Finding success in painting with help from her friends

Meleny Nagy grew up in Miami watching her mother do whatever needed to be done.

Some days that meant crawling through industrial spaces in full protective gear, removing asbestos from nuclear power plants. Other days it meant hauling a vacuum through newly built homes to clean construction dust.

Growing up with a single mother who refused to stand still taught Meleny how to pivot early. She learned that you could build something, walk away from it, and come back stronger the next time.

Years later, those lessons would resurface in unexpected ways: her military service, her painting business, and her relentless dedication to self-improvement.

“My mother was an entrepreneur,” Meleny says. “We would say ‘When mom is bored, she’s going to tear down a wall, so be careful.’”

Hearing the Call

When Meleny was in elementary school, her community was hit by a hurricane.

It was 1992 and Hurricane Andrew came roaring ashore, flooding the neighborhood and disrupting the rhythm of her childhood.

But there was a shining light in the darkness: the U.S. Marines.

The Marines were the ones who showed up to help. They set up tents at her school as a home base for the response efforts. they cleaned up the wreckage and helped her neighbors get back on their feet.

“This is what I want to do,” Meleny remembers thinking.

By the time she reached high school, discipline and teamwork were already shaping her worldview. She joined the Army ROTC program and participated in color guard in marching band competitions.

When graduation approached, Meleny didn’t see many traditional paths to higher education. She didn’t have the money for college and “wasn’t smart enough at the time for scholarships,” she jokes.

So at 17, she enlisted. The Marine Corps offered the discipline she craved as well as tuition through the GI Bill.

Her aunt worried that Meleny could be sent to war. But the world was enjoying a large stretch of peacetime, so she shrugged off the concern.

That all changed profoundly two weeks after she arrived at boot camp, on September 11, 2001.

Recruits had no access to televisions, radios, or phones, so they didn’t experience the horror in real time like so many of us did. The first indication something was wrong came through the drill instructors, who grew even grimmer than usual. The base went on lockdown.

Later in the day, the drill instructors wheeled in a tV and showed the recruits a video of the horrific event.
the scale of the destruction and the reality of what it meant settled in all at once. What had felt distant and theoretical when she enlisted suddenly became very real.

“We went right back into training,” she remembers. “You’re in it now. You’re going to learn everything, because it’s for survival.”

Serving Her Country

Despite her aunt’s worst fears, Meleny wasn’t bound for the front lines. After boot camp, she shipped out to her first duty station in Okinawa, Japan.

There, she served as a supply administrator. Beyond just processing paperwork, she was responsible for ensuring that the boots on the ground had what they needed to perform their jobs.

What began as a one-year assignment turned into a longer stay after she chose to extend her service commitment. Over time, she was promoted to fiscal chief, overseeing budgets and managing resources.

Meleny transferred to Camp Pendleton, the base in San Diego, where she learned how to be a Marine recruiter. Her new role took her to White Plains, New York, where the job was tough sledding.

“By then we knew that if you signed up, you were probably going to go overseas to war,” she says. “My weeks were long. I didn’t have weekends.”

After six years, she brought her career in the Marines to an end and began the arduous task of starting a new life as a civilian.

“I had a lot to figure out,” she says. “I needed time to find my footing and my purpose at that point.

Finding Herself Again

Leaving the Marines did not come with a clear blueprint for what was next. Meleny would have to find her own way.

She used the GI Bill to go to college, but her life was derailed when her mother passed away. Her mother had been the central figure in Meleny’s life, and now she felt even more adrift.

After getting her degree in business administration, Meleny moved to New Hampshire to open a smoothie and juice bar. the business was creative and energizing, but restaurants have one of the highest failure rates for new businesses, and hers was no exception. After a year, she made the difficult but practical decision to close shop.

Next came a home daycare. It allowed Meleny to work at home while raising her children. She painted beautiful murals, transforming her home into a storybook wonderland.

Then came CoVID. Meleny closed the daycare to focus on homeschooling her two girls.

Once again, she was starting over. this time, she looked to her past for inspiration.

A New Mission

Painting had always been part of her life.

First it was helping with her mother’s real estate projects, then it was the daycare murals. If she could transform her own home, why not do the same for others?

She got the business up and running and found early success specializing in painting bell towers.

But even as the painting business took shape, Meleny began to feel the limits of working alone. A costly lift rental incident drove the point home.

She thought she was doing everything right. She found what seemed to be a reputable lift rental company and had them walk the grounds three separate times to understand the project.

But when she got up to do the work, she discovered that the boom didn’t extend high enough to reach the top.

So she went and got another lift to finish the job. This time, the battery failed while she was still in the lift.

Meleny was left stranded three stories off the ground. She had to call emergency services to get her down.

“I felt like I was running on empty and I didn’t really have any direction,” she says.

It was at that moment that Meleny decided to apply for the Behr veteran scholarship. She was selected as one of the recipients and used her award to attend the PCA’s Women in Paint conference in Nashville.

“Now I’ve learned, and I’ve had great mentors within the PCA, and that’s been huge,” she says. “Every time I go to one of these events, I learn more or I become friends with somebody who has a similar struggle.”

Now her path forward seems clear in a way it hasn’t since leaving the Marines. Meleny knows it won’t be easy, but she’s confident she’s up for the challenge.

“I love where I’m at now with the business,” she says, “and I can’t wait to see what the next couple of years look like.”