For more than five years, Gerry McClure, a savvy young businesswoman, sped along the Wall Street fast track like a Japanese bullet train.
But in 1993, two events, one personal and one global, caused her to slam on the brakes of one career and switch tracks to more spiritual pursuits. You might say it was divine intervention.
Fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania, McClure parlayed her marketing degree from the prestigious Wharton School of Business and her fascination with Asian culture into a six-figure dream job trading foreign currencies for an international bank, first in Tokyo and later in New York.
“I enjoyed the adrenalin rush of the challenges I was facing,” McClure, 31, said as she sipped coffee in a Georgetown cafe one sweltering afternoon.
Taking an rare break from her hectic pace of running a startup business, the ambitious entrepreneur described how she made the switch from “derivatives to dolls” in a matter of weeks. Down the street, the small staff of her fledgling toy company prepared to move the office operations from the 2nd floor of McClure’s home to commercial office space.
McClure’s company, Heaven On Earth Inc., manufactures and markets a growing line of angel dolls and accompanying children’s gifts such as an inspirational lullaby tape and book.
The company is committed to donating 10 percent of all pretax profits to children’s charities around the world.
“I was a foreign-exchange trader,” McClure explained, staring intently through her dark-rimmed glasses, which add a studious air to her otherwise glamorous appearance.
“I was drinking six cups of coffee before 10 in the morning and going to bed with my portable phone because the markets never close,” she recalled with a smirk. “I was a lunatic.
“But at the end of the day I was really feeling `Is this all there is to life?’ My parents taught me there has got to be a way that I can contribute and give back,” McClure said. “Making all this money and working this hard, I thought, `Wouldn’t it be nice if at the end of the day I felt I was spiritually enhancing myself or others.’ “
It was January 1993 when she experienced her epiphany.
Her father, a family doctor in Washington and one of the predominant inspirational forces in her life, became seriously ill. She took a leave of absence from her Credit Suisse position to return home to Washington to spend time with her parents, William and Joanne.
Each night during her sabbatical, she watched television news reports of the horrors of the civil war in Bosnia, and decided she wanted to help in some way. She and her family, devout Catholics, had visited the former Yugoslavian town of Medjugorje, reported site of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, a few years before and felt a special connection with the people there.
“I felt this tremendous calling to do something,” McClure said. “So I called around to all the different aid organizations and found they needed volunteers.”
Within days, McClure and her mother, a former free-lance photographer for Time magazine, were on a plane to the Croatian seaport of Split. Arriving during some of the heaviest bombing of the war, they made it as far as the ancient Muslim town of Mostar in Bosnia. Her father, too ill to travel, donated medicines and bandages that were packed into six suitcases already stuffed with clothes and shoes for the war orphans.
Gerry and Joanne McClure spent the next several weeks in the severe winter cold working with the local charities that care for nearly 3,000 orphaned and abandoned children in Mostar and nearby Medjugorje. Staying until their visas expired, the McClures returned home to Washington, where they learned that William had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“It really changed my life, and I prayed a lot while I was there,” McClure said of her Bosnian experience. “I prayed for peace and for hope for everyone involved.”
Moved by the horror and devastation she witnessed in Bosnia, McClure said her father’s terminal diagnosis “gave me the determination to make my life as worthwhile as possible because I realized how fleeting it is. I really wanted to start a business doing something for children.”
Within days of her return, McClure said she was awakened in the middle of the night by a bright light in her bedroom.
“I think I was inspired by my guardian angel to start this company,” she said. “It was about 4 o’clock in the morning. I woke up to this bright light. Then I had this dream, and the light went away. It gave me a tremendous sense of peace that I could do something.”
The next morning she incorporated her company, Heaven On Earth, and her corporate slogan “Light The World With Love,” which she said grew out of her dream experience. Within three months she and her mother had designed their first collection of soft angel dolls, including multiracial boy and girl guardian angels and a “blessed bear,” with wings and a halo, kneeling in prayer.
McClure is unmarried and has no children, although she would like both some day. But she has done her share of toy shopping for her sister, who has had four children in five years. In the process, McClure identified an untapped niche market.
“I had been going to FAO Schwarz and Toys R Us, and there was not one nice christening gift, nothing soft and huggable that was inspirational,” she said. “I wanted something that showed a child that there is someone in heaven watching over them.”
McClure acknowledges that America’s current fascination with angels is a timely asset to her business, but she doesn’t think it is a passing fad.
“I believed since I was a small child that I had an angel. It gave me a feeling that I always had someone watching over me. And sometimes when I was in scary situation coming home on the subway late at night in New York, I would say a prayer to my guardian angel, and that gave me a real sense of comfort.
“I think everyone should have an angel doll just like everyone has a teddy bear. I hope it’s going to become a category unto itself.”
McClure said one of her biggest surprises in identifying her market, which she initially envisioned as mothers and grandmothers in search of baby gifts, is that angel dolls are very popular as presents for nursing home residents and other homebound adults.
While the inspiration for her business may have been celestial, McClure’s execution of her idea was very down to earth, pairing the marketing principles she learned in business school with the high-roller tactics she experienced on Wall Street.
She started small, using rented storage units for inventory and the spare bedroom in her parents’ home to pack and ship the toys to stores all over the country.
“My mother and I used to do all the boxing,” McClure said. “It nearly killed us. Talk about a cottage industry! But I couldn’t afford a staff my first year.”
As Heaven On Earth expanded, McClure was able to contract out for warehouse services, and she chose one that employs disabled adults to pack and ship merchandise to more than 1,500 outlets in the United States, Canada and Australia, including hospital gift shops, religious stores and FAO Schwarz.
Until recently, McClure and her small staff continued to operate Heaven On Earth out of her Georgetown townhouse, taking telephone orders, designing new toys and accessories and planning long-range marketing strategies, including a mail-order catalog, a children’s newsletter and interactive tags for each toy that allow purchasers to designate what part of the world should receive charitable contributions.
McClure’s ideas and energies seem endless. She has written and self-published a children’s book, “Heaven On Earth’s Little Book of Angels,” and is working on a second, “Blessed Bear’s Book of Bedtime Prayers.”
The purpose is to offer inspiration to children, but the books are clearly paired with specific angel toys that can be ordered toll-free (800-351-2643) and delivered as part of an Angelgram gift set.
“The Angelgram is the key to our product line,” McClure said. “It is simply the doll, the book and the tape. Every song on the tape is about someone watching over the child. And the book teaches a child about faith and bedtime prayers.
“You wouldn’t believe how many little old ladies have called our 800 number and said they have been looking for this type of gift for a grandchild,” McClure said. “And they don’t just buy one doll, they buy four or five. That gives me confidence that we are really hitting the right niche.”
She stresses that her products are interdenominational and notes that belief in angels is accepted by most of the world’s religions.
“The most important thing is that we all believe in a better good and a higher being,” she said.
McClure’s enterprise has captured the attention of the Small Business Administration, which granted her a $100,000 loan guarantee earlier this year and cited her company as a small-business success story.
In 1994, the company’s first full year of business, Heaven On Earth recorded substantial revenue but no profits. McClure donated several thousand dollars to charities out of her own savings anyway. This year she projects a profit of about $90,000, and will designate at least 10 percent of that to charity.
On the surface, McClure appears to be the product of a privileged life: posh address, second-hand Mercedes, Ivy-League education and fashion-model good looks. But she bristles at the suggestion that her personal advantages should in any way influence her dedication to helping children through financial donations and creating products that instill a sense of peace and hope in a violent world.
“It’s what you do with what you’re given that counts,” she said emphatically. “Yes, I was brought up in a upper-middle-class family. But I think my parents had the right priorities in life, which were if you are fortunate to have been given nice things, you should give back, and that is where you derive true happiness. I am happiest when I am giving to someone else and when I’m holding a little baby in an orphanage.”
Early on in her venture, McClure traveled to China to arrange for the manufacture of her toy line. While she was there, she visited a few children’s hospitals and orphanages in Shanghai to select those that would benefit from her company’s charitable contributions.
In addition to Bosnia and China, Heaven On Earth also has made contributions to children’s charities in Vietnam, Haiti, Rwanda and Bolivia as well as New York City and Washington. She is also looking into manufacturing possibilities in El Salvador and will support children’s charities there in the belief it is important to make a contribution in countries where she has a business presence.
McClure said she patterned her business plan on other successful cause-related companies such as Anita Roddick’s Body Shop cosmetics, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Paul Newman’s line of Newman’s Own salad dressing, all of which donate a percentage of their profits to charitable endeavors.
What does the future hold for Heaven on Earth?
“I love to dream,” McClure mused. “In 10 years, Heaven On Earth will be — to use the positive — will be an international company. We will have dolls of every race and nationality. We will support global charities. We will have a successful mail order catalog that is international, and we will have a retail chain where children can come in and play in our stores.”
Her personal goal is “to have more time to go around to the different charities and help, not just by giving money but by giving of my own time, because that is where I derive a lot of self-fulfillment.”
