By Macey Shofroth | Photos by Duane Tinkey | Illustration by Kate Meyer

In 2014, Emilea Hillman was sitting in the White House when three Secret Service agents tapped her on the shoulder. 

“Are you Senator Harkin’s friend?” they asked. 

She was. Hillman was in Washington, D.C., with the former senator for the signing of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Co-sponsored by Harkin, the law was designed to help all job seekers, including those with disabilities like Hillman, to access employment, training and support services. Hillman had spoken at a field trial hearing for the bill.

She got up and followed the Secret Service agents. On the other side of a curtain stood President Barack Obama. 

Did that scare Hillman?

“Not really,” she said. 

Hillman’s mom, Tami Fenner, said her daughter doesn’t often feel a lot of fear. Not when she was meeting the leader of the United States, and not when she opened her own business. 

Prior to that, Hillman had worked for an organization that didn’t fit her needs and personality. They wanted her to quietly complete menial tasks. She wanted to talk with customers and meet new people. Fenner said that after she quit that job, she “spent nine months on Grandma’s couch basically” before the family realized they needed to try something else. Self-employment was the journey she wanted to take. 

Now 16 1/2 years later, Hillman’s store, Em’s Coffee Shop, is a staple of Independence, Iowa. Everyone from her pastor to politicians stop by to meet Hillman and buy her coffee. 

 She’s not much impressed by any one person’s star power, like Hillary Clinton, who visited during her 2016 run for president. She just likes meeting people and making them smile. 

“It’s who I am,” Hillman said. 

Yes, she can do it 

Hillman has lived in Independence her entire life. Her mom and stepdad, Gordy Fenner, own a hardware store, and her mom said that helped Hillman develop a great work ethic. 

Hillman doesn’t drink coffee. But she wakes up early, she loves to talk to people and Independence didn’t have a coffee shop. 

“It just fit Em’s skills,” Fenner said. “I don’t know that it was as much Em’s choice to own a coffee shop as it was just the place that she fits.” 

Hillman’s parents bought the building that previously housed the Independence newspaper. The walls were painted bright yellow. They accepted donated furniture that they then reupholstered. Hillman helped with all of the remodel, and she showed off her space proudly.

Hanging on the wall in the back room, lovingly called the newsroom, is an old issue of the Independence Bulletin Journal. They had found the issue as they were removing the building’s linoleum floor. Hillman’s grandfather was on the cover. It felt right.

“Grandpa was here,” Fenner said. 

Hillman is the sole owner of Em’s Coffee Co., with support on bookkeeping and maintenance. She said being the sole owner has never scared her. But the structure was difficult to establish in the beginning. 

“The disability world and business world don’t always play together,” Fenner said. “One person would file information using her Social Security number, then we would file information using it and reports were getting all messed up.” 

Hillman was one of the first people in Iowa to own a Main Street business as a person with a disability. People in the rehabilitation world would argue with Fenner that Hillman couldn’t be sole owner because she couldn’t do 100% of the business on her own. 

“Well, I’m the president of a hardware store. I can’t do 100% of that business,” Fenner said. “We do a lot of outdoor power. I’m not a mechanic. It took a lot to convince people that just because you own a business doesn’t mean you do 100% of that business. Why should it be different rules for her than it would be for me or you?” 

Hillman went to barista school in Minneapolis and learned how to operate the equipment in her shop. She said her favorite part of owning her own business is being the boss. She trained her whole staff. If she’s not at work, she’s calling to check in on her employees, some of whom have disabilities as well. 

“That feels cool,” she said of being able to employ people like her. 

She’s especially close with Mykenzie Lopez, her job coach who helps open the coffee shop every morning and create employees’ schedules. 

Hillman shines the brightest when she’s talking with her customers, persuading them to buy a cup of coffee or a homemade pastry or gelato. 

“She’s just a salesman,” Fenner said. “You will buy from her. You just can’t tell her no.”

Lopez agreed. “She’s very good at what she does.” 

Strong customer service

Hillman loves talking about her customers. She knows many of their drink orders by heart. Her pastor is a regular and she planned to send him a get-well-soon card after a recent surgery. If Tricia, one of her other regulars, doesn’t come in for her morning coffee, Hillman calls her daughter to make sure she’s OK. 

Those relationships mean a lot to Hillman.

“And I think she means a lot to them,” Fenner said. 

Hillman brought out her guest book that she tries to have every customer sign. There are people who have signed from Japan, Ukraine and all corners of Iowa. She pointed out former first lady Jill Biden’s signature. She has photos on the shop walls of her and politicians like former Vice President Mike Pence, former President Bill Clinton and Gov. Kim Reynolds. 

But no particular customer is more important to her than another. Fenner shared a story that when former Gov. Terry Branstad called to speak with Hillman, she told him she was busy getting a haircut. When Hillary Clinton was there for her visit, Hillman told her she couldn’t leave until her cousin, who worked for the Des Moines Register at the time and was nearby in Cedar Falls, could get there.

And Clinton waited the 20 minutes until Hillman’s cousin arrived. 

“Everyone gets the same Em,” Lopez said. 

Hillman contends with people doubting her. Even people who live in Independence assume someone else is behind the scenes, calling the shots. But she keeps working, greeting her customers and making her coffee shop a warm and inviting place to be. She said she doesn’t care what people think. 

Fenner explained that as a mother, it can be difficult to see her daughter going out on her own and not always being right there to protect her. Hillman had been taken advantage of before, her mother said. But the atmosphere created in Em’s Coffee Shop reassures Fenner that her daughter will be all right. 

“We’ve met people from around the world, and I have learned that people are so nice,” Fenner said. “Just overwhelmingly nice.”