Roberta Ladd, 38, said that she's always had an "eye for detail and liked organizing," so much so that her family used to tease her about it. For years, Ladd worked in accounting and HR, just using her organizational talents on the side to help friends and the occasional referral she got from word-of-mouth. She was repeatedly encouraged to start her own business, but it took her husband, Staff Sgt. Marc Stahlman, pointing out how she could help the military before she finally took the plunge.

So in 2008, Ladd went and got her master business license and began to concentrate all of her efforts on her consulting business, touting it as Organized Solutions to Simplify Your Life.

"Getting the license was the first step towards broadening my client base and opening up to the military community," she said. Though she began by focusing on home organization, which could vary between helping retirees downsize their homes or assisting new moms get settled, she soon expanded to cover financial organization, like credit report auditing and bill paying systems. Ladd is familiar with bookkeeping and can implement a process for a client, but she refers more in-depth matters, like tax preparation and financial planning, to professionals.

Ladd, whose father was in the Army, is quick to point out that she is not competing with the military.

"They offer the best resource base that anyone could ask for," she said. "The first thing I do when I meet with a servicemember or their family is to point them towards the ACS office of Financial Readiness."

The difference between what she does and what that office does, however, is that she is 100 percent hands-on with her clients and strives to "remove the distraction from their life."

Her core demographic is the young, single soldier. In fact, her most rewarding cases so far have involved helping soldiers prepare for deployment, whether that entails running a credit report before freezing their accounts to guard against identity theft, or helping to create a payment plan so that they can pay off debt while they are downrange.

"I help them get started to get organized and simplify their life," she explained. "Then the goal is that the clients take it over and move forward."

Monthly, Ladd can work with anywhere from 5 to 25 clients, depending on what the level of work is. She is clear that no two clients are the same; every system she puts in place is developed based on their needs, their long-term goal and of course what would work best for them as an individual.

Ladd charges clients per hour and per project, depending upon the work, and always provides a half hour consultation free before taking on a new client. She also offers a 25 percent discount to active duty military and veterans.

Ladd recently married Stahlman, upon his redeployment with the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade Team this summer. Though Ladd and her husband will be PCSing in the near future, Ladd will keep her business open since she already conducts much of her work via phone calls, emails and web-conferencing. While she is excited to expand her business to another military installation, she will travel back to Washington to work on ongoing projects and to continue growing her client base in the Pacific Northwest, where she was born and raised.

"When I see the weight lifted off their shoulders when the project is done," said Ladd. "That is the best moment of my job."

To find out more about what Roberta Ladd Consulting can do for you, either call (253) 592-8898 or visit www.robertaladdconsulting.com.