Local Business Owner Meets Obama

“I didn’t believe it, seriously” says Sarah Lux.

It all started five years ago, almost to the day. Sarah and then boyfriend (now husband and business partner) Robert Hanson crossed the border into the United States with their Honda Civic filled to the roof with their belongings.

“We knew where we were going, but not where we’d end up. We were headed to Stanford University where Rob was pursuing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering.”  Sarah came across the border as a visitor with plans to just help Rob get settled before she returned to Canada.  Two months later she was offered a job and a work visa and decided to stay and pursue the American Dream!

The next several years were spent working for technology start-ups, planning, writing business plans, pitching investors and fighting with the city of Palo Alto to secure the beautiful old at 819 Ramona St for their fitness studio, .

“It was a lot of work to get the permits for the studio, but we just couldn’t pass up the space.” Uforia is a fitness studio that is: so much fun, you’ll forget its good for you. The company launched in February 2011 during one of the worst economic times since the great depression. Since opening, the studio has won 2 best of Palo Alto awards for fitness classes and new service business, has doubled the number of classes on the schedule and currently employs 20 people.

Monday at 11:55 am Sarah shook President Barak Obama’s hand at a very intimate .

Exactly one week ago Sarah received an odd email from someone at Linkedin asking her to sit on a panel about the economy and small business. All she had to do was fill out a short survey. Done. Then two days later she received the call that changed everything. She had been selected to form a group of eight to participate in the meeting and ask the President a question.

“We rehearsed for hours last night, it was a real bonding experience. About one third of the participants were unemployed, the other third were in manufacturing or physical labor and the other third were small business owners.”

The meeting with the president was amazing, very small and intimate, upbeat and encouraging.  Although Sarah was not able to ask her question about providing health insurance for her small business like hers, she was able to sit front row at the meeting and shake the president’s hand following the meeting.

“It was pretty surreal, he definitely uses moisturizer, his hands were amazingly soft!”

Sarah and Rob are living the American Dream!