Riding the ‘Silver Tsunami’: Women shedding corporate careers for entrepreneurship

This story originally appeared in Encore Magazine Nov. 1. It is republished here as part of the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative’s coverage of equitable community development. The SWMJC is a group of 12 regional organizations dedicated to strengthening local journalism. To learn more, visit swmichjournalism.com.

When Katie Boertman, 50,  left her career as a marketing strategist with Stryker in January 2025, she didn’t know what would be next on the horizon. 

She was making good money and doing good work, but she wasn’t having the community impact she wanted. Two months later, Boertman’s husband asked her, “What would make you happy?”

Her answer was starting a 1980s-style ice cream truck. Together they launched Ice Cream Social Kalamazoo. In October 2025, she took another step into entrepreneurship and created Signal + Story, a marketing consultancy firm. 

Now she’s on to her third step: acquiring businesses from owners without transition plans. The process is called entrepreneurship through acquisition. She learned the foundations of this business through Tsunami Lab, a course offered by Kalamazoo Forward Ventures, a $50 million investment firm. 

Boertman was one of 15 people in the course’s inaugural cohort. Of those participants, 13 graduated, says Marcel Fable Price, director of platform and programming for KzFV. 

Boomers retiring

Fable explains that Michigan’s local business landscape is shifting and that Tsunami Lab was created to meet the challenge. Baby boomers are retiring, leaving a “silver tsunami” of businesses that will close, be passed down, be sold to another local owner or be acquired by larger companies, according to the Michigan Center for Employee Ownership.

“It’s something that’s hitting us almost like a disease in a forest,” says Dwayne Powell Jr., KFV’s chief operating officer and managing partner.

Almost half of all privately owned businesses in Michigan with employees are owned by individuals 55 and older, according to MICEO. Most of those owners don’t have a succession plan. In Kalamazoo County, people 55 and older own 53% of the county’s privately held businesses. 

Selling to a larger company such as a private equity firm could net a higher payday for an owner, but the sale could lead to layoffs and contribute to continued concentration of ownership and wealth, according to MICEO.  

Some business owners don’t want that to happen, says Deanna Conkling, a graduate of Tsunami Lab who was in the first cohort of classmates. Through the classes, she and Boertman became friends. 

“There are a lot of people who care about their legacy,” Conkling, 45, says. “They want someone to carry on their name.”

Women choosing entrepreneurship

Tsunami Lab trains current and aspiring business owners, who can then approach established businesses and take the reins when owners are ready to retire. Powell says the wave of retirements creates opportunities to transfer wealth to women and minority groups that have historically lacked the resources to pursue business ownership. 

Conkling says she doesn’t think there are enough women in business in the region, but she’s seen women excel in community leadership and school organizations. “I didn’t see women in business, but it’s something I’ve always dreamed of,” she says. 

Boertman says she appreciates Kalamazoo Forward Ventures’ focus on empowering women and minority groups. “The entrepreneur venture thing was kind of always set aside for men,” she says, recalling that when she was in college in the 1990s “nobody talked about women owning businesses.”

Both Boertman and Conkling are also on the crest of another wave: that of mid-career women leaving corporate America for entrepreneurship. In 2025, more than 455,000 women left the U.S. workforce, with more than half citing caregiving responsibilities at home as the reason, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit supporting women’s advancement in the workplace. 

Both women agreed that by charting their own path, they’re setting an example for their children that pursuing a corporate 9-to-5 job is not the only career option. 

Conkling left her corporate career as a senior manager with Newell Brands in May after having the opportunity to move to Atlanta. She’s moved for her career before, but this time she declined, putting down roots in Kalamazoo, where her four children are on track to receive free tuition at Michigan colleges through the Kalamazoo Promise.

Part of the joy for Conkling of going down this path is knowing her children can one day work alongside her or inherit her business. “I want to be able to have that ability to impact my family and the community and watch the kids see that too,” she says.  

Conkling says her kids are all entrepreneurial and inspire her to keep searching. “They keep saying, ‘Oh, when you have this business,’ like it’s inevitable for them,” she says. 

Kissing frogs

Both women are consistently searching for businesses that may be a good match, noting that the freedom and ability to design their own schedules are worth the challenges of entrepreneurship.

While Boertman has already found two opportunities, Conkling is still looking for the right business. They are both focused on what Tsunami Lab calls “Main Street businesses,” those “businesses that people touch and feel every single day in our community,” Price explains.

Acquiring such businesses can come with challenges. These businesses may have existing debts or unique organizational systems. Conkling has seen businesses where all of the operational knowledge is handwritten or known only by the owner. But there are benefits, such as an already established cash flow and customer base. 

The biggest challenges are finding the right business and building a relationship with its owner. 

“There is a level of inherent respect for the current owners that are wanting to sell that you need going into this process,” Boertman says. “You can’t just go in there.”

Boertman and Conkling search for businesses through websites like BizBuySell.com and active online listings. Boertman has an AI agent called Scout that searches listings for her. She also connects with business owners who have owned their businesses for decades to start relationship building.

Boertman is “industry agnostic,” meaning she’s focused on building a portfolio of local, durable service businesses, she says.

“We were told you have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she says of the search process. 

Conkling initially looked for businesses aligned with her design background, but she has development and leadership qualities that could apply to various industries.

She is still deciding her next steps but may take a page out of Boertman’s book and start her own business to learn the ropes, she says.

“I’m at this exciting point,” Conkling says. “I can go this direction, I can go that direction, but I get to choose.”