Life looks a little different these days for Jere and Susan Pitman after a particularly challenging time in their 38-year marriage reveled an unexpected, shared passion: counseling other married couples.
During that rocky time, they knew they needed outside help: After speaking with a therapist and attending an intensive therapy session, Jere and Susan eventually found themselves at a weekend retreat for couples in crisis. The weekend included a small group of couples, each with its own coach couple. They continued in the program, eventually becoming certified coaches themselves. For several years after, they ran that program at their church before eventually moving to The District Church, which had a smaller congregation, and there, the Pitmans started helping with their marriage ministry.
“I think that’s just our passion,” Susan said.
They’ve run workshops, weekends, led series of trainings, as well as coaching and strategy sessions. They have helped roughly 500 couples.
“We have been married for 37 years and it wasn’t terrible, but once we had an amazing, great marriage. It was like, wow it could have been this way the whole time,” Susan said. “So that’s sort of our passion to kind of tell people, ‘Hey, you can have this now. Don’t wait until your kids are going to college and you’re wondering what you’re going to do next in life.’”
At this stage of their life, Susan said she wants to spend more time focusing on this passion. Well, that and spending time with their three grandchildren.
“I can remember when my kids were born that it was like an amazing blossoming of love at that point, but then life goes on,” Jere said. “ But the grandkids are a replenishment of that love. Our marriage is amazing and primary, but with our grandkids, it’s a whole different dimension of caring for something. It’s really hard to describe.”
The Pitmans also make sure they are focused and in the moment when spending time with them, which wasn’t always the easiest thing to do as a parent with so many things going on.
They babysit one of their grandkids who lives in Jacksonville once a week.
“It’s been such a joy for him and us,” Susan Pitman said. “He melts into the opportunity to just be alone with us and us with him.”
They signed him up for soccer and he plays on the same field their four children did.
“There was a flood of memories,” Susan said. “It was kind of a full circle moment.”
The Pitmans raised their four children in the home they bought in Avondale in 1997. All their children were born at the same hospital and delivered by the same doctor and, coincidentally, by the same delivery nurse. This is quite different from Susan’s childhood.
Her father was in the U.S. Air Force so she doesn’t have such strong roots to one particular place. She went to 13 different schools and only stayed at one school when she attended college at Florida State University. Now she has raised her four children exclusively in Jacksonville, in the same home.
“It was like a diametric opposite experience,” Susan said.
Today, two of their children live in Jacksonville and two are in Denver.
Meanwhile, Jere is a ninth generation Jacksonville and St. Augustine native. His family owned Pitman Produce for 80 years until he sold it in 2006.
Susan was the first female stockbroker in Tallahassee and moved to Jacksonville to work as a lender with Barnett Bank. The two met when she was calling on Jere’s family business as a lender. They formed a business relationship, but it eventually turned into something more.
“We got married instead of getting his business,” Susan said.
Once they were married and had children, she took a step back from her career to be a stay-at-home mom. Although later, she ended up having a consulting business and once Jere sold the family business, he joined her as an operational consultant. Eventually, she started branching out into nonprofits as well.
This wasn’t her only venture into nonprofits. In 2008, she founded a nonprofit called Safe and Healthy Duval Coalition, which eventually became Drug Free Duval, a community coalition working to prevent substance abuse.
“I had no intention of running it, but here it is 16 years later,” Susan said.
Initially, they focused their efforts of reducing alcohol use in local youth and have now also added opioid use. They launched a program with JTA called Safety on the Move, which is dedicated to being able to recognize overdose signs and symptoms, provide training, and distribute narcan kits.
They also offer safe storage and safe disposal and work with doctors and nurses to ensure they are educating their patients. They also train law enforcement officers as well.
“The nonprofit is legit and these people have worked really hard and our overdoses have plummeted,” Susan said. “Our community has really pulled together. It’s really an orchestrated effort.”
For Jere, another career path dropped into his lap as well. A friend noticed he seemed to know a lot about home repair. He asked Jere if he would be interested in becoming a home inspector.
“I said, ‘I’m kind of just a do-it-yourself hack,” Jere said. But he had experience renovating their 1950s Avondale home.
“I have never seen him so satisfied,” Susan said of when he was renovating their home. “The transformation of the house was amazing.”
Jere took the required training and passed the state test to become a certified home inspector.
“I got in that first crawl space and had a face full of spiders and I was like, ‘What was I thinking?’”
But he loves it and feels like the perfect retirement gig.
“It’s low stress, but it’s an important job,” Jere said.
He also inspects produce for one of his old customers. And he’s a business manager of a horse farm.
“All three are not extremely time consuming, so it’s very manageable, and they’re fun,” Jere said.
When they aren’t working, coaching or spending time with their grandchildren, they like to explore new restaurants around town. Some of their favorites are Orsay, Rue St. Marc and Prati Italia.
“We’re foodies for sure,” Jere said. “When we go to a restaurant, we’ll sit at the seats where we can watch the show.”
Jere also loves to fish and cook. His family started the Kingfish tournament, and he still goes fishing at least once a week. His grandfather was a commercial fisherman on the river.
“It’s just been a part of my life,” Jere said.
This couple stays busy with all their jobs, activities and spending time with family and each other.
“I look at our lives, and who would have thought, you know, 38 years ago, the circuitous way that things have worked out and what we do,” Susan said. “But we’re so happy and content.”
