Nancy Brooks-Lane

Katherine Carol

Ellen Condon

James Corey

Doug Crandell

Jim Huston

Jennifer Jones

Marsha Katz

Cathryn Maddalena

Urban Miyares

Jeri Moore

Steven Savage

Corey Smith

Raymond Steffy

Molly Sullivan

Stephen Swain

About Us » Mentor Collaborators

Jeri Moore

In Loving Memory...

Jeri passed away on September 13, 2008.  She was an incredible advocate for individuals with disabilities owning their own businesses and reaching their dreams. Her family and friends invite you to read the following information celebrating her life.

Celebrating the Life of Jeri Moore (PDF)

Jeri Moore's Obituary

Jeri Moore worked extensively in the self-employment field, focusing on the small micro-enterprises. She was self-employed for most of the past 30 years, sometimes as supplemental employment, other times as full employment. Jeri's self employment had to adjust to the disability issues she faced. For the past 6 years, Jeri was devoted to small enterprise development for persons with disabilities and benefits planning. She held expertise in the following areas: ability to envision future possibilities of a business; recognized the barriers (financial and motivational); strong desire to involve consumer in all decisions; organizational skills so future decisions can be based on past performance; and excellent people skills.

 More about Jeri:

Jeri Moore was the owner of Moore Enterprises, a small home-based business that offered services related to the employment, self-employment, and work incentives for individuals with disabilities. She was self-employed for 30 years. Jeri started working as an office manager for her husband’s business and eventually formed her own company.

Jeri’s career in the disability and employment related field naturally progressed from her own experiences with overcoming work related barriers due to a disability. More specifically, she became very well versed in the use of the Social Security Work Incentives. For years, Jeri provided Social Security Benefits Planning Services. This service is essential for many individuals with disabilities who are contemplating starting up their own businesses. Other areas of her expertise included assisting would-be entrepreneurs with envisioning a variety of business possibilities, recognizing and overcoming potential financial and motivational barriers to self employment; and providing advocacy and consumer directed services. Jeri’s passion for self employment has also been influential on her immediate family. Each of her four daughters followed in their mother’s footsteps, and is self employed.

Over the past seven years, Jeri focused more closely on assisting individuals with disabilities with self-employment. During this time, she has helped start-up a variety of businesses to include commercial building cleaning, dog kennel operations, custom furniture making, taxidermy services, and retail of items for sale on the Internet.

More recently, Jeri assisted a young man with developing a home care business for vacationers. Services include letting pets out for exercise, bringing in the mail and newspaper, watering houseplants and the lawn as needed. This business was prosperous over the summer months. However, the work was seasonal and slowed later in the year. So, Jeri worked with this man to expand his business to offer his customers other services such as completing various yard and household related duties.

Over the years, Jeri developed some sage advice for others who might be considering a business start-up. For example, she did not believe that all businesses need to follow the standard start-up procedures that we so often hear about. Instead she believed the focus needs to be on creativity and advocacy; both vital to opening doors for micro-enterprises. She felt the first step is to work with the person in developing his or her dream or vision. While doing so, it is very important to remember that no two people will have the same needs or dreams. Once the dream is formed, then it is vital to never lose sight of it even when it starts to seem like there may be too many barriers. Instead, when barriers or obstacle are faced, Jeri advised to get creative and keeping trying different approaches until the dream is reached.