A petite woman gets out of her little black car in a little black dress and walks up to a raised ranch house on South Lakeport Street. A man stares out a window, edged in tape, waiting for arrival. Amanda Beller never really knows who is going to greet her at the door unless it’s a repeat customer.
But by now, she knows quite a few people. After all, she’s been the owner of Windows America for more than a dozen years.
She swiftly measures 12 windows that need to be replaced in the rental property and tells the landlord a quote will be coming his way. Just like that, she’s bounding back to her car with her trusty tape measure tucked into a light blue messenger bag by a stack a brochures.
According to the color-coded calendar on her iPhone, it’s her last appointment of the day.
Earlier in the week, she started her morning with a presentation on positive leadership at the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, then went into the office to get the installers shuffled along. Between appointments, she confirmed an order, collected a payment and attended a Leadership Siouxland meeting over lunch.
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In all, she had five appointments that day, which is pretty typical as the colder months creep up. It’s getting to be that time of year when personal and professional demands increase.
Another day, between appointments, she was registering her three teenage boys for school in the morning and meeting with the Sioux City Rotary Club at noon.
Beller, 43, tries to volunteer as much as possible and stay active in the community. As a small business owner, she can set her schedule to make time for those things and not miss her sons’ activities, either, whether it’s hockey, cross country or performances by the boys dance team at North High.
Last year, she retired the Honda Pilot from work and passed it on to her oldest son, Camden, 17. The SUV could hold and haul a lot more stuff compared to her new compact sedan. She used to haul sample windows to appointments all the time until lugging those things around started to take a toll. Now, she’s more apt to encourage customers to stop by the showroom on Water Street to look at the selection of styles, colors and sizes.
So she swapped out her gas-guzzling SUV for a Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid that averages 42 miles per gallon, even with a lot of city driving.
She’s already logged well over 40,000 miles on the little black car.
“I can’t imagine sitting in one location all day long,” she said. “I just can’t imagine doing that.”
Her days by a desk are behind her. She’s staring at them in her rear-view mirror. She worked in banking and marketing before opening Windows America with her husband, largely to gain flexible hours.
Now, she enjoys going out and meeting new people and sometimes pets. One the only drawbacks may be that paperwork piles up back at the office while she’s out roaming the city for appointments.
You could say she’s gone a long way from doing what she thought she would grow up to be.
Beller was a good student and liked to help people.
“I wanted to go into medicine, but I faint,” she said. “Friends getting casts off and stitches out, I’m just passing out left and right so that wasn’t going to work.”
Instead, she’s doctoring up windows and doors.
