KAYSVILLE—Most couples say goodbye in the morning and go their separate ways to work, then come together in the evening and share the day’s events. What about couples who work together and see each other 24/7? Is that possible without causing added stress?

 Three couples who work together and have found success (and still like each other) took part in a panel discussion “Love & Entrepreneurship” at the Davis Chamber of Commerce luncheon Aug. 21 at Boondocks. Bryce and Emily Blackburn own Oasis Senior Advisors, David and Sasha Gray both work at Lagoon and Ryan and Maddie Larkin own Larklean.

“Sasha and I have known each other since we were teenagers,” said David Gray. “When I was  15 years old Sasha was a big kid. She was 18. So for 32 years we’ve known each other and we’ve been married for 21.”

Sasha oversees the food division at Lagoon, he said. “I oversee the HR department.”

“What inspired you to go into business together?” said Chamber President/CEO Angie Osguthorpe. “Did you plan it from the start to be business partners or work at the same company or did it happen naturally?”

“So I actually started the company,” said Maddie Larkin. “Then the company he (Ryan) was with was his dad’s company and they moved to Colorado and we just decided to go all in. So it was kind of a forced choice but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“We decided to start using some of the products that we actually sell,” said Ryan. “We were using them around our house and we’d given it out to some of our friends and family. They liked it so much they’re like, ‘you guys ought to try and sell it.’”

Maddie had a bunch of experience with the multi-state dental group as a marketing director, Ryan said. “I was in sales and chemical manufacturing and with our background we figured we could make a go of it together. So we jumped into the deep end with both feet last January and we’ve been going at it as hard as we can.”

“Five and a half years ago I was in my 26th year as a store manager with Walmart,” said Bryce Blackburn. “It had become seven days a week, 26 hours a day, morning, noon and night and I had this great idea that I was just going to walk away from that career.”

Bryce said the day that he did he turned on the news and Gov. Herbert said they were closing schools for something called COVID. “That’s where our journey started. I was jobless, Emily was a stay-at-home mother/wife. We never saw each other because of my career and the plan was for me to work and her to continue raising our younger two children still at home.”

That process led him to look into several different companies. “The third company that we were introduced to was Oasis Senior Advisors,” said Bryce. “It was kind of like an aha moment. We’re like this is really what we’re meant to do. We love educating. We love serving and let’s do this together. So I made her join me and the rest is history.”

“Our plan wasn’t to stay at Lagoon and work there forever,” said Sasha Gray. “When we got married, David was in school. He graduated in health administration and he was looking into that kind of job and then this HR thing came up. We had a baby and we were just like, you know, 24/7 both of us there all the time was really hard.”

Sasha said they knew one of them was going to have to leave because they couldn't both be there and not be with their child. “So HR just happened to open up at the right time and he moved over (from foods) and had a more steady 40 hour a week job. His job was more steady, he could go home at night whereas I worked like 60 to 70 hours a week in the summer. So that worked out for us.”

“We work 24/7 and we are usually within 10 feet of each other,” said Ryan. “All that 24/7 and when we’re fighting for the same company, everything’s an open book because we’re both fighting the same fight from the same direction, side by side all the way every day.”