Since her employer began closing on Fridays, Dawn Gilmore has turned her photography hobby into a money-making business that is helping to offset her lost income.

Without a lot of new real estate development, business has been slow for the Houston Cuozzo Group, a landscape design firm in Stuart. After laying off one-third of the staff of 18 last year, the firm started closing on alternate Fridays last September as a way to reduce workers’ hours and cut costs. In March, the firm started closing every Friday.

Across the Treasure Coast, many residents who have avoided layoffs are facing reduced hours — which means less money in their wallets. Some are spending their new-found spare time with family, home improvement projects or hobbies. Others are looking for ways to make up the lost income, such as a side business or a second job.

Prorated unemployment compensation through the state’s Short Time Compensation program can help employees. It makes up about one-third of the lost income for Gilmore and her co-workers.

Nonetheless, Gilmore and others are putting their extra free time to good use.

Gilmore, a land planner, said she is spending Fridays developing her portrait photography business.

“I’m able to market it a lot more, and it’s been a huge bump,” Gilmore said.

The St. Lucie County resident said the extra marketing effort has resulted in 10 times as much income for her fledgling side business, which she hopes to eventually take full time.

Gilmore’s co-worker, Robin Pelensky of Vero Beach, has spent her unexpected spare time studying for and passing a barrage of tests to advance her career as a landscape architect.

Pelensky said she began studying for the tests about nine months ago, but having those Fridays off has given her more time to get serious about the education.

Pelensky, who received her master’s degree at the University of Florida in 2006, has taken five of the six tests required to attain state certification as a landscape architect.

She also recently passed on her first try, the exam to become a LEED-accredited professional. LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. That certification led to Houston Cuozzo being selected to participate in the design of the EcoCenter, “which will be a green building of 20,000 to 40,000 square feet within the city limits of Stuart on the site of a closed landfill,” Pelensky said.

Not everyone is using their free time so productively. Houston Cuozzo office manager Rhonda Reed said she has been mostly working on her tan.

But many workers whose hours have been reduced by furloughs say they prefer that to seeing co-workers or themselves being laid off.

Martin County and the city of Fort Pierce are two government entities that have imposed one-day-per-month furloughs on non-union workers and are negotiating with unions for the same result.

Mike Kittell, contract coordinator for Martin County’s Purchasing Department, said, “I’m of the attitude that if it can keep everybody on board, I’m all for it as long as we keep our benefits and nobody loses their job.”

For most workers, the furlough day is one less day to do the same amount of work, Kittell said, so after he took a furlough day on a Monday, “I had a nice big weekend, but I came back to a full inbox and you have to scramble to catch up.”

Donna Gordon, an administrative assistant with Martin County for 17 years, said, “I haven’t talked to anyone who is unhappy with having to furlough.”

Of the smaller paychecks, Gordon said, “That’s the way life is sometimes.”

She said she usually spends the extra day off in her garden, trying not to spend money.

By Paul Ivice

Tags: beach, business, contract, cuts, degrees, development, education, employment, Florida, furlough, government, green, jobs, landfill, layoffs, LEED, money, national, paychecks, Photography, production, Stuart, unemployment

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Economy, St. Lucie County, Treasure Coast business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.