She left corporate life behind. Now, she’s leading a window-washing business.

Carla Lee Martinez has always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

It’s that spirit that prompted her to leave the corporate world behind, trading budgets and timelines for buckets and pressure washers, in pursuit of her own business: Pink’s Window Services, a national window-cleaning franchise with operations across the United States.

Martinez, a born-and-raised New Mexican, launched the Pink’s Window Services Albuquerque franchise in late February. The business serves the Albuquerque and Rio Rancho area, offering residential and commercial windows, gutter and solar panel cleaning, and pressure washing.

Before Pink’s, Martinez ran a medical billing business for five years and worked at Sandia National Laboratories for six years, where she focused on project management and financial analysis in the global security portfolio office.

“I was sitting there at my desk one day and I thought, ‘I want to have something where I can have a tangible impact.’ At Sandia, we have a mission and there’s impact, but I wanted to see the results of what I was doing,” Martinez said.

Martinez felt it wouldn’t be long before artificial intelligence could do her job better and faster than she could. So she set her eyes on the trade industry and asked herself what customer-centered service might stay untouched by AI for awhile, ultimately landing on window washing.

“I saw AI as kind of the writing on the wall,” Martinez said. “What I liked about window washing was it’s pretty easy to learn. It doesn’t require a super specialized skill and requires more customer service.”

Martinez said she’s been “pleasantly surprised” by how the business has done so far — currently booking out over two weeks in advance and regularly servicing restaurants such as Casa de Benavidez on Fourth Street and all of the city’s Flying Star Cafe locations. An extrovert, Martinez said she enjoys interacting with customers and plugging deeper into the Albuquerque community.

Pink’s Window Services Albuquerque currently has a crew of two people, but Martinez said she plans to hire more employees as demand grows. Martinez also recently hired an administrative assistant and envisions expanding operations by up to six vans in Albuquerque, and possibly serving Santa Fe and El Paso in the future.

Martinez, who comes from a “working-class, poor family,” said she would advise anyone with entrepreneurial dreams to have a planned and curated exit strategy before leaving a stable job, but to commit 100% once they do.

“You have one life to live. ... I don’t want to be 85 and look back and be like, ‘I wish I had done that, I wish I’d taken that risk,’” Martinez said. “(To) the person who’s thinking about and wanting to be an entrepreneur, you’re here for a reason. You’re having these thoughts for a reason.”