Jan St. George has decided to retire after 17 years of working, managing, and ultimately owning and operating the Whiz Kids toy store located on the third floor of River Park Square Mall. She recently turned 63 years old.

Born and raised in Bellevue, Washington, St. George moved to Spokane in 1979. She received a certificate in paralegal studies and an associate degree from Spokane Community College. St. George worked as a legal secretary then paralegal at a small law office in Spokane Valley for several years before deciding to change careers in her late 40s from legal administration to retail and small business ownership.

The Journal recently sat down with St. George to discuss her career change, small business ownership, and what she looks forward to in retirement.

What made you want to go from a paralegal career to working in retail?

It was just one of those things. I was in my late 40s or early 50s and stopped to ask myself, “What do I want to do when I grow up?” I’ve always been a big kid. I have stuffed animals, puzzles, and games throughout my house, so it wasn’t a huge transition.

I took four months off to figure out what I wanted to do, and what I discovered was that I wanted to be around people. So I said OK, I’m looking for people, what’s a good people job? At the time, in 2005, Whiz Kids was opening up in River Park Square and they were looking for people. I had only a little bit of retail experience helping my brother at craft shows, but they gave me a chance.

It was part time at first. Within a couple of days of starting to work in retail, I realized it was the happiest I had ever been. It was so cool.

The high school me would not have been able to do retail. I was a wallflower. Throughout the years, my personality changed. Whiz Kids was the perfect fit.

How was the transition from being a manager to owning Whiz Kids?

Of course, I didn’t think it would be much different from being a manager. I woke up from that real fast. Suddenly I realized it was a 24/7 job, and there was so much to it.

The previous owners overextended on their loan and were planning to close the store. They approached me and told me they wanted me to take over and that they would help me. It was a situation where I was going to be out of a job too. The store closed in January 2010, and because I wasn’t employed anymore, I couldn’t get a small business loan, but I needed a loan to have a job. I ended up getting a personal loan just to get the business started again, then took out a small business loan to pay off the personal loan. We reopened in March of 2010.

I had pretty much no training. In my previous life, I worked in a small law office where I was in charge of payroll and ordering supplies. Because of my paralegal experience, I also knew how to read contracts and leases and run a business without really knowing how to run a business.

The business theory that I adopted was that I wanted variety. So I always had lots of variety in my store, and because of that, I also needed extra storage. When I bought things, I would always ask myself, “Would I be willing to pay X number of dollars on this item?” If it was something that I thought was overpriced, I didn’t buy it in the first place to sell it. I’m from an old school way of thinking.

What advice would you give someone who wanted a career change?

I had to be happy, that was one of my key things. Money definitely factored into it, but luckily, my career as a paralegal allowed me to have some savings. I had a good-paying job. Looking back, I’m glad I had this chapter in my life. Had I kept doing what I was doing, I don’t think I would have been happy. It’s risky, but it’s worth it.

I would also say, go into a career change with as much knowledge as one can, whether it’s educational or hands-on, and be willing to give it your all.

What challenges did you face?

During the pandemic, the challenges were ordering from companies and supply chain issues. I would place these huge orders and receive maybe one-third of them. One thing that I definitely noticed was that after we opened the store again—we had been closed for some time because of quarantine—stuffed animals were my biggest seller. And I’m not just talking kids. I’m talking about adults. I think everybody just needed something to snuggle with. I focused a lot on this demand, and I’m a stuffed animal kid myself, so I was happy with it.

I don’t want to say that toy stores are a dying breed, but there used to be so many toy stores. The fact that so many toy stores didn’t survive, and I did? Toys “R” Us didn’t survive. KB Toy Stores didn’t survive. I’m a survivor, I did good.

Amazon kept getting bigger, but I said I just have to do my best. People still love coming in and touching stuff. I have to go with that.

How did you come to the decision to retire now?

Christmas Eve 2021, I sat down and had my own COVID contemplation time. In 2021, we had our best year ever, just off the charts thanks to everybody’s support.

So I had all this money sitting in savings. In December, I was a victim of fraud and had to open a new checking account. So, I had to deal with all that and the bounced checks. And then dealing with the masks and COVID. I said to myself, ‘Boy, if I had a towel, I’d throw it in right now.’ At that point I decided I’m going to sell the store and retire.

I had planned to do it in four years, but I just couldn’t deal with the masks anymore and all the other stuff and I was like, it’s time. Do it now while you’re still young enough to enjoy the next chapter of your life.

And what does the next chapter of your life look like?

It’s going back to doing the things I did before I started working. I’ve been gardening, walking my dog, knitting, and doing cross-stitch, reading books, all without feeling guilty about it. Just staying in Spokane and having time with people again.

I took a correspondence course a while ago and wrote a children’s book. I’d like to get back to that. It’s for children ages 8 to 12, and it takes place in the Davenport’s Circus Room.

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