Their third child, Joe, was born with hydrocephalus, a condition in which there is an excess of cerebrospinal fluid within and around the brain. Problems with vision, memory, balance, coordination, and movement, as well as changes in personality and impaired mental development, all can result from hydrocephalus. “Joe’s head was 19 inches in circumference, almost adult size,” Barbara says.

“I started looking around as he was 1 and 2 years old for facilities for him in North Virginia, but there was nothing for multi-handicapped children,” Barbara says. “I was thinking, ‘Why aren’t there programs for multi-handicapped children?’” So, Barbara decided to start her own and solicited the American Red Cross and Catholic churches in the area for aid. Consistent letter writing got her a $500 grant from the government, and soon her three-day-a-week program received much attention, including a story in The Washington Post. Interested families living further away asked Barbara for help in transportation, so she requested further aid from her community and organized a bus service. In the meantime, Barbara joined the Association for Retarded Citizens of Northern Virginia.

Before his eighth birthday, Joe Brennan died. By then, Don had graduated from law school, and the family, stricken with grief, decided to return to Albuquerque. Barbara joined The Rehabilitation Center and, using her journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma, worked on the organization’s newsletter and did public relations tasks. The couple went on to have two more children.

In 1981, The Rehabilitation Center took on a project that involved buying old pen-manufacturing machines, making pens, and selling them. It was an experiment for making money as well as creating valuable life skills for the handicapped. The center hired a staff and a machinist, rented a building, and tried to profit from six old machines and 50 55-gallon batches of ink. The chartreuse and other colorful inks proved difficult to sell. Barbara became more involved with this part of the center’s work and tried to get contracts.

“And then I started succeeding,” Barbara says. Yet, despite being the general manager, she says she was frustrated by her limitations. So, she and Don discussed buying ownership of the workshop, and in November 1988 a deal was settled. They moved the operation to a new location, retaining many of the original employees, and called it Stride to celebrate the personal developments they and their handicapped staff members were making.

In February 1989, less than four months after the purchase, Don suffered a massive heart attack and died at the age of 55. The family rallied together once again. Barbara’s son, Brian, took control of the mechanical aspects of the business. Her daughter, Kerry, became the first sales manager.

Slowly, Stride grew. That year, sales reached $407,000. “Being a woman in business was a real boon,” Barbara says. She learned about the different government aid available to her and took advantage of it. At the time, Boise Cascade, LLC, now owned by Office Max, published a minority and under-privileged section in the company’s catalog. Representatives asked Barbara to include her business, and she did. Though she received further government incentives, she maintained her small staff and the philosophy behind Stride. “The mission was still there, despite being a for-profit,” Barbara says. Stride’s contracts increased, including a deal with Office Depot. A client in Nevada approached Barbara about moving her business closer to him, so Barbara moved her manufacturing facility to Reno, where it is still today.

Barbara diversified her business further by looking to international partners, such as Schneider Corporation based in Tennenbronn, Germany. Currently, her business has the exclusive distributorship of Schneider Writing Instruments in America and manufactures almost 15 percent of those instruments in Reno while importing the rest. Her other international partners are in Japan, Taiwan, Canada, and Switzerland, and supply much more than writing tools.

Presently, Stride employs 23 people, eight of whom are disabled with Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, and other conditions. Barbara also employs elderly people who need financial help. “People know that we’re here. Many just knock on our door,” Barbara says. She also says that the 25-30 handicapped employees she started out with have moved on to bigger and better things after working for her for years. “We work with their social workers,” Barbara says. “We never just let anyone go without some other position to go to.”

Stride has also very much remained a family- and woman-owned business. Brian is the manufacturing manager and Barbara’s other son, Patrick, is the sales manager. Kerry is on the company board. Barbara’s other daughter, Bridget, lives in California. Barbara herself owns 97 percent of Stride stocks. “I’d never have guessed that I’d be doing this,” Barbara says, laughing. “I wanted to be a reporter, like Murphy Brown!” She reminisces to the old days in Enid, where in the eighth grade she wrote a weekly column on junior high school news and later wrote obituaries for one summer at the local paper. She still does most of the public relations work for Stride.

Barbara plans to attend the Office Depot Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference in Washington, D.C. on April 11. She is also looking to innovative products to keep her supplies updated. The newest line of products Stride is selling this year incorporates DNA technology for property and document protection. The DNA Print-Kit allows consumers to invisibly mark valuable items such as a painting, antique furniture, electronics, and other objects to prove ownership should the item ever be stolen or lost. Each kit comes with its own one-of-a-kind DNA sequence derived from a calf’s thymus that can, with prior notice, be mixed with a person’s own DNA for a truly unique code. Such DNA-based technology, Barbara says, can help protect a customer from identity theft, counterfeiting, forgery, and other such problems.

“It is something only we are doing, and it might take a while,” Barbara says. “We are always looking to create new things.”

As for retirement, Barbara is 72 and has no plans for that yet. “I’ll probably die on the job — I’ll work as long as I can,” she says.

In the rare moments Barbara doesn’t busy herself with work, she spends her time with her family. Seven of 13 grandchildren live in Albuquerque, and there are always baseball games and other activities to attend. “I’m pretty family oriented, and it’s a busy family,” she says. Photos of her family fill her office on Carlisle, as do letters from Pete Domenici, certificates, awards and recognitions, and paintings and needlework done by Pete Hirsch, an employee since 1982 with autism.

“This business is my life,” Barbara says. “I’ve been very fortunate.”

Monika studies print journalism and French at the University of New Mexico. She was born in Albuquerque but her family is originally from Poland, and Polish is still the main language at home. She studied at the Université de Savoie in Chambéry, France and loves to travel.