After Typhoon Yutu, Steven Beyer turned tree care into a business. But in CNMI’s tough economy, staying afloat has tested his creativity and grit.
TRANSCRIPT
HOST/NAINA RAO: Starting a small business is never easy. And in the Northern Mariana Islands, it can be especially challenging. For Steven Beyer, a former educator turned woodworker, running a tree care and woodworking business has been a journey of creativity, resilience and learning, sometimes the hard way. After Super typhoon Yutu devastated Saipan, Beyer saw an opportunity to help his community and turn his passion into an enterprise, but with an economy still struggling to recover from the pandemic, staying afloat hasn't been simple. KPRG's Bryan Manabat brings us his story of perseverance in uncertain times.
BYLINE/BRYAN MANABAT: From being an educator and without a business operation experience, Steven buyer says he ventured to tree care and woodworking services because he enjoys the process, the creativity involved, the connection to nature and the joy it gives to his clients.
STEVEN BEYER: First, I like the process, because that's all I've been doing for the last, what, 20 something years since high school, right? The process of making it, and then usually I'm using it, or my family's using it, and so, but I do enjoy, you know, it's I'm putting a little piece of myself into you, you know, each piece of work, especially the bigger the piece and and so and that's going into someone's home that's helping them out, that hopefully they're going to enjoy, it's creating a space that they're going to want to be in. You know, that's sort of it gives me chills, that, you know, that I can help with that, right? Just a ornament for this. I'll dry it out
MANABAT: Outside his wood shop in Saipan, Beyer is using his chainsaw to cut small slices of flat, circular shape wood for ornaments or wall decoration from an iron wood trunk salvage from the ocean.
BEYER: I grew up in Colorado, and then what? Age 23 I moved to Oregon. I was in Oregon for about five years, and then moved out here, and been here since 2011 I'd gone back to school, got my master's in education, got a teaching job out here, and so I live here with my wife, Natalie, and my kids Vita and Waylon. They're seven and well, she just turned six.
MANABAT: For 12 years, he taught middle school in Saipan International School, and later became a school principal, but then super typhoon Uru hit Saipan in 2018 and Bayer saw the need for tree removals and hazard mitigation right after.
BEYER: I started that business, and I was doing that just sort of on the weekends, maybe in the summertime, to earn some extra cash while I was teaching, and then two years ago, decided to do this full time, plus the woodworking too.
MANABAT: This is his first time running his own business, and he's not a fan of the legal formalities and taxes. Bayer says it's been a painful learning experience figuring out how to begin, which offices to go to and all the forms that comes with a limited liability company.
BEYER: That has been the hardest and still the hardest part, because I don't enjoy it either. I want to be done and then I can get back to actual work.
MANABAT: CNMI’s economy, which is dependent on tourism, has yet to recover establish well known businesses such as Hyatt, Regency, Saipan have closed. DFS Galleria has also announced its intention to close its operations and many other smaller business operations affected by the sluggish economy. Beyers woodworking and tree services were not spared. He had clients place orders and cancel months later.
BEYER: So, you know, I’m definitely feeling, feeling that, yeah, because the the economy pays me to build things for them, right, or pays me to take down the trees, it's actually just treated two by eight a plane down table, and it's actually like a tribute to his dad.
MANABAT: Despite the bleak economic outlook, he has no plans to quit.
BEYER: I will make it. I'm going to, I this is what I want to do. And if I can, you know, if I have to do something else a couple days of week to continue to do this work, I'm going to, but I will make this work like I just I will. Find a way.
MANABAT: He's also a listed local government contractor, and recently agreed to build an outdoor deck with shower and a pergola for more than 10 grand. He says Saipan is home and sees himself retiring doing what he loved most, working on trees and woodworking. For KPRG’s Current Perspectives, I'm Bryan Manabat, in Saipan.
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