Juliet Greer was starting an import business with older brother David when a car wreck took her life. He's determined to keep going.
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published June 14, 2004
WESLEY CHAPEL - It was the big day, her dream was just beginning, when journalist Juliet Greer was killed in a car crash.
Now, three months later, her brother, David, says he won't let her vision of combining business, art and compassion fade away. David Greer, 34, said he is determined to keep alive the business he and his little sister were starting together.
Juliet Greer was 30 when she was critically injured Feb. 26. It was supposed to be the Tampa Tribune reporter's triumphant day. She was heading home to her own housewarming party after she and her brother had attended their first trade show together.
The two were starting Greer Imports, a business they developed with hopes of importing and wholesaling hand-painted Tibetan artwork, called Thangkas.
Juliet had seen the brightly colored tapestries made by Buddhist monks on her travels to Nepal; David brought a grounded sense of realism and caution to the fledgling business, helping his sister focus on the importing and wholesaling instead of retailing.
David Greer said he and his sister had done well at the first day of what was supposed to be a three-day show, displaying artwork to retail store buyers and interior decorators. They were optimistic; it was their first venture in what the two hoped would be a successful importing business.
They left the show in separate cars.
When he learned his sister had been involved in a crash near Groveland, her little two-seat convertible offering little protection, David Greer said he rushed to the Orlando hospital where she was unconscious. At her new home, friends had started the party. A sheriff's deputy delivered the news.
David wanted to stay by his sister's side. Family and nurses told him there was nothing to do but wait. They urged him to return for the second day of the trade show.
"I was there for a couple of hours, but I wasn't really there," he said. "I had to leave."
Juliet Greer died four days later.
But after his sister's funeral, David Greer said he realized Greer Imports was more than just her business - it was her vision.
"If the roles had been reversed, she wouldn't have fallen apart," he said, sitting on a couch in the new home his sister had just moved into. "She saw this as part of living a full life. This was her dream."
Part of the dream, he said, was her goal of helping the people of Nepal.
"She saw how poor those people are, how they have nothing," he said. "She had a real social conscience. She wanted to give back to them, to support charities that reached the people."
So David Greer now gets up each day, struggling to break into a business he knows little about. His sister was on the verge of earning her master's degree in business. David Greer, a laid-off computer programmer with a degree in history, is trying to learn the lessons his sister spent two years going over in Saint Leo University's graduate program.
He calls on museum curators for advice. He is trying to learn about the interior design business. He reaches out to art dealers, gallery owners, anyone who might lead him to the next step.
"Juliet was a person who had a lot of accomplishments. When she set out to do something, she did it. This was something she couldn't complete, but it's something I was involved in from the beginning," David Greer said. "It's not about making a lot of money, though it would be great if I could earn a living. It's more about doing something good with the money. That's what she would have wanted."
- Chase Squires can be reached at 352 521-6518 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6518. His e-mail address is squires@sptimes.com
SCHOLARSHIP FUND
The Juliet Greer Memorial Scholarship fund has been established at Saint Leo University. Donations may be mailed to Saint Leo University, attention: Doyia Turner, P.O. Box 6665, Saint Leo, FL 33574. The business Juliet and David Greer started together is online at www.greerimports.com
