After moving their own families from Europe to Cleveland, Irma Lagrand and Sybille Schomerus started Compass Cleveland Relocation to guide other innocents abroad. Watch video
CLEVELAND, Ohio--Olga Huerta drove her 8-year-old daughter to school on her first day of third grade, then went home and paced the apartment.
The family had just moved to the Shaker Heights School District from Barcelona, Spain. The children spoke very little English. Their parents had very little advice. Mom had given Joana a note that read in English, "Can I go to the bathroom?"
When she picked up her daughter after school, Olga Huerta took a breath and asked, "How was it?"
"Oh, fine," Joana replied.
Mom started crying. "And I never cry."
Moving the family to a new city in a new country can be a rewarding adventure, certainly. But it's also a stressful, often bewildering experience, Olga Huerta can attest.
Fortunately for she and her husband, Dr. Ricard Corcelles, not every first encounter involved drama. They had a pair of savvy advisors lighting a path. The couple hired Compass Cleveland Relocation, something of a concierge service for international families moving to Northeast Ohio. It's a service suddenly in demand as Cleveland expands into the global economy and as area companies and universities bring in talent from abroad.
"There's so much you don't know," explained Olga Huerta, whose husband, a surgeon, came to conduct research at the Cleveland Clinic. "You don't know where the stores are. Where do you find a pediatrician? Drive-thru? Why would I do that?"
Alone on a new continent, there's no one to ask. Unless you connect with Irma Lagrand and Sybille Schomerus. Chances are, they speak the language.
Lagrand came to Northeast Ohio two years ago from Holland, via China, with her three children. They were following her husband, Johannes von Lintig, an international marketing expert for Avery Dennison newly assigned to the Cleveland office.
Schomerus arrived from Germany a few years before with two children and her husband, John Boogaard, who accepted a post teaching pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University.
The two women met at a social gathering and conversation quickly turned to The Move.
"People think moving to America is going to be easy. But it's not," said Lagrand, who had resettled her family in China for a five-year stay. She expected a cultural chasm in Asia. But in Cleveland?
The challenges loomed both mundane and unimaginable. To transfer their worldly possessions, the family packed a shipping crate, which arrived five months after they did. In that crate were the vaccination records of the children.
Mom learned their importance when the twins, 13, came home from middle school the first day and said they were not allowed back without those forms.
Schomerus arrived two months after her husband began work and went about setting up a home for the children, then 4 and 7. She needed utilities, Internet and cell phones. A lawyer by trade, she felt comfortable enough with her English to make phone calls. But she was not prepared for American customer service.
"Try talking to a machine in an accent," she said. "They don't understand. I was in tears sometimes."
Across the months, through luck and pluck, the immigrant mothers opened bank accounts, secured driver licenses, learned how to buy a car without a credit history, arranged play dates and successfully rendezvoused with the cable guy.
"It's gets easy once you know how to do it," Lagrand said.
Schomerus had been meeting with an international women's group in the Heights and knew there were other innocents abroad. Both women found themselves guiding newly arrived families. More than once, Lagrand's husband told her she should make it a business and she finally agreed.
They incorporated in February 2013 and went online that May with Compass Cleveland, offering their insight into the move of a lifetime. They target international families arriving with little help from an employer or a relocation service, families much like theirs.
Soft landing, good beginning
Flexible fees, from $800 to about $2,000, buy relocation packages that start with basic home and school searches and can include an education plan for the children, who are usually the priority.
Community tours typically include a visit to city hall and the board of education, but also Heinen's and Target. Lagrand and Schomerus encourage new arrivals to connect with their cultural community for guidance that translates.
"Because it's so totally different here," Lagrand said.
Much of their business comes from referrals from schools, employers and international-savvy communities.
"Part of the value of Irma and Sybille is, first of all, they've done it," said Julie Voyzey, who works for Shaker Heights as a relocation specialist. "They've lived in Europe and Asia. They speak a lot of languages."
She sends clients their way and she says she's not the only one.
"I think they're onto something," Voyzey said. "There's more and more of this global marketplace and people are moving across the world."
Compass clients tend to hail from the professional classes in Europe, South America and the Middle East. Lagrand and Schomerus work with the whole family but, because most families are relocating for dad's job, they often spend most of their time with the trailing spouse. She's the one dealing with everyday life, likely with limited English, while her husband is at work.
The aim is a smooth landing, which the partners say is critical to a good beginning.
"The first impression is so important," Lagrand said. "It shapes your whole experience. It's so great to be abroad. But let it be a happy experience, too."
On a recent afternoon, Lagrand and Schomerus met Olga Huerta at Shaker Heights City Hall for the second time. The three women fell together like old friends. They chatted as they strolled the grounds flashing European fashion, silk scarves and suede boots on a cool spring morning.
They had found the Huerta Corcelles family an apartment with high ceilings and hardwood floors near Shaker Square in Cleveland. Olga Huerta liked that her husband could catch the bus to work and that she and the kids could walk to the grocery store and the movies, "just like in Barcelona."
Like her guides, she was skeptical about moving to Cleveland. A Google search pulled up Ariel Castro's house of horrors and other heinous crimes. Friends asked if she knew what she was moving into.
Lagrand and Schomerus met her soon after she arrived and showed her a bright downtown, beautiful parks, a great lake and world-class museums.
Not all of the surprises were rude. Olga Huerta said she and her husband were delighted to find interesting restaurants, low taxes (relative to Europe), culturally aware schools and a vibrant international community.
At English classes in Shaker Heights, she met immigrants from Bangladesh, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Italy and Belgium.
"We're all moms so we talk and talk," she said. "I think Cleveland needs to market itself more. You don't know until you get here--it's a wonderful city."
Robert L. Smith covers economic development for The Plain Dealer. Reach him at 216-999-4024 or rsmith@plaind.com.