Tara Campbell Lussier

Tara Campbell Lussier is the Founder and Realtor at Pearson Smith Realty, a full-service residential real estate brokerage firm. As a serial entrepreneur, she is the former Founder and CEO of Arrow, an employer-sponsored family benefits platform she built from ideation through scaling. Tara has been named both a Loudoun 40 Under 40 honoree and a DC Power Woman of Tech by DCA. Her accomplishments have been featured in several local publications, including the Washington Business Journal, Northern Virginia Magazine, and Loudoun Now.

 
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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • Tara Campbell Lussier shares how she founded and scaled Arrow
  • What is FamTech?
  • The impact of family benefits in a developing workplace culture
  • How remote work benefits women seeking fertility treatments
  • Raising awareness about FamTech and the care economy
  • Tara addresses the need for paid family leave
  • Technology’s role in the FamTech industry

In this episode…

The pandemic has created a greater demand for family benefits in the workplace. Employers must accommodate the need for child and family care to maximize team productivity and retain talent. So, what services can you provide to increase your ROI on top talent?

Former doula and family leave advocate Tara Campbell Lussier observes that caregivers experience burnout from working long hours and caring for their families. To mitigate this burnout, she advises employers to add or expand care benefits to include cash subsidies, remote work, and mental health and family leave. By fostering a family-friendly culture that focuses on the integration of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), you can increase employee productivity and attract and retain talent.

In this episode of What The Teck?, Rolando Rosas and Dave Kelly welcome Tara Campbell Lussier, former Founder and CEO of Arrow and the Founder and Realtor of Pearson Smith Realty, to discuss the importance of family care and benefits in the workplace. Tara explains FamTech, how remote work benefits women seeking fertility treatments, and the need for paid family leave.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the What The Teck? podcast where we talk about business and Office Technology and put our 20 years of expertise to discussing trends and issues impacting the workplace.

Rolando Rosas 0:16

And welcome to What The Teck? I’m your host, Rolando Rosas welcome today to a special episode of what the Tech where we’re talking about the care economy, and with changing priorities over the last 18 months, and since the pandemic has started, employee benefits have been at the forefront. And we invite we invite you to join stick around chat with us see if you have any questions for our special guests, Tara Campbell, Lussier, of Arrow who will break this down for us and tell us what we need to know. And what’s so important about the care economy. That is so hot right now. Now, let me first before we jump into all the shenanigans, bring in my special co-host as well. All the way live from New Hampshire is Dave Kelly. 

Dave Kelly 1:09

you know, you say you said before all the shenanigans but I have a feeling that I’m certainly part of the shenanigans. Listen, great to be here, have Rolando hope everything’s going well, for you really, really excited about today’s episodes and looking to learn more about this topic in the whole care economy. With some of the research that we did this week, it certainly has opened my eyes to some some new things, and certainly where technology is probably going to play a pretty important part. But before we get into all that, listen, it’s Trivia Time.

Rolando Rosas 1:41

Give it to me, go ahead.

Dave Kelly 1:42

Alright, let’s do it. Let’s see what we have here. Interesting, something new and current. It’s about time. Can’t go back too far. So according to 2019 data from salary.com. If you’re a stay at home parent, and you paid for your services, you’d be looking at a median annual salary of what? Wow. 60, grand 90 120 or $180,000? We will find out later. I know what I know what I would pay myself and that would be more than 180,000. Of course, why not save just one of those? Just curious how much? Who would

Rolando Rosas 2:26

be paying that pay yourself as much as you can? Right?

Dave Kelly 2:28

Pay yourself as much as you can? Absolutely.

Rolando Rosas 2:31

Why not? Why not? Well, thanks for that. I can’t wait to find out what the results of that is. So let’s introduce our special guests for today. Let me tell you about Tara Campbell Lussier. She is first of all, she’s just a wonderful person. I love her. She’s a great person just to know, but let me tell you who she is and what she does. She is the CEO and founder of Arrow, which is a fam tech company, we’re going to find out what that means because that’s a term I was not familiar with, until we started talking about it recently. Okay, so Tara is a forward thinking leader and learner and thrives on wearing 40 hats. As an entrepreneur, I can relate and I want to ask her what those 40 Hats are and where she keeps them. She is passionate about building and partnering with social causes that focus on inclusivity for women, families, as well as black, indigenous and people of color. And you know what, she’s a darn good jogger, because I had a conversation with her last week while she was jogging. So let’s introduce out of the green room, Tara Campbell Lussier.

Tara Campbell Lussier 3:40

Hello, everyone. How are you even know what to say after that introduction? That was just amazing. I feel so welcome. So thank you. Thank you.

Rolando Rosas 3:50

I want to know where you keep your 40 hats.

Tara Campbell Lussier 3:52

I know, I heard you say that. And I was trying to think so I actually have them on hooks on the walls, and then also somewhere in the cobwebs of my brain.

Rolando Rosas 4:02

I can totally relate. It’s about that many and the hats are all spread through the house.

Tara Campbell Lussier 4:07

They really are. Yeah, there’s so many. Yeah, it’s lots and lots of hats as a working parent as a CEO and an entrepreneur, you guys get it. So this is awesome though. I love this podcast. What an introduction. What do you got? I love the trivia and I want to know if I’m supposed to answer the trivia while we’re while answering it. Okay, we’ll get there. We’ll get there. Right.

Rolando Rosas 4:30

Yeah, we want to tell we want to let you answer that when we get there. So if you’re watching this live, stick around to the end. Feel free to throw in your questions if you haven’t for Chehra for Tara on the chat. I combined Chera and Tara in caldera that was a good word. Sometimes that happens he gets started to get a little tongue twisted. But so thank you Tara where it tell folks where are you joining us from today?

Tara Campbell Lussier 4:56

I am joining from near Washington DC I live in beautiful Seville, Virginia, which is in western Loudoun County. And yeah, that’s where I am born. And you see girl, go Loudoun. And that’s where we are. I made a joke. Before we got on the show. I grew up in Herndon, Reston and then my husband and I kept moving further west out towards Percival, the more kids we have, because we have four kids now. So we needed more space kept moving further west. That’s pretty happy. Yes, there’s some a little acreage here now, so they can give us a little space. Well, you know,

Rolando Rosas 5:29

you’re on the western side of Loudoun over there where you get a little bit I’m on the east, we’re, we’re a little bit more crowded and packed in here, where, you know, acreage is a big premium. So maybe we’ll come out to the west side, where you’re

Tara Campbell Lussier 5:42

looking at the mountains right now out of my office. My gosh, how did I get here?

Rolando Rosas 5:47

I know, it’s so nice out there. So nice. I like personal, actually, except some friends out there. So you know, next time next time, we’re back in that area. We’ll go to monks. Oh, there you go.

Tara Campbell Lussier 5:59

Best barbecue around. There you go. Well, really, thank you guys for having me on the show. This is so exciting. I love talking about all of these topics about the care economy about fantech. About what we’re doing in Arrow, I want to hear you know, any questions you guys have, I want to learn a little bit more about what you guys are doing too. So just thanks for being super fun.

Rolando Rosas 6:19

Well, I think what we want to do is let our folks know who you are, what you’re doing with Arrow I know I know what a little bit what you’re doing there. But just tell us your story. And just so the people can get to know you a little bit better, and how you’ve taken your company from where it was pre pandemic to where it’s going to

Tara Campbell Lussier 6:42

oh my gosh, okay, where do I begin? I think we should start with our story. Rolando, how we met each other because that’s part of my story in general and how I got into Arrow in the fam tech space. So I’m Tara, I’m a mother of four. I have twins. I was one of those women that had four kids in five years. And it was very, very crazy. And I was also I also have a pandemic puppy that we’re going to host that is a cooperating life. This is the real working parents. Totally. For us, she wants

Rolando Rosas 7:13

to she wants to be on camera, too.

Tara Campbell Lussier 7:15

She’s like, the cameras and I’m sorry about that. But hey. So yeah, so I’m a parent. First and foremost, I’m a mother first and foremost. And I was a doula for a very long time and the Washington DC area.