'Life has funny twists and turns ... it's very interesting. You repeat various things throughout your life. And things you take for granted in your youth, you become reacquainted with as you get older."
Suitable observations for Claudia Dencker, longtime Los Gatan and owner of Los Gatos-based Software SETT Corp., formerly SQA Inc. Dencker's life has taken many turns, exposing her to much variety in the areas that have always been important to her: arts, music, education and, in a complete turn around, high technology.
And then, of course, family.
Were it not for the family ties that affected her as a child and again as an adult, Dencker might not have become the Renaissance woman she is. From the business savvy of relatives and artistic influence of her mother to the propitious connections of her sister and the birth of a daughter who rearranged her priorities, everything has touched Dencker in some way.
From an early age, the Evanston, Ill., native came to understand two important things about herself: She wanted to run her own business, and she enjoyed outlets for her creative, artistic personality.
Dencker says she did a lot of things to earn money as a youngster, including taking small sewing jobs for her mother's friends, stocking up garage sales and running a small neighborhood enterprise with a friend.
"She and I would try to get yard work. I'd go out and get the jobs, and she would help mow the lawn, or weed, or whatever. Then I'd get paid, and I'd pay her. I did the 'marketing and sales,' and she did the work. Just like what I do now," Dencker says, laughing. She refers to Software SETT, which provides software evaluation, testing, training and other functions to clients in the computer and technology industries.
In her youth, she was also an informal apprentice to neighbor and close family friend Elisabet Siewert-Miller, a professional artist from Sweden, whom Dencker helped in creating tapestries, woven pieces and collages.
"She always encouraged me a lot with my own designs and things that I did. She always said, 'Don't follow a pattern; make your own,' " says Dencker, whose eclectic life certainly reflects Siewert-Miller's advice.
While growing up in Winnetka--another Chicago suburb--Dencker got a taste of the arts world through the connections of her mother, Eva S. Dencker, an art dealer in the Chicago area. Eva is now a private art dealer in San Jose and she recently published a new catalogue, Early Old Master Prints.
"She helped me get jobs, like any good mother helps her children," Dencker recalls. One summer job during her teenage years found Dencker admitting visitors to the Thorn Room, part of the Art Institute of Chicago.
During lunch breaks, she wandered around other galleries in the Institute, or simply explored downtown Chicago. Among Dencker's favorite artists are German Romantics and other European painters of various eras, including some of the old masters in her mother's catalog.
"I like any artwork that's really well done--good technique, innovative representation and creative expression that's pleasing. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be pretty, but it should be aesthetic," she explains.
When Dencker was in her early 20s, her mother was again the impetus for a cultured job that rounded out her daughter's education further, this time connected with the aural rather than visual arts. For several months, Dencker lived in Bavaria, where she worked at a music antiquarian shop cataloging printed sheet music of 19th- and 20th-century composer/conductor Richard Strauss.
"The whole shop was based on anything having to do with music: instruments, sheet music, paintings, memorabilia," Dencker recalls. "Looking back on it now, I realize how special it was. When you're going through it, you don't always appreciate the things you have presented to you."
One of the roles music plays in Dencker's life today comes from the First United Methodist Church of Los Gatos, where she is a soprano singer in the choir; she has been singing since high school. She also dabbles on the piano and can play the recorder and violin.
Upon earning her bachelor's degree in art education from San Jose State University in the mid-1970s, Dencker stayed on for an additional year to pursue a teaching credential in secondary education.
She then taught German as a long-term substitute at Del Mar High School in San Jose for six months, after which time, the summer of 1979 intervened. The job teaching either art or German that she thought she would get that fall went to someone with more seniority.
"I found that out the day I left school for the summer. Two weeks later, I was working at a computer company. I did a complete about-face!" she says. "Education was not the place for me, and I was not going to leave the area. Once I got into computers, I never looked back at teaching."
Although Dencker admits that she sees "no connection at all between art and software techno-logy," family connections again worked to her advantage, this time through her sister, who was a technical writer at the time. Dencker's bilingualism turned out to be an unexpected plus in landing her a job as a technical writer.
"With my language skills, technical writing was a natural fit. I could express myself well, and I could write well. The lady who hired me was impressed that I taught German; she figured that if I could teach German, I could read a derivative of COBOL," Dencker says.
She spent the next few years in the technical writing field, including working for a small company in which she rose to supervisor--"the teacher training really helped me build leadership skills"--and a software quality-assurance tester. When that company was bought out by a much larger corporation, Dencker chose to pursue the quality assurance path by itself.
She founded SQA Inc. in January 1987, focusing on software quality-assurance testing. She says most members of her family have had their own businesses, so the confidence was already there. She also carefully analyzed both the successes and failures of all the companies and individuals with whom she had worked or associated over the years.
"I had very specific ideas about what I wanted to do, and I executed them," Dencker says.
Two years into the business, Dencker and her husband, John Nerness, had a daughter, Barbara, now 7. Running the business from her home until Barbara was old enough to go to school, Dencker came up with the following rule of thumb for being a mom and running a business at the same time: "Don't kid yourself."
"Women are fooling themselves if they think they can do it alone," she says, explaining how she enlisted the help of a babysitter not only when she was out visiting clients, but also when she was at home, working behind the closed door of her in-home office.
"You must have physical separation between your child and your business. You really can't combine these spaces. In a way, I have two children--the business and Barbara," she adds. "Out of sight means out of mind; kids don't bug you when they don't see you."
Ironically, the fiancé of Barbara's favorite babysitter became the first employee of SQA Inc.
When Barbara began school, Dencker expanded the business with a name change to Software SETT and a move to her Winchester Boulevard office, which now employs two other consultants.
"SQA was the right name when we started out, doing only software quality-assurance testing. The new name encompasses our full range of services: software evaluation, testing and training," she explains. As Dencker's company gained a reputation, her client list grew to include such giants as Amdahl Corp., Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft Corp. (Business Graphics Unit).
According to Dencker, young Barbara is already showing signs of taking after her mother and grandmother. Barbara enjoys "coaching" Dencker when she practices for the church choir, and so far has expressed interest in such ambitious professions as diamond mining, Lego designing, writing and illustrating children's books and, not surprisingly, becoming an artist.
"If you want to be an artist," Dencker says she warned her daughter, "make sure you have other skills that will put bread on the table!"
She adds that she hopes Barbara can one day own a business, too.
"I think having your own business is a very rewarding way of living. You have to be practical and have a good sense of what people will buy and not buy," Dencker says. "While you're doing the work, you're selling yourself every moment."
Thinking about how her family shaped her life and how she is now helping shape her daughter's, Dencker says that what's most important is that Barbara--or anyone--should find a job she enjoys and from which she gains great satisfaction. She adds that familial influences should be just that--factors that have a "shaping effect" but do not dictate.
"I would say it probably helped shape my interests, not so much my career directions, but . . . it rounded out my life so I'm not so single-focused. I have my business, my family, and then my interests and personal joys."
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 24, 1996.
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