How Robert Park’s Mid-Life Enlightenment Led to Tutor Doctor

On March 30, Robert Park closed a deal to own his first Tutor Doctor territory in Texas. The acquisition marks a step forward in a long and varied career for Park, who entered the workforce as a banker before following his passion first into the church and then education.

Park graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in business administration and a focus on finance. He was well prepared to embark on a banking career that would quickly see him become the president of a major bank in Texas.

Park, who was born and raised in South Korea before immigrating to the U.S. at 17 with a full scholarship from the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, had achieved the success he’d once dreamed of finding in the states. However, at 40, Park had an awakening that would change the course of his career dramatically.

“It was a bit of a spiritual experience. I felt I was at a crossroads with what I wanted to do with my life, and I decided that I want to become a pastor,” Park said.

Park left his job at the bank and enrolled in a theological seminary, where he later graduated with a masters in divinity. With that degree and the savings he had accrued in finance, Park established his church, which he went on to pastor for the next two decades.

Almost from its inception, Park’s church had an education arm, which grew in scope throughout Park’s tenure.

“When I first founded the church, I had the idea of establishing an ESL school as part of the ministry,” he said. “At first, we were just serving the immigrant community, but one thing led to another, and we eventually became a fully accredited ESL school, licensed by the department of homeland security to issue I-20 forms [the form required by the federal government to apply for student visas], so we were able to accept students from all over the world.”

A few years after the school’s accreditation, The Learning Institute of Texas was large enough that Park decided to separate it from the church and run both as separate entities.

Park has since retired from the church, but he still runs the school. A few years ago, he began looking for another opportunity to expand his work in education, something that might complement his work with The Learning Institute.

“I am an ambitious person, and things change in life, so I was not content to sit back and relax after retiring,” Park said. “I wanted to find something new, and I always thought that tutoring would go well with what we were doing at the school. I did not want to start something on my own, so I started looking into franchises.”

That is when a franchise broker recommended he look into Tutor Doctor .

“Dru Carpentino, a broker from FranChoice, reached out to me. He must have come across my name because of the research I had been doing in franchises,” Park said. “He told me about a Tutor Doctor resale opportunity that had become available in my area, so I decided to check it out.”

As Park looked into Tutor Doctor, he was struck by the franchise’s established operational systems, which he suspected would allow him to get his business up and running with a minimal learning curve.

“I wanted to play it safe, and I did not want to have to build something from scratch. When I looked at Tutor Doctor, I saw how everything was set up for an owner. It was extremely well organized, and they know to run and market a business. The marketing, accounting, training tools, even the payment processing and vendors—everything has been perfected. Every other franchise I looked into, they all had one or two things lacking; not Tutor Doctor,” Park said.

Because Park was looking at an existing location, his startup process was even more streamlined.

“The idea of purchasing a resale was very attractive. The previous owner had the business for years, and their numbers were great. We figured we could keep their existing operations and get up and running immediately.”

Park’s instincts proved correct. After closing the deal at the end of March, his Tutor Doctor transitioned to its new ownership without a hitch, maintaining its existing staff, operational infrastructure and client base.

“We don’t have any immediate plans to change anything,” he said. “It’s such a great business as is. Once we’re a bit more experienced with the overall operations, then maybe we’ll start to consider if there are any improvements we can make, but our attitude now is just to keep a good thing going.”

Dennis Campbell, Tutor Doctor’s franchise development director, says Park’s acquisition is a particularly exciting development for the brand, which is growing in hundreds of territories across 16 countries.

“Anytime we are looking at a resale opportunity, we are determined to trade up,” Campbell said. “We are looking for a new owner who can come into the existing location and take it even further than the previous owner did. Robert has an extensive background in education, and just as importantly, he has a clear desire to service his community. Those are exactly the qualities we look for in a candidate, so bringing him on board was a no brainer. I don’t think he’s anywhere near the ceiling of what he’ll be able to do with his Tutor Doctor.”

In addition to Tutor Doctor’s airtight operational model, Park attributes the smooth acquisition of his new business in part to FranChoice, who he says continued to work closely with him even after he closed the deal.

“Dru is a heck of a guy. He was extremely honest with me about every aspect of the process, and he let me know exactly what we were looking at and what I needed to do. He stayed with me throughout the entire process. Even after the deal closed, he followed up with me a few times to make sure things were going well,” Park said.

Now that Park is operating both businesses, Park says his Tutor Doctor is complementing his work with The Learning Institute of Texas just as he’d hoped.

“The Learning Institute caters primarily to post-high school foreign students, preparing them for college or grad school and helping them with English proficiency, and Tutor Doctor is in-home, one-to-one education for students of all ages and all subjects, so it’s really expanded my scope. Even just a few weeks in, we’ve found just what we were looking for with Tutor Doctor.”