5 Will County business owners share lessons learned on first job

The National Recreation and Park Association said most U.S. adults believe youth learn valuable skills on their first job – and five Will County business owners are no exception.

Megan DiCaro, owner of Springview Sweets in Lockport; Gail Girard, owner of Big Frog Custom T-Shirts franchise in Shorewood; Tom Grotovsky, owner of The Curator’s Café in Joliet; Jennifer Joho, owner of J.Joho Boutique in Plainfield; and Ryan Linsner, co-owner of Bricks & Minifigs of Crest Hill, each shared a lesson they learned and still use today.

Megan DiCaro, owner of Springview Sweets in Lockport

Megan DiCaro of Lockport paid plenty of homage to her grandparents and her childhood when she opened Springview Sweets bakery in 2023.

DiCaro grew up baking with her grandmother, Kathleen Schroedle, who died from an aggressive brain cancer March 2, 2023, at age 77.

And DiCaro chose the bakery’s location – the Lockport Metra station – because her grandfather William Schroedle loves trains and sets up large displays of model trains in his Orland Park home.

The bakery’s name was inspired by the street name of her childhood home, she said.

Her first two jobs were nannying followed by working in a “pizza place.” And she learned skills from both jobs that help her run her bakery today.

[ Lockport’s Springview Sweets owner giving back while in Greatest Baker contest ]

“I’m the mother of a toddler, so I learned how to balance all my responsibilities,” DiCaro said of nannying. “And I learned a lot from my managers [at the pizza venue]. I learned how to multitask and time management; those were the biggest.”

Gail Girard, owner of Big Frog Custom T-Shirts franchise in Shorewood

Earlier this year, Gail Girard celebrated her 10th anniversary as a Big Frog Custom T-Shirts franchise owner in the same location in Shorewood.

Girard made the decision to become a Big Frog franchise owner after her former position – a service excellence manager at the corporate level for a health care system – had been eliminated.

She loved that Big Frog was very customer service-focused – since customer satisfaction was a primary component of her previous position – and she also loved the products.

Girard’s first job also was customer-service focused.

“I worked at a doughnut shop,” Girard said. “I got to serve coffee, and I got to make change.”

Girard said she also “ticked off” one of the older employees when Girard received the “prime shift” for the summer. That experience taught another job skill.

[  Shorewood custom T-shirt company Big Frog celebrates 10 years ]

“I learned the value of teamwork and the importance of working well with others,” Girard said.

Tom Grotovsky, owner of The Curator’s Café in Joliet

For 10 years, Tom Grotovsky owned Great American Bagel on Essington Road in Joliet. He closed that business at the end of December and opened The Curator’s Café in early 2024 in the same location.

The Curator’s Café menu serves a wide variety of breakfast and lunch sandwiches, made-to-order salads, soups – including a soup of the day – and traditionally seasoned beef chili.

The Curator’s Café also displays and sells the work of local artists.

Grotovsky’s first job was at a grain elevator in Mokena, where he bagged corn and oats, loaded trucks, and learned to drive a stick shift.

That first job developed Grotovsky’s work ethic, for his supervisor “wanted his place clean every day and the floor swept spotless” to keep the rodents away, he said.

[ Joliet Great American Bagel is now The Curator’s Cafe ]

“He taught me the responsibility of having a job and doing the best that I knew how to do with it,” Grotovsky said.

Jennifer Joho, owner of J.Joho Boutique in Plainfield

Jennifer Joho opened J.Joho Boutique in 2018 in memory of her mother, Janet M. Palmisano, who died in 2013 from cancer only three months after her diagnosis and one year before Joho’s wedding.

The Plainfield boutique offers women’s and some men’s clothing, as well as accessories and jewelry.

But the first job for Joho, who also is a hairdresser, was at a fast-food restaurant. And Joho, who assumed she only would work the register, was told on the second day that she also had to clean the bathrooms.

Joho was aghast. Yes, she cleaned the bathroom at home, she said, so she knew how to clean a bathroom.

“But this was a public bathroom,” Joho said. “This was different. … I didn’t understand how I could work for a fast-food restaurant and have to clean the bathroom.”

She said the experience taught her that everyone at some point must do the “grunt work” and that everyone has to “earn their stripes.”

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“Basically, I learned that all facets of a job have to be taken care of, that someone has to do it,” Joho said, “and that you’re not too good to clean a bathroom.”

Ryan Linser, co-owner of Bricks & Minifigs of Crest Hill

Ryan and Sarah Linsner opened their Bricks & Minifigs of Crest Hill in 2018.

Bricks & Minifigs is an authorized LEGO product seller, said Ryan Linsner, manager and co-owner of the 4,000-square-foot Crest Hill store.

Store visitors may buy, sell or trade “all things LEGO,” according to the Bricks & Minifigs of Crest Hill website.

In addition, Bricks & Minifigs of Crest Hill hosts events and offers birthday party packages.

However, Ryan Linsner’s first shop had nothing to do with LEGOS. He worked as a tire changer in a local tire shop.

From that job, Ryan Linsner said he learned what it means “to be the low man on the totem pole, that someone always has to do the grunt work, and that the grunt work always has to get done.”

[ Crest Hill minifigs store helped with LEGO-focused convention ]

“It taught me to be a better manager,” Ryan Linsner said. “I try to treat all the employees with the respect they deserve, no matter what position they’re in. I’ve always told my team that I’d never ask them to do something I would never do.”