BY THE NUMBERS

LYONS BROOK - Edna Tobey never expected she would one day become her own boss.
But in October 2004, she began Lighthouse Bookkeeping Services out of her home in Lyons Brook and has never looked back. Business has been good, she admits.
"I have a core of main clients that keep me more than busy," Tobey said Tuesday, speaking to The News on the same day Statistics Canada released their 2006 census data on the Pictou County workforce.
Before she became self-employed, Tobey was working at a firm as a bookkeeper before she left over disagreements "with how it was being run."
"When I left there, I thought that was it," she says.
But after taking the Self Employment Benefits program through NOBL (Northern Opportunities for Business Limited), Tobey said she realized starting her own business wouldn't be as difficult as she initially thought.
"I've never had so much fun working," she says of the benefits to being her own boss. "You meet so many different people; every day it's something new."
So, what advice would she give to those who are considering starting their own businesses? "Research," she says simply, "and make connections."
Gordie Marr of White Hill, meanwhile, began his own business seven years ago. Anyone seeking a photographer can give Marr a call at On-Site Images, a business he also runs from home.
"Being a small business, you have to watch every penny," he says.
But he said one can be successful by being self-employed in Pictou County. "It all depends on who you know and how you treat people," he says. "You have to remember to treat everyone like he or she is your only client."
In the meantime, according to statistics from Statistics Canada, more than 13 per cent of people in Nova Scotia, those between the ages of 55 and 64, may be preparing to leave the workforce. Edna Tobey's husband, Allen Tobey, retired from his job as an academic chair for NSCC, overseeing the Nova Scotia School of Fisheries, in October 2006 at age 51. "I never thought (about early retirement)," he says. "But about a year before retiring, I realized the time had come. It was time for something different."
But he's still keeping busy, and is considering becoming a fisheries training consultant.