Recession Stories

Angelina Pinto

Background: Laid off in December 2008
Status: Working full-time at Goshow Architects

“I had no idea how bad it could get,” Pinto says, noting that she sent out roughly 80 resumes during her “seven months and two days” of unemployment. Staying upbeat wasn’t easy. One day, Pinto was so discouraged that she decided to start a cookie company and registered a Web site for it. “I tried a ginger-Cointreau cookie and a variation of the cowboy cookie. That’s as far as I got. My heart was still in architecture.” While hunting for work, Pinto kept active: She volunteered for her community board in Brooklyn and for her sister’s charity, Baal Dan, which builds orphanages and schools in India. In the end, it was her involvement with the AIA’s Women In Architecture committee that helped Pinto land a job. Through the group, she met the founder of Goshow Architects, which eventually had an open position. Pinto was hired and started July 13. “I know people who have been unemployed for a year now,” she says. “I know I’m fortunate.”

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