Alumni in Action | From Wall Street to Wellness

By Anne McGowan Development Communications Coordinator

Susan Chen believes there is one thing in life that’s certain: change.

“The question is this,” she said: “Do we just allow change to happen to us, or do we elegantly coexist with it?”

The career trajectory of this four-time NOLS alumna suggests Susan does far more than coexist elegantly with change: she expects it.

Graduating from Harvard with a degree in finance—the best path to a career as an entrepreneur, she decided—Susan landed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. There she honed her relationship with change (thanks to daily and sometimes dramatic fluctuations in the market) and resilience.

Both, though, were attributes she had already become familiar with on her NOLS Wind River Wilderness course: Determined to rejoin her coursemates after a turned ankle required she leave the mountains, Susan focused on recovery. After five days of doctor visits, an air cast, a large helping of resolve, and a lot of Aleve, she returned to the wilderness and completed her course. Her acceptance of change and her determination influenced choices in her professional life too. After 14 years on Wall Street as a research analyst, Susan left it behind to pursue dual interests.

First, she cofounded Soozy’s Grain Free, a baked goods company, in her New York City apartment. Creating bakery products that are soy, dairy, gluten, and grain-free (along with a half-dozen other specialty products), Soozy’s Grain Free “has the cleanest label in the supermarket!” according to its website.

The site recounts the brand’s story, describing how she and her partner “set out to bake the healthiest and tastiest grain-free baked goods imaginable. Batch after batch, we never settled for anything but the best ingredients and flavors.”

Lovers of baked goods can order items delivered to their homes from the website, but Soozy’s cookies, muffins, bagels, donuts, and other products can now also be found at select Whole Foods, Smiths, and Safeway grocery stores.

As if starting a company in an apartment wasn’t enough, Susie also pursued her interest in Vedic meditation. In a reaction to feeling “over worked, over traveled, and over stimulated” from life and work in Manhattan, Susan’s meditation studies started in earnest. The practice, sometimes known as Transcendental Meditation, has been practiced for more than 5,000 years and has its origins in ancient India.

She recalled that years of accumulated stress began to overshadow feelings of innate bliss and inter-contentedness. But within a short time of learning the Vedic technique, Susan began to feel relaxed and happy in her everyday life again. So, she shares her passion and teaches others in her new home state of California.

“I teach Vedic Meditation to show others how to live more blissfully,” Susan said. Susan believes accepting change has led her to a belief in life’s “blissful journey” rather than a specific destination. From her 17-year-old challenges in Wyoming’s mountains with NOLS, to high pressure academia and Wall Street, to building a healthy foods business, to sharing Vedic insights, Susan has embraced her eclectic journey in ways that may inspire us all.

Anne McGowan grew up camping and hiking with her family in Pennsylvania. She followed her love of words and books to a career in writing.