By the time Erica Henson discovered R. Riveter, she had already spent seven months looking for work. She submitted more than 70 applications, and landed just three interviews.
On paper, she seemed like someone employers would want. She was a registered nurse. She had experience as a corrections nurse. She was eager to work. But there were two realities she couldn't change:
She wasn't bilingual in a region where English often wasn't the primary language spoken.
And she was a military spouse.
Whether employers said it out loud or not, she couldn't help wondering if they assumed she wouldn't be around for long.
"I don't think people understand how difficult it can be," Erica said. "It's not as simple as people think."
Today, Erica has been part of the R. Riveter community for more than seven years, creating the liners that become part of handbags carried by women across the country. It's work she does from her home in San Diego, around the life she and her husband (a Navy service member in the expeditionary community) have built together.
Their story began long before military life.
The two were high school sweethearts who watched the events of September 11 unfold together. Like so many young Americans, that day changed the direction of their lives. It inspired Erica's husband to join the Navy, beginning a career that first took the couple to Norfolk, Virginia before eventually bringing them to Southern California, where they've remained since 2009.
Erica originally planned a career in nursing. After the couple welcomed their daughter, she made the same calculation many parents know all too well: by the time childcare was paid, there would be little left of her paycheck.
She stepped away from work. When she was ready to return, finding another job proved far more difficult than she expected.
Then one day, a friend called.
"You need to watch Shark Tank," she said.
The episode featured R. Riveter.
Erica entered one of the company's contests, submitted an application, and waited.
Nothing happened.
Then, nearly two years later, the call from RRiveter finally came.
"They reached back out," she recalled. "I've been with them ever since."
What appealed to her wasn't simply the opportunity to work from home. "It was the mission," she said. "They understood what it was like to be in my shoes."
Today, Erica spends about twenty hours each week sewing the liners that go inside R. Riveter handbags, including the popular Dot collection. The materials arrive already cut and organized—fabric, zippers, thread, story tags—and she transforms them into one piece of a finished product that will eventually make its way to a customer somewhere in the country.
Every now and then, she gets to see one “in the wild,” a term Riveters use for seeing their work being carried by a woman she doesn’t know.
The first time happened at her gym. Another time, she spotted an R. Riveter backpack at SeaWorld.
"I get so excited," she laughed. She admits she's tempted to peek at the Riveter number stitched inside each bag to see if it might be one of hers. (She never does.)
For Erica, the greatest impact of the work isn't just seeing a finished product. It's what the work has made possible for her family. Her daughter is deeply involved with Young Actors' Theatre in San Diego where she's currently part of a full Broadway production of Frozen. Erica volunteers as a costumer, helping bring productions to life behind the scenes.
The income she earns through R. Riveter helps pay for voice lessons, dance lessons, and the countless trips to rehearsals that every theater family knows so well.
Perhaps even more valuable is something money can't buy.
Time.
"The flexibility," she said, "has been everything."
That's a word that comes up often when talking with military spouses. Flexibility isn't about working less. It's about finally having work that understands military life instead of working against it. Every R. Riveter bag tells a story.
Sometimes that story begins with leather and thread.
Sometimes it begins with seventy job applications, seven months of waiting, and one company that looked beyond a résumé and saw the person behind it.