“If I can wax poetic about cheese for a second …”
After you study civil engineering in college, and pursue a career in construction in Dallas and commercial real estate in New York, it should come as no surprise to find yourself … running a cheese-tasting business on Martha’s Vineyard. Oh, and also being a partner in a coffee shop specializing in Lebanese food.
Morgen Schroeder didn’t set out to have a second act. She was deep into her first act, having graduated from University of Cincinnati with a degree in civil and environmental engineering, member of Sigma Phi Women’s Honorary society, president of Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering society, having completed an international co-op program in German language immersion and interned with the European Union on the energy balance of the urban water cycle, then going to work in Texas for construction giant Turner on a 500,000-square-foot office/retail project, moving to Ernst & Young’s Construction and Real Estate Advisory Services, then to shared office space pioneer WeWork, and then … the pandemic hit.
Morgen and her fiance, Alex Ficarelli-Danberg, were both in New York (they met playing street hockey), she as a project executive at WeWork, he in grad school at NYU:. “Suddenly, everybody found themselves working from home. Corporate real estate felt like a very weird industry to be in at that time.” The couple had planned to get married on Martha’s Vineyard in September 2020, where Alex’s mom had grown up, and where the family had a lifelong connection. (In fact, his grandfather, Victor Danberg, was the first night watchman of Edgartown.) So Morgen and Alex, like many others, escaped the big city, “thinking that we would just hang out on the Island until things died down, get married …” and then return to Manhattan.
Like many others, their plans didn’t turn out as planned. They did get married, though in a smaller celebration, but the pandemic didn’t leave, nor did they leave the Island.
Their short respite on the Vineyard turned into a life change: “We wound up seeing all the opportunity there is on Martha’s Vineyard.” Alex, who had worked in nonprofits, bio research, accounting for a pediatric dentistry practice, and HR and operations for a Lebanese food and beverage company, and then gone back to school in organizational development (optimizing the resources of a company, including personnel, to achieve goals), was not yet tied to a job in his new career. So off they went to the Vineyard.
“When we first arrived on the Island, Alex connected with the Chappaquiddick Wood Co. as a woodworker.” Morgen did odd jobs, and on a day off, visited Grey Barn Farm for a cheese tour and tasting. You might say cheese changed her life (as it evidently did for Grey Barn founders Molly and Eric Glasgow, who went from the corporate world to dairy farming).
“I hearken back to this magical experience at the farm. I was eating this amazing cheese, looking out and seeing the pasture, the cows, the milking parlor, the cheesemaking facility, all happening right there,” Morgen says in a kind of reverie. “If I can wax poetic about cheese for a second, cheese is like the distillation of the land, the dairy animals, as they graze the grass; you really get that taste of place, that terroir that you hear about with wine. That same thing exists with cheese.”
She knew, right then, this was the change she needed: “After living off in Zoom-land, I needed to feel connected to the place I was in.” The pandemic made Morgen (and many others) take stock of her path and priorities. “My day-to-day life right now was in corporate real estate, talking about return-to-office strategy, social distancing, the future of work, and all these buzzwords.” She asked herself, “Do I see myself having a career in corporate real estate for the next 30 years, when I’m 60 years old? I don’t think so.” She compared that path with the uncharted one of sensory experiences, tastes, and smells, and connection to the earth and animals. “In 30 years, when I’m 60, do I think I’m still going to be this excited and this curious and this inspired by cheese? Hell, yes.”
With no professional background in food and beverages or hospitality, Morgen set out to create, as she puts it, “a cheese-centric community,” with Cheese 101 classes, cheeseboard workshops, tastings, raclette parties, and takeaway trays. Almost immediately, Alex joined her.
“Here I was pursuing this career as a cheesemonger, and there he was pursuing this career as a woodworker, and it was like — I’ve got the cheese; you’ve the cutting boards, let’s make it happen.” The Martha’s Vineyard Cheesery was born in 2020, and has been bringing American cheeses from small producers to as many mouths as possible for almost four years.
A couple of years later, similarly inspired by the changes wrought by COVID, she and Alex joined his siblings (Andrew and Meredith), and Meredith’s husband Naji (the Lebanese foodie), in opening Catboat Coffee Co., a year-round coffee and Middle Eastern food enclave in Vineyard Haven.
But that’s another story of another set of second acts. What it shares with this story is its why.
Why did Morgen Schroeder think she could just take the leap from civil engineering to cheese? Was it in her blood, as the child of two entrepreneurs? Was it the times, spurred by the pandemic? Or was it something intangible on the Island, something about Martha’s Vineyard?
“It just felt like everywhere I looked on the Island, people were doing their own thing and were less caught up in climbing the corporate ladder. I think that inspired me to take this chance as well.” People like Heidi Feldman who, after a long career in software, was inspired to start Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt. And Althea Freeman Miller, an artist, who has set out to nurture other artists, and has now taken her talents to town planning in Vineyard Haven. Morgen says, “There is this hard-to-describe energy on the Island that people have multifaceted professional experiences.” She not only started her business, she wears other hats as well, pursuing ways to get involved in the community: “I volunteer with the First Friday celebrations in Vineyard Haven, coordinating food vendors, and I help do digital marketing and social media for the M.V. Commission’s ‘Climate Action Plan.’” And since Morgen and Alex have one more new venture, a 6-month-old daughter, Aurora, they’re meeting more people who tell similar “I was doing this, and then I came to the Island, and now I’m doing this” stories.
Four years ago, Morgen was knee-deep, or perhaps Zoom-deep, in real estate, construction, and civil engineering. Today her work is much more civil — enticing people to experience the magic of cheese … and perhaps Lebanese delicacies with their coffee. Could this second act have happened on any Island? Say the island of Manhattan? Or was there something special, magical, on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard?
