NATICK -- One day last winter, after having worked as a carpenter for 22 years, Jonathan Spillane came home and said to his wife, "I quit." He had had enough of climbing ladders and working on rooftops in the freezing cold. He wanted to find another way to express himself creatively. And he thought he might do it through chocolate instead of wood.

Today the former carpenter is a chocolatier and the guiding force behind Cocoapelli Chocolates, the Natick-based company he founded in September. His wife, Cinda Corwin, handles the company's accounting, and their 12-year-old daughter, Hayley, does all the packaging.

Cocoapelli chocolates -- the name comes from the fertility god Kokopelli -- is operating out of Spillane's garage, which is no longer filled with ladders and table saws. And production is limited. He makes about 100 eight-ounce boxes of chocolates every other week.

But he's given up the carpentry business entirely.

Spillane, 43, had never tried chocolate making. "I have always loved food," says the entrepreneur. "Wherever I travel, I buy whatever chocolate I find." He began his exploration, which led him to an online course offered by Ecole Chocolat in Vancouver, British Columbia. The course includes the basics of chocolate making and techniques, attributes of different chocolates, and equipment and supplies. It also provides resources, such as names of the school's successful graduates and a list of all the chocolates sold throughout the world.

"We had assignments like, 'Go buy as many different chocolates as you can find, taste them, and see if you can see a difference,' " Spillane recalls.

Another ongoing assignment was to make chocolates. Spillane started experimenting, and gave his sweet efforts to friends and family. "People loved it. They kept saying, 'You should sell these,' " he says.

Last spring, Spillane applied to the city of Natick for a business license and began to build a 350-square-foot kitchen in the garage (this involved his carpentry skills). Today he turns out a selection of handmade chocolates. His ganache fillings range in flavors from raspberry and kona coffee to hazelnut and key lime.

The bon bons are covered in dark, milk, and white chocolate. Spillane uses high quality chocolate made from Madagascar cocoa beans, which he selected after experimenting with "300 pieces of chocolate," he says. He also makes milk- and dark-chocolate-covered caramels; milk- and dark-chocolate turtles with cashews; dark chocolate-covered almonds and hazelnuts; and a dark chocolate candy bar with cocoa nibs. And he's thinking of new ideas. "Whenever I eat something, my brain goes first to how do I make this taste good with chocolate?" he says.

Spillane starts work at around 8 every morning. Each day is devoted to a different kind of chocolate. He hand-cuts and hand-dips every caramel, ladles chocolates into their molds, and fills each one using a pastry bag. He decorates every piece of chocolate, spraying white chocolate hearts with colored cocoa butter or applying colored cocoa butter designs from acetate transfer sheets onto individual pieces.

The chocolate-maker is determined to remain a one-person operation, because, he says, "the quality goes down when other people get involved." He is hoping, though, that his daughter "kicks it up and helps" with more than filling boxes.

Spillane does catered events, where he serves chocolates on silver trays, and near the end of the farmers' market season, he began selling his confections there. "It's really fun to be in front of people and talk about my chocolates," he says. "I like being 'the chocolatier.' "

And the new job doesn't involve ladders or roofs.

Cocoapelli Chocolates are available at Tilly & Salvy's Bacon Street Farm, 100 Bacon St., Natick, 508-653-4851; Five Crows, 8 Court St., Natick, 508-653-2526; Fifth Ave Liquors, 235 Old Connecticut Path, Framingham, 508-872-7777; cocoapellichocolates.com.

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It was during a rainy winter afternoon last year that Jonathan Spillane decided he would no longer be a carpenter.

"I came home and told my wife, ’That’s it, I quit,’" he said.

After more than 22 years of hammering nails and sawing wood, working outside in bad weather and starting to have back pain, the Natick resident put an end to Spillane Construction.

Nine months and $30,000 later, his garage is a kitchen with a constant chocolate aroma. Spillane, who is 43, opened Cocoapelli Chocolates three weeks ago and spends most of his time making the milk, white, dark or caramel chocolates he will later sell at markets, bakeries and special functions.

"Sure it is challenging. But I think that years from now, you don’t want to look back in time and see you did not do it," said his wife, Cinda Corwin, who manages the accounting part of the business.

Mid-life drastic career changes like Spillane’s may not be the norm, but statistics seem to indicate there are more cases like his in the area now than before.

The number of people between 40 and 50 years old seeking help in finding a new job at the state’s One-Stop Career Centers in MetroWest has sharply increased. While 1,067 people sought that help in the Marlborough, Newton and Norwood centers from September 2000 to September 2001, the number went up to 4,343 from September 2005 to today.

"I think there is a pattern in which we see more and more people wanting or needing more flexibility," said Pat Bruno, program coordinator of the centers’ New Perspectives program, which offers a workshop on how to handle job transitions.

The economy is also relatively healthy now, favoring a change in careers.

But for Spillane, that was not a key factor.

"I always loved chocolate and cooking. I thought this was a good time for me to start this business," he said.
The state of the economy wasn’t a factor either for Mark Nelson, who quit his 20-year job as a programmer analyst this February to become a baker.

After working for big corporations and constantly traveling to Europe, Japan and Indonesia, Nelson has started baking cookies, muffins, pies and all kinds of bread in Ashland.

"This was not an economic decision. I had a pretty good income working with computers. This was a quality of life decision," he said, adding he has always been interested in baking.

Nelson, who is 46, said he has spent $75,000 on the construction of his new Ashland bakery, which he will call "Rise." He spent another $25,000 in bakery equipment.

Until he opens the new business in three weeks, he is learning to be a baker in the kitchen of the Sunnyside Cafe, also in Ashland. Nelson took baking classes at the Connecticut Culinary Institute and at the Culinary Institute of America, in California.

Spillane also had to get ready. He took an online course with Ecole Chocolates and did an internship in the kitchen of a Connecticut chocolatier.

The new workload is already big for both entrepreneurs.

"Now, I am making 50 to 70 pounds of dough each week, 30 to 40 pies a week and 10 to 20 dozens of cookies that I sell in markets," said Nelson. "When I open the bakery, this production may be daily."

Employee tenure numbers show that more people in the United States between the ages of 45 and 54 stay for shorter periods of time in their jobs than they did a decade ago.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median years for a person within that age range staying in a job were 8.3 in January 1996. By last January, that number had dropped to 7.3 years.

But why would someone specialized in one career suddenly change to another?

Some want to be their own boss, or they might work in a fading industry, said Wendy Babson, manager of the One-Stop Career Center in Marlborough.

"It’s not so much that they want a career change but those positions they used to have no longer exist," said Babson.

The challenges many 40- and 50-year-old job seekers face is the perception that there is an age bias out there as well as the fear -- and maybe the fact -- that they have to cope with a job loss, she said.

The centers -- managed by the state’s Division of Career Services -- offer counseling, workshops and training programs to help job seekers.

Marlborough resident Rick Lombardi did not need the help of a center, but that did not mean opening his new business was not nervewracking. Lombardi opened a wine and cheese store in 2004 after working as an editor and reporter for 20 years.

"I always enjoyed the taste of wines. I always had the idea of getting into that business in my mind," he said.
Now Lombardi owns The Vin Bin in Marlborough, and he and his wife have ideas for expanding. The former editor of The Marlborough Enterprise and the Hudson Daily Sun spent two years doing research, creating a business plan and taking wine and cheese classes at Boston University.

Changing careers requires much hard work, but while some choose to do it, others have to do it, said Dana Aaron, creator and president of Barn-Raising.org, a Wayland-based Web site for job seekers.

"The important thing is that even those people who have to change will hopefully find something inside themselves they are really passionate about," said Aaron.

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