The Squigglers: Carmel Jud’s path from selling jingles to fighting human trafficking

We all know someone with a clear eye on their future, who decides early on what they want to do or be. But many people don’t follow straight lines: They decide on, or fall into a profession, only to later realize it’s not for them. Identifying a deep yearning to switch careers and do something different is only the first step. Next might be taking classes or finding a mentor. Even then, the hardest part is still to come: jumping off that ledge and doing it. We call those of us who have zigzagged through our professional lives Squigglers. 

At age 19, Carmel Jud was already blazing her own path. After leaving high school early and getting her GED through an alternative program, she turned a chance encounter with two local musicians into a thriving jingle production business.

But at the height of her success, a random late-night encounter with a Deepak Chopra book changed everything. Unable to see how her jingle business truly served others, Jud made a radical decision: “If you want a different outcome, become a different person,” she says.

The revelation led her to launch Rising Worldwide from her living room in Soquel in 2002. What began as a fair-trade craft initiative supporting Afghan women has evolved into a nonprofit that works to prevent and reduce cycles of violence and exploitation in more than 20 countries. The organization is presenting a film series on human trafficking at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on Oct. 28.

Now 60, Jud reflects on her unconventional career path with characteristic optimism, advising those considering major life changes to just say yes. “Yes can be the start of magic,” she says.

Lookout: Take us back to the beginning, as far back as you want to go.

Carmel Jud: Like back to when I decided a year of high school was enough for me? (She throws her head back with a light laugh.) I always felt out of place at school. I had an aunt in Hawaii and decided to visit for a summer. I needed money to get there, so I came up with this plan: I borrowed $1 from 100 people at Harbor High. But a teacher pointed out that I wasn’t really borrowing, people were donating. She was right. Then she donated.

Lookout: Looks like early signs of independence, creativity and problem-solving. What did you do in Hawaii?

Jud: I stayed with my aunt that summer, then decided to stay and try high school there. But, when my uncle made a pass at me. I moved out. I actually moved several times. I kept experiencing older men making passes at me. When you’re on your own at like 15, 16, it’s literally a full-time job staying safe from men.

Lookout: That must have been awful, especially being so far from home.  

Jud: I came back and lived with my mom, enrolled in The Ark, an alternative school (part of the Santa Cruz County Office of Education) for youth like me who need an alternative direction to get to the same place. I took the GED and passed.

Lookout: So now you were really done with high school, I bet.

Jud: Yep. I managed the front counter at Guitar Works (which later became Guitar Showcase). One day, two local musicians, Rick McKee and Wayne Miller, gave me a cassette of jingles they wrote for local businesses and asked if I could help sell them. I said yes!

Lookout: Why would they turn to you?

Jud: I wanted to help. Reflecting now, I see how I often said yes even when I was unsure. 

Lookout: So you have this cassette and they want you to — what? market it?

Jud: Exactly. I would call a business and say, “A couple of local musicians wrote you a jingle. Wanna hear it? I can stop by tomorrow.” I’d take a boom box, play the jingle written for them, and close the sale. 

Lookout: Was it a unique business in Santa Cruz at that time?

Jud: What was unique was that I was 19. It was one of a few jingle businesses in the U.S. led by a woman. I hired musicians to work for me and write jingles; I had clients in the Bay Area and nationally. 

Lookout: What was the best part of this gig?

Jud: Supporting musicians. When I worked at the music store, I saw how musicians struggle financially. Instead of, you know, like $100 for a gig, I could pay $5,000. My business, Carmel Jud Creative Group, expanded. We wrote and produced radio and TV commercials, did marketing research, developed slogans.  

Lookout: We?

Jud: Yes, because my boyfriend, Brian, a musician I had met at Guitar Works, became my husband and we worked together.

Lookout: Everything was wonderful and you loved your life.

Jud: Yep. I was really proud of that business. We had a lot of clients, won awards. Running a small business is hard; sometimes we’d worry about enough income but yes, yes, life was good.

Lookout: I feel an “until” coming.

Jud: Until the night that I was lying in bed and reached for a book at random from the pile by our bed, and opened it to a random page.

Lookout: Don’t keep us in suspense!

Jud: It was Deepak Chopra’s “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success,” and the sentence I read was “How are you best suited to serve humanity”? I lay there, stunned, thinking, “I can’t answer this.” I ran downstairs to Brian and read it to him. I remember saying, “Is my jingle business serving humanity? I don’t see it, I don’t think so.”

Lookout: That sounds like an “aha” moment, yes?

Jud: For sure. I decided that if you can’t see the answer as the person you are, then change who you are so you can get a different answer. 

Lookout: Like being more kind or loving or …?

Jud: Sorta. It’s more like doing things you would never do, or never read, never watch. I kinda put myself on a quest to do things that were not me. For example, Brian found an article about the oppression of women by the Taliban. He said, “Here’s an article that you would never read.”

Lookout: And of course you read it. 

Jud: Yes! I started looking at Craigslist and newspaper ads in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area for lectures and workshops on different issues, things I knew nothing about. 

Lookout: Is there a specific one that stands out?

Jud: Yes, definitely. I attended a lecture on fair trade in San Francisco. I heard Paul Rice speak for the first time, and Heather White. Paul started Fair Trade USA. They’re the ones who put “Fair Trade Certified” label on things like coffee. It means the farmers get paid fairly and the environment is protected. Heather had just started Verité. They visit factories to check if people are being treated fairly and if the conditions are safe. 

Lookout: Why did that resonate with you? 

Jud: Because all those years my company spent promoting products, it never even crossed my mind to ask how they were made, or if they caused harm. 

Lookout:  You weren’t aware of the “behind the scenes” making of certain goods?

Jud: Exactly. Learning about the conditions, about sweatshops, factories, about child labor and other forced labor. 

Lookout: Many people are moved to help when they learn about these issues. Most donate to support people in these conditions. What was different for you?

Jud: Remember that I’m carrying around that question: How am I serving humanity? What’s my purpose? For a long time I had no sense of it. But that’s when Rising is born.

Lookout: What’s the very first thing that you did?

Jud: After reading that article, the one I would have never read, I felt called to the plight of women in Afghanistan. I bought a doll online that was made in a refugee camp. I began volunteering, organizing fair trade home parties, where the Afghan dolls and crafts were promoted and purchased. Eventually I launched Rising as the first nonprofit organization to use a fair-trade, home-party business model to help reduce poverty.  

Lookout: When did you launch Rising?

Jud: May 11, 2002, from my living room in Soquel.  

Lookout: So you launched an organization selling crafts for the women of Afghanistan. Is that still the focus?

Jud: Today we support female artisan-entrepreneurs in over 20 countries. But it’s so much more than that now. Over the years, a common theme surfaced. Rising entrepreneurs were constantly talking to us about human trafficking. Not just internationally, but right here, too. The majority of Rising’s work is about preventing and ending sex and labor trafficking.

Lookout: You squiggled for sure! Your past and present careers couldn’t be more different, yet there is at least one theme that is a big part of both: saying yes. Do you agree?

Jud: Absolutely. Looking back, I see that I said “yes” to myself, kinda validating my choices: Yes, I want to go to Hawaii and I’ll figure out how. Yes to knowing when I should leave, and that an alternative school was better for me. And every time someone asked if I could or would do something, I said yes and then learned or figured out what to do.

Lookout: And with Rising?

Jud: Saying yes to Rising sounds simple, but it was profound. My whole world changed. We sold everything to start Rising. More significantly, my yes became a thread of yeses in others’ lives. Rising gives me purpose and allows me to serve humanity.

Lookout: Any advice for others?

Jud: Yep: Say yes! It might be intimidating at first, and you don’t know where it will take you, but yes is the start of courage. Yes can be the start of magic. And all Squigglers need courage and magic in their lives.

Rising Voices is a film series that exposes the hidden realities of human trafficking through story and film. The series launches with “Volunteers Needed – The Truth Behind Orphanage Volunteering,” on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 6 p.m. at the Resource Center for Nonviolence. Tickets at: risingworldwide.org/orphans.

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