Colorado women find new purpose in their second acts

Rae Flores did not set out to become an interior designer. Before she launched her Fort Collins staging business, she had been a ballerina, teacher and consultant.

“My mom always told me, ‘You have to love what you do,’” Flores said. “That always stuck in my head, and I love what I do right now. This is my favorite time of my life, to come in and transform a space.”

Flores is one of three Colorado women who changed course later in life. Flores, Bernadette Pflug and Ann Mattingly-Lowe each built a second act from the skills, relationships and turns that came before.

Their stories show that changing course is not the same as starting over. Each woman found her next chapter by paying attention to what her life was asking of her.

An eye for design

Flores, 54, is now an interior designer in Fort Collins, but she began staging homes while still working full time in other jobs.                 

“I was helping people who were selling their homes for free,” Flores said. “And I loved it, but I always had a full-time job.”

After moving to Fort Collins in 2017, Flores took a property management job making keys in a basement. It was not glamorous, but it put her close to the industry she would eventually enter.

Flores later became the first employee at a staging company that grew into a million-dollar business. When she left, real estate agents she knew encouraged her to start her own company, Ready for Market by Rae Home Design.

“I had 10 loyal agents to me who were like, ‘You were the face of that company for the last seven years. We only want to work with you,’” Flores said.

She left her previous job in October 2024 and began receiving calls from real estate agents the next month. She formed an LLC, got professional liability insurance and hired an attorney.

“It was really scary, but it all fell into place and worked out,” she said.

Leaving television for dog care

Sometimes careers pivot not because of boredom but distress.

Bernadette Pflug, 56, spent 17 years in broadcast television. After moving to Denver in 1994, she took a job at a local station that quickly became overwhelming.

“When I took the job at the station in Denver, they were so disorganized that I would have to be there at 7 in the morning and stay ‘til 7 or 8 at night,” Pflug said.

Around the same time, she adopted a German shepherd named Ranger.

“He was in a crate, home by himself for 12 or 13 hours, and it’s just not fair for a puppy,” she said.

Ranger’s restlessness led Pflug toward search and rescue work in Boulder, where she certified him as a trailing dog and learned how to train dogs.

Then, in 1998, a complicated birth left Pflug hospitalized for three months after her daughter was born. When she recovered, she did not want to return to reporting after years of covering people in crisis.

“I didn’t want to go back into a situation where I was interviewing people in the worst times of their lives,” Pflug said.

Pflug left the Denver station and freelanced for a while, covering cases such as JonBenét Ramsey and the Oklahoma City bombing trial.

“I enjoyed what I was doing, but it was really hard to have a family,” she said.

Her husband reminded her that she knew how to train dogs. After nine months of part-time dog training, she started her own business. That business became BlackPaw Dog Training, which Pflug runs on her farm in Lafayette.

“We rehabilitate and train dogs who have aggression or leash reactivity,” Pflug said. “We train regular, happy puppies too.”

She said her daughter was the main reason she left broadcast television.

“From the ages of 2 to 7, I was traveling all the time,” Pflug said. “So I gave up a career that I loved, I guess, because I loved her more.”

Work that matters

Ann Mattingly-Lowe found both love and a new career in her 50s.

When she and her husband moved from St. Louis to Colorado, Mattingly-Lowe noticed her skin changing. At 53, she said Colorado’s dry climate and menopause left her frustrated.

“I’m like, ‘Theresa, I hate it out here,’” Mattingly-Lowe told her niece, Theresa Mattingly, a dermatologist who now works with Generations Skincare. “I have sunspots. I’ve got dry, crepey skin. I don’t know what to do.”

Mattingly-Lowe worked in pharmaceuticals for 27 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she came out of retirement to start Generations Skincare, a company focused on effective active ingredients and cleaner inactive ones.

“Initially, I wanted to mimic what the other companies did,” said Mattingly-Lowe.

But as she did more research, she learned that commonly used ingredients like propylene glycol and phenoxyethanol did more harm than good.

“I want to have the active ingredients that are effective and have the cleanest inactive ingredients that we can find,” she said.

Mattingly-Lowe also wanted the company to have a purpose beyond selling skincare. Her father was a World War II veteran who experienced PTSD, and his experience, along with her own struggles with depression, inspired the company’s Inner Glow Initiative, which supports community-based mental health efforts.

“What’s the point of coming out of retirement if you don’t do something that matters?” she said. 

It’s never too late

Flores, Pflug and Mattingly-Lowe did not follow the same path. But each found that a second act could grow from lived experiences.

“I wish I had done it sooner,” Flores said. “You have to have the drive, the vision and know exactly what you want. If I didn’t try, I would regret it to this day.”

Pflug said running her own business has been far more lucrative than working for a TV station.

“It was the best decision I ever made,” Pflug said. “I feel like the opportunity for growth and success is way higher on your own. There’s just a security in being an employee.”

Mattingly-Lowe said life is too short to live with regrets.

“It’s never too late for love, and it’s never too late to start a new career,” Mattingly-Lowe said. “If there’s something you want to do, until your last dying breath, you have a purpose.”