Aspen Leaf was started in 2012 by Bridget Heffernan, a preschool teacher with a clear vision of the kind of preschool where she would want to work and where she would want her own kids to play and learn. Though Aspen Leaf has since grown to multiple locations, Bridget and her husband Howard still own and run it, and the vision has never changed.
In June 2012, Bridget and Howard signed the lease for what is still the Hillcrest location. Bridget had over a decade of experience teaching preschool, and Aspen Leaf was an opportunity to bring her philosophy, approach, and vision to life. Aspen Leaf would be a school where teachers could take ownership of their classrooms and relationships with their families, while feeling supported by the school; where the focus would be on play, nature, and social-emotional development; and where connection and community could thrive. Howard was an attorney, so felt confident he could figure out all the administrative matters like licensing, insurance, and payroll.
As many business owners will say, if Bridget and Howard had known how hard and expensive starting a business was going to be, they would have been too intimidated to try. Once Bridget and Howard were locked into a lease though, there was truly no way but forward.
Aspen Leaf welcomed its first children (all three!) to preschool on October 1, 2012. Bridget was a teacher, the director, supply-getter, and marketer (spending weekends posting flyers in coffee shops and at parks). Over the next few months, through work and word-of-mouth, Aspen Leaf brought in more kids and teachers until it was full.
By late 2014, Bridget and Howard felt ready to expand to a second school. There were challenges finding and then getting a second location, but they signed the lease for what is still the North Park preschool in January 2015 (the same month Bridget and Howard welcomed their first child).
Unlike Hillcrest, which just needed paint and some relatively minor renovations, North Park was a full construction project. Again, had Bridget and Howard known how difficult and expensive the process was going to be, they never would have tried. But after the lease was signed, there was no place to go but forward.
Bridget and Howard had planned and budgeted for the construction and licensing process to take about nine months, with the aim of opening for children in September 2015. North Park actually opened in October 2016, more than a year later than anticipated, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars more than planned (money they didn’t have).
In the few months before finally opening, there was a very real chance that Bridget and Howard were going to go bankrupt and the business was going to go under before they could get North Park open. Those days were some of the darkest of Howard’s life. He still remembers the feeling of taking a cash advance to max out their personal credit cards just to make payroll at Hillcrest.
But catastrophe was narrowly avoided and North Park did open.
Then in late 2020, for reasons related to the COVID pandemic, Aspen Leaf expanded to University Heights and downtown. Operating preschools during a global pandemic brought a host of challenges Bridget and Howard never expected to have to face and like so many businesses and families, had to figure things out on the fly. It all culminated with a legal battle against the child care licensing agency that made national and even international news.
By now (2024), running the preschools has largely returned to the pre-COVID “normal,” but new challenges have emerged. The child care crisis in America continues to worsen and expand, with tuition increasingly unaffordable for families while teachers remain underpaid and most preschools just breaking even or losing money. California’s UTK expansion has also decimated enrollment at private preschools and forced fundamental changes to how preschools operate.
Through it all, though, the mission, vision, philosophy, and ownership of Aspen Leaf have never changed. Aspen Leaf continues to be a place of love, safety, and fun for its teachers, students, and families.
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