June 2005

Featuring Alumni
Laurie Sears

By Celeste Ryan
Special to FYI Online

Laurie Sears in Uruguay

Next time you’re catching a flight on the D concourse at Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport, stop by Destination Relaxation for a little—well, relaxation. The petite shop is a full-service spa, complete with chair and body massages, facials, manicures, spa products, and other offerings. As little as 15 minutes is ample time for a “power relaxation” experience.

This service station is the brainchild of owner Laurie Sears, a graduate of UMUC’s Master of International Management program.

Sears, 38, a self-described “doer and self-starter,” said she got the idea for Destination Relaxation in 1995, soon after graduating, while trying to expand her athletic club massage business.

“I did chair massages at trade shows, small companies, and hotels, but wanted to grow the business and make it more stable,” she explained. “Then I thought, ‘What about a place where people are always waiting?!’” Noticing that such businesses were taking off in West Coast airports, she approached BWI’s management. “I kept bugging them and bugging them and bugging them,” she recalled. “Finally, I got a presentation and they let me do it.”

In 2001, Destination Relaxation opened as a kiosk on Concourse B where the burgeoning Southwest Airlines made for a lucrative business. Two years later, with a total of 30 employees, she expanded, opening the shop on Concourse D. In October 2004, she opened a spa in downtown Annapolis where she lives, and just last month, she snapped up an open spot at Gold’s Gym in the Marley Station Mall in Glen Burnie.

While much of her energy goes into building and maintaining her relaxation business, it’s the destination part of life that keeps Sears moving—literally. Search for this travel buff and you may find her leading a historical tour across England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland. She might be trying to learn a new language on a Mediterranean cruise. Or, as was the case for six weeks this spring, she might be touring Uruguay with other business professionals as part of the Rotary Club’s group exchange program.

Sears admitted that she loves traveling and spends as much time as possible on the go. “I like the old saying, ‘The world is a book; if you only stay in one place, you only read one page.’” The Philadelphia native said that while growing up, she and her family never traveled outside the United States. “I used to have a map on my bedroom wall where I highlighted places I wanted to visit,” she said.

All that changed when at age 19 she won a radio station contest for an eight-day trip to England to meet some of the “monsters of rock,” including Def Leppard and Ozzy Osborne. “It was cool, a big deal,” she said. “After that, I kept going back.”

Not only did she lead tours in Europe, she’s also visited the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, the Caribbean, Cuba, Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada, to name a few.

Sears has found others ways to feed her hunger for travel, too. After moving to Baltimore 20 years ago, she attended Towson State University, but migrated to France where she completed a bachelor’s degree in international studies at the University of Aix-en-Provence. Military duty for the U.S. Navy took her to Saudi Arabia where she was stationed during Operation Desert Storm. After receiving a medical release, the four-time decorated Gulf War veteran enrolled in UMUC’s Master of International Management program.

“I chose UMUC because it was a tremendously flexible program,” she explained. The online courses made staying in school possible because “if I was sick I could get online when I felt better and still complete assignments.”

Though Sears said that she is thankful UMUC’s online classes enabled her to earn a master’s degree, her most memorable experience involved the travel opportunities. The Business Strategies for Europe class spent two weeks in Belgium at the University of Antwerp. “That was my favorite class,” she said. “It was very nice to be able to apply all that we had learned (about law, business, and the European Union) in person.”

Though she didn’t land a job in international management right away, Sears said she believes the program’s broad approach to business, sprinkled with a few human resources courses, has helped with her massage and tour businesses, and will help her with future endeavors. “My real dream is to become an ambassador,” she declared.

Given her educational travel, military service, UMUC degree, and passion for community volunteer work (she’s currently working with the No Child Left Behind program teaching English to Spanish-speaking children), and combined with the fact that she’s considering a run for public office as a Maryland state delegate, she’s well on her way.

But first, another adventure awaits the future ambassador—marriage. On a recent trip to Brazil, her boyfriend proposed. And, as expected, Sears is already planning her next trip—a honeymoon cruise from Chile around the tip of South America.