well. Next month, Rita will fly to New Orleans for a cruise conference and, in February 2025, to the largest river cruise conference in Wien, Austria. Being an owner of a travel agency, one has to stay on top of things all the time as things change and new things come to market. Rita is now booking cruises for 2025 as the cruise industry has returned big time after the COVID outbreak.

Our story is truly a story of "better together story." I would not be where we are today without the support of my unselfish wife, Rita, who gave everything to our children when they grew up. I am sure they agree. I could not have had a better partner and friend, and when there have been tough times in business, as there always are, she has been the supporter and encouragement. She always tells me: "Petri, let's not worry about it before it happens because if it happens, you have worried about it twice." Even if my wife has no background in technology or what I do, she has made so many decisions on behalf of TELLUS International, which I am grateful for. Rita is always part of the decision-making process concerning our TELLUS management consulting business.

My message to people who might be in a similar situation, and especially couples who decide to immigrate where the other stays home, is to emphasize the importance of both having the opportunity to continue with their careers. Rita and I have seen many couples return to their native country as the other has not found a job to continue working with their careers.

To men and women with "homemakers" in their career profiles: I salute you. I know what it takes to keep a family together and keep the wheels rolling, especially if you have kids.

I wanted to get back to you about why I wanted to write this post. When I saw Rita making a booking this Saturday morning with our three doggies around her, talking to a cruise line representative, scrolling reservations on her iPad, and giving instructions to the cruise line representative. I just got this rush of proudness what she has been able to do. To come back to the travel business, she so loves to have fun and great results. Last year, 2023, she had the best sales results, and this year has also started well.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would not be able to do what I do what she does. After almost 40 years of making bookings and servicing the travel industry, you feel the in-depth knowledge and skills she has within the industry. We in the tech industry talk about segmentation, and she is a good example of knowing whom she wants to service and what products she wants to sell. No question about it.

When we travel, and we do travel, as some of you know, I don't have to think about anything. I can focus on my AI research and deliver solutions and workshops to TELLUS clients, and I can relax as Rita takes care of our TELLUS Travels business. Our next trip will be to explore a Hawaii cruise with Norwegian Pride of America by doing a 7-day cruise and exploring different islands.

My message to people is that if you dream about something, you can make it happen when you put your mind to it. I have always believed that when you start dreaming and really wanting something, your actions will eventually lead to that. That has happened to me so many times, including our immigration to the US.

We are truly living a dream where we both can work on what we love, and every day is a new adventure to talk to our clients. I also love that I get to do software business models and channel research for my clients in the software world and deliver top-of-breed solutions with organizations such as A-CX with Mikko Peltola and Ilpo Niva and design and engineering teams. We also now have our house on wheels, where we travel and work virtually on our 32-foot motorhome "Luna." We spent 4 weeks traveling across 10 states and loved working from our motor home.

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Yours,

Dr. Petri I. Salonen