Last
summer, Susan Jadlos traveled to the small Russian town of Novgrod
armed with a translator and a three dimensional model of a skin
cell. Jadlos was working for the Citizen’s Democracy Corps, a Washington,
D.C.-based organization that sends volunteer advisers from various
fields to small- and medium-sized enterprises in Eastern Europe.
She spent two weeks in Novgrod working with the Orchid Salon, helping
them to develop a marketing strategy and to improve their business
practices.
Jadlos
graduated from GS in 1983 with a degree in biology. She had worked
in labs prior to her time at Columbia, and as an undergraduate,
she worked both at Columbia Presbyterian and at Sherman Fairchild.
When she graduated, Jadlos took a post-doctoral position with the
Estee Lauder Company, working in a new-cell-culture facility. Eventually,
Jadlos became interested in learning more about the business side
of biochemical cosmetology, and she left Estee Lauder to start a
market-strategy business with a specialty in cosmetology. Jadlos
developed a three dimensional model of a skin cell that could be
used to teach non-English speakers about the biology of the skin.
It was this model that Jadlos brought with her to Novgrod.
“What
they call a salon or a spa is very different from what we have here,”
Jadlos says. “All of the people who worked at Orchid were medical
doctors. The approach was very ‘well-being’ oriented.” She was surprised
to find that all of the documentation for the salon was done by
hand. There was no cash register, computer, or Xerox machine. If
a copy of anything was needed, someone would write it out longhand.
The business mentality was also very different. Jadlos recalls that
the people she worked with were reluctant to print a brochure for
fear that a rival salon would get hold of it and copy it. There
was no self-promotion for fear of competition with other salons.
What
Jadlos found most disturbing about the salon was the lack of awareness
about safe hygiene practices and disease transmission. Jadlos recalls
arriving at the salon one day with a cut on her knee. “They started
swabbing it with tea tree oil, without using gloves. They don’t
even use gloves in the hospitals there.” She found virtually no
awareness of the danger of AIDS transmission in a country with one
of the fastest-growing AIDS rates in the world.
Jadlos
loved her experience in Novgrod, and looks forward to returning
there or perhaps traveling somewhere else with the Citizens’ Democracy
Corps. She has recently been offered an opportunity to co-author
a book on the art and science of cosmetics. She credits GS with
showing her the vast range of opportunities the world has to offer
and with helping her to believe that she could take advantage of
whatever came her way. “GS really helped me see myself as a capable,
strong individual,” she says. “It taught me that I was someone who
could conduct myself successfully, and take on this adventure.”
