SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WORKING INTO THE NEXT CENTURY : OPTIONS : PULLING THE SWITCH : Fulfillment: Moving From the Mundane to Meaningful

Social worker Nancy Manning says she knew it was time for a career change seven years ago when she found herself crying in the car after work one day. She realized that counseling newly arrived refugees and ex-convicts in the San Fernando Valley was not for her. She wanted a job that was upbeat.

What Manning, now 41, really longed to do was to be a professional photographer. She had taken photography courses, and her instructors encouraged her to consider it as a career.

After five years as a government social worker, she quit her job, and today Manning is president of her own company.

Her clients pay $1,000 and up for her hand-tinted black and white portraits. Her work has appeared in magazines such as Vogue and Architectural Digest, and she is a guest lecturer at UCLA and the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design.

Manning is among a growing number of people in the job market who, for a variety of personal, professional and demographic reasons, have switched careers in midstream. While there are no precise estimates of the number of people like Manning, job counselors and employment experts believe that this number is rising markedly.

Many people who make the switch do so in search of more meaningful jobs. Some just are fed up with their old jobs, finding them too stressful or too dull. Still others want a change to accommodate other parts of their lives, such as the desire for children.

Some are looking for new challenges; others seek security.

“People want a job that offers challenge, growth and personal satisfaction, but woven into that is a very real concern about security. . . . Almost everyone knows someone who’s been laid off,” said Eileen Brabender, a job counselor on the UCLA extension faculty whose clients include homemakers returning to the job market, blue-collar workers and business executives.

“People are looking for a sense of recognition and accomplishment,” added Manhattan Beach job counselor Priscilla Smith. Many of her clients are people 35 to 45 who she says are frustrated and are asking: Is this all there is?

To be sure, changing careers has many pitfalls. And, experts say, the brave souls who attempt such a change need to be adequately prepared for the financial and emotional price tag as well as for the temporary setbacks and false starts along the way.

Dennis Miller of Santa Monica, for instance, left a 10-year dentistry practice to study wine making at the University of California, Davis. After taking courses and working in a vineyard one summer, he changed his mind and decided instead to get a masters degree in brewing science and technology.

Nancy Manning, who was divorced and had a 6-year-old child, worked at night as a restaurant hostess, just so she could take pictures during the day. She also took a part-time day job answering the telephone in a real estate office and was later hired by that firm to take pictures of houses.

And when Bonnie Saland, a former union representative, and Gerry Puhara, a film costumer, opened a children’s clothing shop in Pasadena, they had hoped to carry handmade items, but many of their customers found such items too expensive. So they began to carry cotton clothing. Finally, when they didn’t get their orders from big manufacturers, Saland and her partner had to start manufacturing their own hand-dyed cotton clothes.

Making a career change is not something to be undertaken without preparation, as Wayne Christopherson, 48, learned six years ago.

He was forced to start over after he was fired as manager of a large Los Angeles restaurant as a result of conflicts with the proprietor.

“When the owner of the restaurant cut my salary, I just tried harder--instead of trying to leave and look seriously elsewhere. I didn’t prepare because I really didn’t want it to happen,” Christopherson recalled.

“I came to work one day, and I was given a few months pay and was out the window,” he said. “I’d worked there 15 years, and this was a job I enjoyed very much and found exciting, and where I thought I’d done a good job.”

Luckily, Christopherson had money in the bank, his house was paid for and his wife was able to go back to work as a teacher. Still, it took him two years, including an attempt at opening his own restaurant, before he went into real estate.

“It offered the immediate potential to make money, and you still do it somewhat on your own time,” he said. Last year, Christopherson made more than $100,000.

His advice to others in precarious job situations: “Look for another job before they fire you, be first.”

Ray de Romanette, a Southern California career marketing specialist, agreed.

“People who are laid off or fired usually get verbal warnings as well as non-verbal feedback from their employer ahead of time,” De Romanette said. Once that has occurred, the employee needs to “start to plan his departure.”

Not all job changes are involuntary. Many people change careers out of personal choice. This is particularly true, experts say, for younger women who often find themselves juggling a variety of personal and professional ambitions.

Saland, 34, co-owner of Tender Treasures in Pasadena, said she climbed the career ladder rapidly in her field as a head of the white-collar division of Service Employees International union, Local 660.

But after her first child was born, Saland became increasingly torn between the demands of motherhood and those of her high-pressure job. “My husband is a trial lawyer and something had to give. I tried free-lancing and that didn’t work,” she said.

It took about two years to open the store. “We just sort of fell into it,” she said. “We took a course at UCLA on how to run a business. We’ve basically had to learn the retail business without any real retail background.”

Saland advises others to get experience in retailing before opening a business--even if it means an entry-level position so that “you can learn on someone else’s payroll.”

While running her own clothing store for the past three years may not be as intellectually stimulating as negotiating a wage package, Saland said there is a great reward in being better able to fit her working life to the needs of her family. “It’s a pleasure starting from scratch and having the ball stop with you.”

Dennis Miller had been a dentist in Minnesota for 10 years when, at age 35, he surprised friends and patients and shut down his career. “Dentistry didn’t satisfy the interests I had,” he said, “and there was a lot of anxiety and stress involved and not much positive feedback.”

Upon quitting, Miller said, he felt a great sense of relief--even if he didn’t know at the time just what he wanted to do.

He took a year off and then finally decided to study wine making. Miller’s wife supported his decision, and worked as an administrative assistant in the alumni office at UC Davis while he went back school. The couple, who have been married 15 years, also lived on their savings and inheritance.

Today Miller is one of four general partners as well as brew master of the City of Angels Brewing Co. in Santa Monica.

“I really felt strongly that I wanted to do something different,” Miller said. “It’s important for a person to enjoy what they do and not to fear making a change.”

But experts do advise caution.

“Be careful,” said William Lareau, author of “The Inside Track--A Successful Job Search Method” and a senior consultant and industrial psychologist with Ford Motor Co.

“Time in one organization is like gold. Pick a good-sized corporation and stay there. You’ll get farther if you have patience and stay. Your career is a living breathing thing. Take as much care of it as you would your body,” Lareau said.

Career counselors say that a career change often starts with a dream. Priscilla Smith urges her clients to bring in newspaper ads of their dream jobs.

Photographer Nancy Manning says that you have to follow your heart. “Dream about what it is you really want to do and go for what you love. Tell people what it is that you want to do. I even had the word photographer printed on my checks. Know what excites you and that is what will make your work different.”

Lareau, however, cautions that dreams must be tied to careful preparation. “Have your dream, but prepare carefully and follow it that way. Sign up in a good program; back it up with solid preparation,” he said.

One person who nurtured such a dream is best-selling novelist Tom Clancy, author of “The Hunt for Red October,” “Red Storm Rising” and “Patriot Games.”

As an insurance salesman in Owings, Md., Clancy persevered in his writing even when it took him away from his business and his family. His first book earned $1.3 million.

“Nothing is as real as a dream,” Clancy told the 1986 graduating class at Baltimore’s Loyola College.

“The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Your life may change, but your dream doesn’t have to. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Your spouse and children need not get in its way, because the dream is within you. No one can take it away.”