Brian Salgado, a Chicagoan through and through (Let’s go, @cubs !), is our Lead Dad of the Week.
Growing up in Belmont, on the northwest side of the city, he now lives in Aurora, IL, with his wife and their two children. After working as a journalist in the Windy City, he moved to Milwaukee with his wife Stephanie when she got a marketing job there. Their son was 2 at the time.
“I was already the Lead Dad heading into that, but then the trade publication where I was an editor folded,” he said. He pivoted, picking up an early morning shift as a package handler at UPS while starting a business as a technical writer and social media consultant.
“With @ups , it was get to my 9 months working there and get free healthcare,” he said. “I also started collecting freelance clients – magazine writing, social media consulting. Eventually it worked out that I could pull-off child rearing and work because of my schedule.” His daughter was born in 2017.
Today both he and his wife work for J.P. Morgan on a schedule that allows them to mix remote and in-person work. When everything meshes, there is only one day in the week that they’re both in downtown Chicago, an hour away from their home.
By this point, they’re pros at the juggle. “I get downtown as close to 7am as a I can, so I take the 3 or 3:30 train back and pick them up at childcare by 4:30,” he said.
It’s also a role that he saw his father model in the 1990s.
“One of the reasons I felt comfortable doing this was I grew up in a situation like this,” he said. “My mom was an administrative assistant at banks downtown, and my dad was a realtor. He had the flexible schedule. He was a dad who was heavily involved in our schools. He shook off the myth that dads aren’t involved.”
His dad also imparted a love of the Cubs to his son, who also enjoys collecting baseball cards. (We wonder what our founder Paul Sullivan’s Chicago twin – Paul Sullivan at The Chicago Tribune – would have to say about another overlap in the Paul Sullivan universe.)
Brian, we’re glad to have you as part of The Company of Dads. Welcome – and let’s go Cubs!
