6 | DECEMBER 4, 2015
COVER STORY
COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
EXPLORING JOYS OF
PRIVATE BUSINESS
Columbia-Pacific people left long
careers in different industries to own
businesses on the Oregon coast
By CYNTHIA WASHICKO
cwashicko@crbizjournal.com
oving from one job to another is common.
Spending more than a decade in one career
and leaving it behind to open a specialty
shop isn’t. The owners of two businesses on
Oregon’s coast, however, have done just that, leaving
behind corporate careers to open their own stores.
M
Pat’s Pantry
Pat Milliman spent 30 years in the banking industry.
Tom Leiner spent nearly that long working for semi-
conductor businesses. So it was only natural that the
couple would open a spice shop together.
The idea for the shop grew out of a career move
for Milliman, after she left her corporate banking job
to open her own consulting business. When the reces-
sion hit, however, her work contracts dried up and she
decided it was time for another move, she said. That
second jump would be to a part-time job at a spice shop
in Portland while she took time to determine her next
move.
Leiner faced a similar incentive for a career change
when shifting rules in the semiconductor industry left
him with the option of moving overseas or ¿nding a
new career, he said. He and Milliman met while she
was working at the Portland spice shop, and that helped
spur the idea for Pat’s Pantry.
“She was working at a spice store, after her career
change, and I pick her up and we start talking about
(that business) and I said, ‘We can do that,’” Leiner
said.
They both liked Astoria and, after visits and brain-
storming sessions, they opened Pat’s Pantry in 2012.
&hallenges over the ¿rst few years included learn-
ing about ordering and inventory — something neither
PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BESSEX/FOR COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
Tom Leiner holds a sample of crushed aleppo pepper.
of their corporate careers had prepared them for, Mil-
liman said.
“Educating people was another thing,” she said.
“There are a lot of foodies in the area, they got it, but
there would be a lot of people that would come in and
be like, ‘A spice shop? What?’ So it was a lot of out-
reach.”
The business wasn’t without their detractors, either.
Milliman has had to deal with literal hand-wringing
from people worried that the shop wouldn’t survive,
See JOYS Page A7
Ground
cloves,
Kashmiri
chili, and
Turmeric
are all
for sale
at Pat’s
Pantry.