We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christyn Ford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Christyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

The education system is incredibly flawed. Students are not recognized for the induvial talents and passions, and those talents are not nurtured. Everyone is told the only way to succeed is to go to college, rack up insane debt and then compete for the same handful of jobs with your peers you just graduated with. This is not the way.

Other career paths need to be presented to youth in high school. When I was in high school in the 90s, I was told to go to college. My parents forced me to go to college, and I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t know that the trades were even an option. When I expressed to my counselor that I wanted to take drafting, metals and autoshop, I was guided into college prep classes, child development and home economics. There needs to be more programs teaching various trades in high school, and for counselors to actually encourage those with a passion for the trades, in that direction. There is really good money to be made in the trades, without the student loan debt. I make more yearly than a lot of my friends who have advanced degrees, and I don’t have $100k in debt hanging over my head. The trades desperately need new blood. For every 7 tradespersons that are getting out of the trades, there is only 1 person coming in to replace them. College and jobs that require college are not for everyone, and schools need to start realizing this and helping youth succeed at what they are good at.

Christyn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a tile installer. I install all aspects of tile, from flooring to showers to custom mosaics. I am an artist through and through, and the artistry of this particular trade is what I fell in love with.

I started in the trades in 2008 in San Diego, California. I worked as a helper for a woman that was a tile installer. While working at that company I was partnered with a 2nd generation installer whose father came from Italy. I was his apprentice, and that is where my passion for tile grew. This man was a true artist and craftsman, and not only taught me about tile, but also about the history of the industry. Which, if you are a nerd like me, is really interesting stuff!

I experienced a lot of success with that company, we had a crew of 15 working for us, we worked on some of the most prestigious homes in Southern California. The Razor house in La Jolla is one of the better known homes we worked on. In 2018 I decided to dissolve our partnership over issues we were having, and packed up my life and moved to Golden, CO. That is where I started Lotus Tile. I made the decision to focus on smaller projects that were more artistic when I started this new evolution of my career. Recently I have started to work on more custom made mosaics. Last year I tiled a pizza oven for the Woody’s Pizza food truck, be sure to check it out if the truck is in your area! That was probably one of the most enjoyable projects I have worked on. I would love to ultimately move my career in that direction and do mostly custom work like that.

I also have a passion for teaching. I am working with 2 local shops to start hosting hands-on DIY classes for anyone who would like to learn to install tile. Classes where you will actually get your hands dirty and install some tile. One set of classes will be focused on teaching young women who are interested in getting into the trades. My goal and dream with this is to one day have a trade school for women. The first class will be for anyone wanting to learn, we will be going over the basics of how to install a subway tile backsplash. The first class was this past July, and it was a BLAST!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2018 I left an abusive ex-girlfriend. We were building a house together, had a tile company together, and my retirement plan was selling the company we owned. When I made the decision to walk away from her, I walked away from almost all of the stability in my life. I lost my home, my job, and my plan for the future, and I had about $2k to my name. Looking back it was almost like I had blinders on. Failing wasn’t an option, and so i decided to move to a beautiful new state and do whatever it took to start my life over again. I moved to Colorado the Summer of 2018. I thought I had a job, but that ended up falling through when I realized the woman I would be working for had no idea what she was doing. I was crashing in my friends basement, terrified. But after a conversation with my friends husband one day I decided to start my own business. It took me an hour to get my business registered as an LLC, and start advertising. By the end of that day I had my first jobs booked and Lotus Tile was on it’s way!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I do what I say I am going to do. And I take great pride in my reputation and the work that I produce. I love what I do, and I think that comes through to my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lotustile.net
• Instagram: @lotus_tile