Ecuador RPCV Steve Foss and his wife Daisy run Shoestring Exchange, the couple's home-based business



The couple's business ethic is based more on a Latin American model than an American one. Daisy is Ecuadorean, and Steve spent several years there as a member of the Peace Corps.

In the United States, "your job is who you are," but in Latin America, "the emphasis is more on family and friends," he said.

Ecuador RPCV Steve Foss and his wife Daisy run Shoestring Exchange, the couple's home-based business

They do a little of everything ; A South Portland couple's home business combines many of their talents in an eclectic mix.

Aug 11, 2005 - Portland Press Herald

Where can you go if your shoe is falling to pieces, your pants are too long, your computer screen is blank and you need to learn Spanish? Improbable as it sounds, 32 Fickett St. in South Portland.

Home to Steve and Daisy Foss, it is also the home of Shoestring Exchange, the couple's home-based business. They offer a compendium of services, Steve doing shoe and computer repair in the garage, Daisy teaching Spanish and performing dress alterations upstairs.

"We do a little bit of everything," said Steve. Their business is open from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays, and noon to 9 p.m. Saturdays. But Steve freely admits he doesn't spend all that time working.

"The sign might say `open,' but I might be on the lawn drinking coffee," he said.

The couple's business ethic is based more on a Latin American model than an American one. Daisy is Ecuadorean, and Steve spent several years there as a member of the Peace Corps.

In the United States, "your job is who you are," but in Latin America, "the emphasis is more on family and friends," he said.

Shoestring Exchange is as far from a corporate environment as you can get. "Sometimes people come in and put money on the counter and just pick up their shoes" if he's not around. The business doesn't advertise, relying only on word-of-mouth and the phone book for business.

One of a shrinking number of shoe repairmen in the area, Steve found his trade through luck and coincidence. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," he joked.

Steve and Daisy had been friends with a Spanish couple in the mid- 1980s. The husband was a cobbler who worked out of a storefront on Broadway. When he decided to retire and move to Florida, he sold his machines and store to Steve, who learned the trade quickly.

"I always did construction work, so I was skilled with my hands."

After a yearlong apprenticeship, he began working out of the storefront, located near the intersection of Broadway and Elm Street. In 2003, he moved the business into his home, adding computer repair, tailoring and tutoring to its services.

Working for himself, at home, is "almost like being semi- retired," Steve said. "It's been so long, I'm pretty much ruined," he said, meaning he could never go back to working for someone else.

News Assistant Victoria Gannon can be contacted at 791-6309 or at:

vgannon@pressherald.com

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