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June 20, 2003/Sivan 20 5763, Vol. 55, No. 43
Business blooms from adversity
JESSICA BARBER
Staff Writer
Nahid Rad has been a businesswoman all her life. But it was a therapeutic exercise she performed with her elderly mother that led to her latest venture - "Flowers Forever - Inspirations by Effie."
Rad's mother, Effie, suffered from a host of health problems in her later years, including diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and muscular problems. However, it was the onset of Alzheimer's that encouraged Rad to busy her mother creating floral arrangements.
"With Alzheimer's, you really have to keep them busy," remembers Rad. "I knew she liked flowers. I got her involved in touching, color and creating and it became a bond between us."
Rad, who took care of her homebound mother, found herself creating the arrangements not just to interest Effie, but for neighbors and friends as well.
"The neighbors would bring vases and ask if I would make an arrangement for them," she says. "Then, they started offering money for them. My first sale was $80 and I thought, 'Wow, that's pretty good.' "
After her mother's death in the late 1990s, Rad turned her therapeutic hobby into a business, making fresh, silk and dried flower arrangements for weddings, funerals, b'nai mitzvot and other celebrations, as well as for private homes and offices.
"I thought about giving it up," she recalls. "But I couldn't. It was like a way to commemorate my mother. And I found a hidden talent. I don't even know how it happened, but now I can make anything anyone wants."
Rad has made hundreds of arrangements for Valley residents, including centerpieces for a dinner held by former Governor Jane Hull, the Arizona Biltmore and Sinbad Restaurant in Tempe. She also displays and sells arrangements from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wed-nesdays at Town & Country Shopping Center, on 20th Street between Highland and Camelback roads in Phoenix. Rad's creations are also on display 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays from October through May at DC Ranch in North Scottsdale.
"I don't make a lot of money, but I'm very happy," she reveals. "I would like to see the business grow, especially in the Jewish community. I know there is a large-sized Jewish community and I'd like to meet people."
Rad, a native of New York City, refers to herself as a "Jewish Persian New Yorker." Rad's parents, Iranian immigrants, returned the family to Iran when Rad was a young child. She attended finishing school in Switzerland and a Jewish Orthodox boarding school in England until the age of 15, when she returned to Iran and attended an American high school.
"At that time, I was engaged to ... a 'good Jewish boy,' but the catch was that he was my best friend and I didn't want to marry him," she remembers. "So, I went to the American Embassy and showed them my birth certificate and got an American passport without telling anyone. I went back to New York and it was fabulous."
Rad married, had a daughter and pursued several jobs and business ventures in New York City, Chicago and Southern France. She arrived in Arizona in 1997, shortly after her daughter Claudine, then a student at Arizona State University, was involved in a serious car accident.
"It was a rollover and a matter of life and death," says Rad. "I decided that I would never leave my daughter's side as long as I lived."
Rad's mother, who was then living in Long Island, N.Y., also made the move to Arizona, but fell ill shortly afterward - marking the beginning of "Flowers Forever - Inspirations by Effie."
"My hands are never manicured any more, but I don't get tired of that," says Rad. "I'm lucky because I love what I do and I can do it all day long."
In fact, Rad loves her work so much that she no longer pines for her earlier years of travel and adventure.
"I stay in Arizona and I hardly travel," she says. "My passion is my work and my love is my daughter. I don't have the urge to go all over the world anymore. I've mellowed out."
Rad is a member of Temple Emanuel of Tempe. She will travel to private homes or offices for free consultations on flower arrangements. Call 480-642-2133.
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