Today we’d like to introduce you to Denise Cagan.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in a rural part of New York State. Interestingly enough, people always think the city when I share I’m from New York. In this case, it is a part of the state with cows, corn, and beautiful lakes.
My family was large and poor. We honestly didn’t always have enough and had to rely on local churches or pantries regularly. This was especially true when my dad got sick. It was right around my 5th birthday. Five years later, he was no longer with us. My mom was now the head of the household. She moved us from New York to Virginia. They had visited here before my dad passed and liked the rolling hills, green spaces, and the milder climate.
I only stayed in Virginia until shortly after graduation, at which time I also became a single mother. Then I moved around to Colorado, North Carolina, and a short time in California. At most of those stops, I moved toward rounding out my education obtaining a 2 year biology degree in NC and completing another year at Cal State Fullerton in the microbiology program. It was at Cal State that I realized I didn’t really want to continue my degree in science and specifically not microbiology as it was geared toward medical – my degree work went dormant – incomplete for the next 6 years.
Life was still busy. I was still a single mom, working multiple jobs, and a Girl Scout Leader. I also often volunteered at my daughter’s school. I will say that the adversity in my childhood helped prepare me for life as a single parent and the challenges it brings. Eventually, I found time to work on my degree again. I found a wonderful program at James Madison University when I went back to VA. It was an adult degree program, and the degree was customized to fit where I had landed, which was manufacturing. It incorporated all of the science courses I had previously accumulated, and added business courses and technical writing and editing. The degree: Quality Systems Development was finally achieved in 1999.
I remained in manufacturing for 10 years starting out as a lab tech, then getting promoted to QA Supervisor and QA Manager. My final destination in Charlotte, NC allowed me to do work with R&D, microbiology, product validation, as well as impact their systems to reduce inventory and start up new products.
Somehow, I feel like I hadn’t quite experienced what I was meant to yet. Plus, the growing financial pressure of a single parent with a child who is now entering college, I felt I needed to do something else, something more. I started my first business, a cleaning company. It felt right; I had a built in mentor, and it required minimal overhead. I worked my job and performed as my company’s president for the next 2 ½ years. It was then that I left manufacturing and concentrated solely on building my business.
Fast forward to where I am today. 25 years of business ownership and shifting the sails to navigate through economic distress, recessions, and a pandemic. My current company will celebrate a 15 year anniversary this November. It might not be time to break out the champagne quite yet, though. Our latest challenge is navigating AI. Not because AI is not useful or practical, but because AI can replace portions of my business easily, effectively, and cheaply.
An old saying, “necessity is the mother of invention,” is driving us now, that and a 3-year strategic plan. You see, we have been providing a higher level of service than what we originally brought to the table 15 years ago for quite some time. And now we are shifting our language and offerings to match the higher level of service. DCA Virtual Business Support is your business’s operational support partner. Tangentially, we’ve also launched new brands under the main umbrella of DCA Virtual Business Support. They are DCA Association Management and Denise Cagan Business Consulting. I can’t wait to see what magic the next 3 years creates.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, as described in my main info.
Poor childhood with lacking resources, sometimes even food, which intensified after my dad passed.
Single parent at very young age. Although, the childhood experiences did help me cope with this a little better.
Business has had to maneuver through economic shifts, recessions, pandemic, and AI cannibalism.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about DCA Virtual Business Support?
DCA Virtual Business Support helps businesses, associations, and nonprofits create the structure and support they need to thrive. We specialize in operational support, association management, nonprofit services, and social media management, partnering with organizations across the United States. What sets us apart is our ability to serve as more than a vendor. We become a trusted extension of our clients’ teams, combining strategic thinking with practical implementation to improve operations, strengthen organizations, and create sustainable growth. Watching our clients grow, achieve their goals, and make a greater impact is what excites us most and is the achievement we’re most proud of.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dcavirtual.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dcavirtual
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dcavirtual/
- Yelp: https://www.youtube.com/@DCAVirtual
- Other: https://nurturesmallbusiness.buzzsprout.com
