Deanna Nuñez co-owned and helped to operate two local businesses last year when she decided she needed to do something fun, something dear to her heart.
So she started a third business.
"If it's a passion that drives you, then it's easy," Nuñez said at her latest business, Spike and Chester's Scrub Tub, a self-service dog wash at 3773 W. Ina Road. "When we're here, it doesn't feel like work."
Nuñez is not through yet: Her next project, she says, is opening a new location for Spike and Chester's.
Customers pay (rates begin at $14) to use the store's tubs to bathe and groom their dogs. The store's employees clean up the mess. Nuñez co-owns the store with her husband, Gabby Nuñez, who is a Tucson Fire Department firefighter and paramedic.
Deanna Nuñez's businesses have started with an idea at home, then have taken root and grown into something larger.
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Nuñez was born in Tucson and attended college here, receiving dual degrees in business administration and management from the University of Phoenix.
Native Tele-Data was a family-run business incorporated out of a Tucson home in 1996. It installed telecommunications cables, then grew to plan, design and install voice and data networks and their equipment.
The company now has 26 employees, said Marilyn Jo Steeber, president and CEO of Native Tele-Data. Steeber also is Nuñez's mother, although at work, the rule is "we are not related," Steeber said.
In addition to the telecom and dog-washing businesses, Nuñez is a co-owner of B.O.S.S. Complete Enterprises LLC, a family-owned property-holding firm.
A decade in business taught Nuñez to be independent, methodical and consistent in her decision-making, Steeber said.
"She does her own individual research; she gets the facts before forming an opinion and taking action," Steeber said. "She does not shoot from the hip. She is very clear about what her parameters are, about herself, her ethics and what she expects."
Nuñez served as chief financial officer for Native Tele-Data. As the company matured, she said, she could afford to be less involved in its day-to-day operations. Now she works three days a week at Native Tele-Data and two or three at the dog wash, which has become an outgrowth of her love of dogs.
About the same time that Native Tele-Data began, Nuñez started helping to rescue dogs that were scheduled to be euthanized at local animal shelters.
Nuñez has since served as a "foster" owner for more than 600 dogs that have gone on to permanent homes.
Taking care of foster dogs, along with the Nuñezes' four permanent dogs, can make grooming time a chore.
"We'd put them on the dining room table with a sheet over it and clip hair," she said. The mess and backaches sent the Nuñezes searching for a better way.
Nuñez found an abundance of products designed for self-service dog washes, and an idea was born. The Nuñezes saw a way to help other pet lovers in their community, and Deanna started work on a business plan.
So far, the business has met expectations: 1,800 baths in the first seven months of operation.
Kahau Kai first visited Spike and Chester's to try to recruit them as a new customer for the Edward Jones financial-services firm, where he works.
"It turned out I learned more from them than they learned from me," Kai said.
Kai and his dogs ended up becoming customers of Spike and Chester's. Kai said that during his visits, he has picked up tips on dog health, behavior and obedience training.
Nuñez said Spike and Chester's is a "labor of love." She isn't always scheduled to be at the store on Saturdays, but she finds herself going anyway.
"I can't help but come in," she said.
Name: Deanna Nuñez
Age: 39
Jobs: Principal, Native Tele-Data Solutions Inc.; co-owner, Spike and Chester's Scrub Tub; co-owner, B.O.S.S. Complete Enterprises LLC