Women Entrepreneurs 2014

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

RESTAURATEURS FAITH CAVIN SHANON BREWER TWO SISTERS CATERING

KRISTI WILLIAMS APRIL WILLIAMS

MICHELE TOWNE INVITING ARKANSAS

KAY BONA

THE DAILY RECORD

MARA LEVERITT

BROWN SUGAR BAKESHOP

AUTHOR “DEVIL’S KNOT”

KAVION WANG

GLORIA LAWSON

FANTASTIC CHINA

JAN LEWANDOWSKI BLUE CAKE COMPANY

JUDY WALER BREECE U.S. PIZZA

DIANA BRATTON CITY CAFÉ

ALEXIS JONES NATCHEZ

CAPI PECK TRIOS

MARY BETH RINGGOLD CAJUN’S WHARF

WOMEN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CAROL ANN HICKS HICKS & ASSOCIATES

CINDY FOX MINOR SMALL WORLD BIG FUN

JOYCE FOWLER PH.D. THE FOWLER INSTITUTE

MARY PARHAM

J KELLY REFERRALS & INFORMATION SERVICES INC.

LAWSON & CO.

NON-TRADITIONAL INDUSTRY JENNIFER HERRON

RETAIL AND DESIGN INDUSTRY AMY DUNNAVANT JUST DOGS!

JOYCE HOLT

JOYCE HOLT WINDOW WORKS

CYNTHIA EAST

CYNTHIA EAST FABRICS

TANARAH HAYNIE TANARAH LUXE FLORAL

GARBO HEARNE

HERRON HORTON ARCHITECT

PYRAMID ART GALLERY

KATIE SHORT

MELISSA TANNER

L. ELIZABETH BOWLES, JD JENNIFER PEPER MARLA JOHNSON NORRIS

MERIDITH HAMILTON RANOUIL

FARM GIRL MEATS

ARISTOTLE

DEE ELIAS

LECIG & J.E. BRYCE BONDING

JANA COHEN

VESTA’S

MLH DESIGNS

JEAN CAZORT WORDSWORTH

ASSET INDUSTRY CYNTHIA L. CONGER

ARKANSAS DESTINATIONS

CINDY CONGER WEALTH MANAGEMENT

NATALIE CANERDAY

CHARLOTTE JOHN

ACTRESS

CHARLOTTE JOHN CO. REAL ESTATE

ROBIN CONNELL

ANNE POWELL-BLACK

PLANTATION SERVICES

AMERICAN HOME LIFE INSURANCE CO.

SARAH TACKETT

CARA HAZLEWOOD

THE AGENCY

LIVE THE HOME LIFE

LISA LEGGETT ASPIRE REALTY

JANET JONES JANET JONES CO.

WOMEN Entrepreneurs E

arlier this year, the Arkansas Times asked if I would

entrepreneurs started or took over businesses that form

work on a project it was pursuing with the Arkansas

the backbone of our communities.

Economic Development Commission, the goal of which was to encourage economic development in the state’s

It was the shortest pitch of my life. “Do it,” Alan Leveritt said.

nonprofit sector. I spoke to the leaders of and wrote about

After brainstorming with several people who have

the national and international nonprofits that have their

knowledge of the leaders in each category, we compiled

global headquarters in Arkansas, asking why they located

a list of women in five different industries and selected

here and why other nonprofits should consider having

about six to eight to portray in each. A priority for us was

their headquarters here, too. It was an opportunity for me

to feature women who Arkansans aren’t so used to seeing

to meet with and learn from a breadth of people I never

in traditional and social media, and our criteria for who is

would have had the chance to speak with otherwise.

profiled is based on range — in experience, backgrounds,

And it made me think. If Arkansas is serious about

age and their particular takes on their industry. All of them

economic development, I thought, we need to focus

have unique stories, all of them came to entrepreneur-

on entrepreneurs. In particular, women entrepreneurs. I

ship in different ways, and all of them had one thing in

approached the Arkansas Times about the idea, ticking

common – never quit if what you are doing is your calling.

off a few women-owned businesses that were still in

Each week in October, look for these women in food,

operation and had been for decades. It was these women

professional services, nontraditional, retail and design,

I thought should be promoted – the ones who started

and assets industries. This week, we focus on women

with nothing or very close to it, stuck it out in good times

entrepreneurs in the food industry; those who own

and bad, and are still here today. In addition or maybe

restaurants, bakeries and catering services. We hope you

because of a variety of reasons – marriage, divorce, having

find inspiration in their stories and motivation in their

and raising children, a love for their profession – these

successes. — KD Reep

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

JUDY WALLERBreece PIZZA PATRIOT

G

ood food, service and hard work have made up Judy Waller Breece’s life.

The youngest of 11 children, she spent most of her time in the kitchen helping her mother cook for the family.

At 13, her father drove her to Harrison where she started her first job as a car hop at the Fischer High Boy. In college at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, she followed her siblings to Aspen, Colo. where she worked for three summers for room, board and 50 cents an hour (plus tips) at Swiss restaurant.

“I’d do it all over again,” Breece said. “I learned so much in those three summers – how to multitask, how to organize my time, how to manage on a budget, how to provide customer service. All of that I still use today.”

It wasn’t until 1972 that Breece opened the first U.S. Pizza Co. with her first husband in Levy. That space, which was a total of 680 sq. ft., held 10 tables, a stone hearth oven, a freezer that did double duty as storage and where the pizzas were topped, and an old refrigerator that held one beer keg and had the taps in the door.

“My husband had worked for Pizza Hut during college, and he said, ‘We should open our own shop.’ So, we did and made everything by hand. We chopped all the fresh vegetables by hand, made the dough and hand rolled it. My employees and I had the roughest knuckles from kneading pizza dough.”

That first U.S. Pizza offered two sizes of pizza – a 10 inch and 13 inch, one sandwich and a fresh green salad. It was the customers who developed the salad supreme, which has become the restaurant’s signature

salad, and Breece incorporated the gluten-free crust and veggie pizzas for people who were looking for healthier food choices.

“You have to pay attention to what the customer wants,” Breece said. “We started offering more salads and pizza toppings like artichoke hearts because our customers wanted more heart-healthy dishes. That was one of the things that set us apart in the 1980s.”

As a result of U.S. Pizza’s approach to fresh food, the company began to grow. In 1976, it opened a second location in Sherwood, and five years later, it moved into

Little Rock with the Hillcrest restaurant.

Breece oversaw all day-to-day operations.

“My husband and I were getting divorced, and I knew I had to make a success of U.S. Pizza,” Breece said. “It was all on a shoestring, and I would advise anyone going into business to put together a budget and stick to it.

Don’t borrow a lot of money.”

Today, there are 14 U.S. Pizza Company restaurants in Arkansas, and Breece and her husband, Randy Breece, are looking at another location in Chenal.

Breece credits Randy with the company’s growth over the last 10 years, especially the renovation of the Hillcrest restaurant and construction of the Rodney Parham and Heights locations.

“We would not be growing the way we have for the past 10 years if it weren’t for Randy,” Breece said. “In fact, I’ve always had an open mind to ideas from my husband, advice from my friend ‘Big’ Earl and attorney Sam Hillburn. Women who want to open their own businesses or are just starting out can benefit from the advice of people who have knowledge and experience.

Definitely accept the help.

“At one time in the later 1970s, I wanted to open a tennis shop. Sam told me, ‘Stick with what you know: pizza and salad.’”

Today, Breece is in the midst of expanding Hillcrest Liquor Store on Kavanaugh as well as testing new recipes and opening additional locations. The key to success, Breece says, is a single-minded determination.

“If you believe strongly enough in what you are doing, you can accomplish anything,” she said. “It helps if failure isn’t a choice, too, but you have to believe in what you are doing more than anyone else.”

“If you believe strongly enough in what you are doing, you can accomplish anything. It helps if failure isn’t a choice, too, but you have to

believe in what you are doing more than anyone else.”

— Judy Waller Breece

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

KAVIONWang HARD WORK, ETHICS FORM BASIS OF KAVION WANG’S SUCCESS

K

avion Wang chose to live in Little Rock after leaving her native Taiwan. She moved to the U.S. by herself, and while she has no biological family here, her coworkers have become part of the tapestry of her life.

Wang’s first job was as an editor at a publishing house in Tainan City, Taiwan. She then became the youngest restaurant manager in that city when she worked for the Silver Carriage Dinner Music House, a restaurant that offered performances and a band that performed American folk favorites. Wang went on to become a manager and the CEO of an automation machine manufacturer before managing the Wang Yan Gu Artistic Tea House, and at night she taught floral design.

In 1988, she came to the United States to make her

mark here. With no family and no real plans, she traveled throughout the country — Pennsylvania, Nebraska and San Antonio — to determine where to live. A friend encouraged her to consider Little Rock, but while she found Arkansas’s capital city nice, she thought it small. A trip home for three months and a return to Little Rock to visit her friend convinced Wang to stay.

“To me, it’s a small town,” Wang said. “But, compared to New York or Chicago, this is the place to stay. I meet people, and they say, ‘You don’t have family here? You are now part of my family.’ People are very friendly here.”

In 1989, Wang started working at Forbidden City when it was on Park Plaza’s lower level. In 1995, she and her friends Steve Shih and Jhy Hae Wang created Fantastic

KRISTI AND APRIL

Williams

BRINGING OLD SCHOOL FLAVOR TO MODERN TASTES

T

he road to success can be crooked, and no one knows this better than Kristi and April Williams at Brown Sugar Bakeshop in Little Rock. The sisters pursued degrees at the University of Central Arkansas and Henderson State University before ever dreaming of opening their own bakery, and their career plans after college never included working together.

“April had graduated and was going to get her master’s degree when she learned she had lupus,” Kristi Williams said. “It was during her recovery that she decided to take cake decorating classes. She was helping out a friend who catered, and I would fill in when they needed help. That’s how the idea was born.”

Both Kristi and April learned to cook and bake from their grandmothers, who would make classic Southern desserts like sock-it-to-me and red velvet cakes, banana pudding and sweet potato pie. It was when Kristi was in

college that she began putting together these family recipes for herself.

“I missed home, and I would try to put together my grandmother’s pound cake, but it would never taste like hers,” Kristi said. “I didn’t get to come home very often so I couldn’t taste what she was doing. I’d call my grandmothers and say, ‘What am I missing?’ I just knew there was something they weren’t telling me that I couldn’t figure out to include.”

When she and April began catering more and more, Kristi approached her sister about opening their own shop.

“I kept telling April she needed to make smaller, individual-sized servings of the cakes she was making because people would buy that over a whole cake,” Kristi said. “I’d show her research on the cupcake trend, but we wanted to do something that would be unique to Little Rock.

That’s why we went with an old-fashioned flavor with a

modern approach.”

They opened their first shop in the River Market in 2009, then moved to their own space in the historic Tuf Nut Lofts building. In fact, Brown Sugar Bakeshop was the flagship business for those shops, which opened in 2010.

“We wanted people to be enveloped by the scent,” Kristi said.“That’s why we moved, because we knew the scent was our signature. When people come into Brown Sugar now, they stop just inside the door, take a deep breath and say, ‘It smells just like my mother’s or grandmother’s or aunt’s house.’ That is a huge compliment to us.”

The Williamses believed in their idea of an old-fashioned dessert parlor so much that they spent every bit of their

Sponsored by

China, which opened in the venerable Heights neighborhood in Little Rock. Wang attributes the longevity of Fantastic China to the quality of the food served and a belief and exercise in sound business ethics.

“Quality is why people come to Fantastic China. Everybody has different tastes and flavors they like, but the quality of the food is the most important thing for our customers. We keep all the same good quality for the people.”

In 2003, Wang expanded the restaurant into the space next door, more than doubling its size. Unlike many other restaurants in Little Rock, clientele didn’t drop off during the recession. She says she’s blessed with a steady stream of regulars.

“Some say I should increase my prices; they’re afraid the restaurant will go away. But we don’t increase our prices unless we have to,”Wang says. “We give back to the community as much as we can, because we cannot survive without community support.”

Wang says she has considered expanding to another location, but the perfect location hasn’t come up yet. Originally thinking of a second Fantastic China, she has decided that if the opportunity presents itself, she’d love to open a European restaurant here, but only if she finds the right location.

“Right now, there are so many restaurants — Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, chain stores, local businesses,”Wang said. “It seems like there’s too much competition. It’s more difficult, but I tell myself, ‘Instead of competition, how about you challenge yourself?’ Every morning when I come here to work, I am very happy. People ask me if I am tired, but I am not. I am here seven days a week, and the people who work here are my coworkers and family, not just employees.”

funding to open their first location. “I wouldn’t tell anyone to open a business on the amount of money we had,” Kristi said. “I think we had $200 left when everything was in place.

But, it motivated us to be a success. That leap of faith carried over when we opened our space in the Tuf Nut Building.

There was nothing in the area at that time. We knew it was an opportunity to be one of the first in the neighborhood and watch it grow, and it was a solid decision.”

The sisters’ partnership works not only because of their dedication but also because each has a specific and equal roll. According to Kristi, she has the vision for Brown Sugar’s dessert parlor while April keeps the business grounded and focuses on making their cakes, cookies, brownies and pies look as good as they taste.

“The restaurant business is real and raw,” Kristi said. “It’s incredibly competitive, and everyone has an idea and an opinion about how you should run your business. We found that the moment we felt we weren’t enough was when we struggled.

What we do now is keep it simple and listen to what we know to be true. We have always believed in our concept of being a dessert parlor offering old-fashioned sweets. If we don’t believe in what we do, no one else will.”

Right now, Brown Sugar Bakeshop doesn’t have any plans to expand into a franchise, but that doesn’t mean the Williams sisters don’t have plans to bring their desserts to as many people as possible.

“We are working with Chef Shuttle to deliver to a customer’s work or home address,” Kristi said. “And a lot of people have asked us – in particular, tourists – if we can give them recipes so they can make their favorites at home. We are working on pre-packaged mixes now so people can have those anywhere, anytime if they can’t get to the shop.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

FAITHCavinAND SHARONBrewer FAITH AND FAMILY KEYS TO TWO SISTERS CATERING SUCCESS

J

ohn Lennon said that life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. In the case of Faith Cavin and Sharon Brewer, Two Sisters Catering happened as a result of what life threw them.

“We were in similar situations in our lives,” Cavin said. “We opened Two Sisters Catering because we needed a way to make a living for our families, and food was what we knew how to do. We never thought it would take off like this.”

In 2000, Cavin and Brewer started making lunches in the galley kitchen of an antiques shop, using their teenage children to make deliveries.

“At that time, I didn’t have a car so we used Sharon’s SUV to make all the deliveries,” Cavin said. “My two girls and her two boys were a lot of help, but they were teenagers, and we knew we’d have to do something different with the business, and soon.

“In the beginning, we would cater for pharmaceutical sales representatives who wanted to provide lunches for doctors’offices and hospital staffs,” Cavin said.“That’s what solidified our catering business. Our specialty was hot meals, and if someone asked for a dish we didn’t serve, we would find the recipe and make it for them. In fact, so many people would drive out to our building to just pick up a cake that we knew we needed to have a more convenient place for them. When the location for the cafe became available, we knew it was an opportunity to better serve our clients.”

Two Sisters Cafe opened in October 2013, which was always Sharon’s dream. The sisters started this business, they said, because they felt like God was impressing upon them to pursue it.

“It came at a time when we were both in need and dedicated to making it work because we didn’t have any other choice but to make it successful,” Cavin said. “When the opportunity to open a cafe arose, we were excited to be able to offer dine-in services and bakery options.”

Today, Two Sisters Catering has expanded to include a full-service restaurant and bakery

in Sherwood. The business just recently began designing wedding and other specialty cakes to complement event catering and the cafe.

Two Sisters Catering has won a number of awards for its food, including Best of the Best for 2007, 2008 and 2010 by the Arkansas DemocratGazette and Best Taste Award for 2010 by the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce’s Taste of the Town. The sisters are considering expanding their service hours to Sunday, and they may expand into the building next door to the cafe.

“We had a wedding and reception in the cafe recently,” Cavin said. “This would be an opportunity for us to really serve our customers who want a turnkey event.”

While Cavin and Sharon pursued their catering business with only the resources they had on hand, Cavin says entrepreneurs shouldn’t go into a business with a lot of overhead. Instead, Cavin says, start small and grow as business allows.

“Our business has grown because people liked what we made, and we accommodated their requests,” Cavin said. “It’s really been by word of mouth and our Cavin that we are where we are today. Two Sisters Catering is a reality because Sharon and I are grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to serve, grateful for the people who believe in us, and grateful for the blessing it has been to us and our families.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

MARY BETHRinggold WHEN GIRL MEETS RESTAURANT: A SUCCESS STORY

M

ary Beth Ringgold and Cajun’s Wharf. It’s possible to have one without the other, but the result isn’t as captivating or nearly as successful. In fact, their history is almost like a novel.

Ringgold’s roots were formed in West Virginia where she grew up in the food business — both her father and grandfather had restaurants — and it’s where she learned a strong work ethic.

“I went to the University of Tennessee to pursue a degree in banking and finance,” Ringgold said. “I was going to be a corporate attorney. When I left home, I said I’d never work in the restaurant business. But, life had a different plan.”

Late in her second year at college, Ringgold’s father had a stroke. Her mother phoned her and said Ringgold would need to find a way to supplement her income at school. She interviewed at the Cajun’s Wharf in Knoxville, Tenn. where she was hired as a bookkeeper.

“At that time, Cajun’s in Knoxville had a new cash register system that would fail, almost nightly,” Ringgold said. “I learned to get them back online, and no one else did. That’s how I worked my way into operations — I made myself indispensable.”

Cajun’s Wharf in Little Rock was the flagship restaurant, and Mike Warr, who was one of the first general managers, gave Ringgold her understanding and appreciation of process, procedure and systems. When she was sent to train as a manager in 1985, she started washing dishes, breaking down the machine and reassembling it, then moved on to the fry station, eventually making sauces ,then working every station in the kitchen.

“The owners at that time believed you had to understand every process in the restaurant so you could manage it effectively,” Ringgold said. “They were right, and I still believe that today. You have to be a subject matter expert if you are going to train other people. Otherwise, why would someone listen to you about how to resolve a problem if you can’t resolve it yourself?”

Warr went on to open restaurants in Memphis and later purchased Cajun’s from its original owner, Bruce Anderson, in 1986. He made Ringgold a minority partner in 1987 where she served as general manager. She held that post until 1993 when Cajun’s was purchased by the Landry’s Seafood chain. She then took a temporary position with a local attorney and entrepreneur, Graham Catlett, who was operating a food distribution company in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Initially, the company focus was on selling American retail products to grocery stores. Ringgold was hired to help grow the food-service division and train people on the differences of American products and how to best use them. That temporary position actually lasted for two and a half years.

“It was a really interesting study in business,” Ringgold says of her time abroad. “I was in my 30s and felt like I could do anything. When I came back to the U.S., I continued in consulting, but the restaurant business was in my blood.”

In 1997, Ringgold formed a partnership group with her sister, Sandy Chance; Marilyn Green, and James Willis, who started at Cajun’s at 16 as a dishwasher.

Together, they opened Caper’s in 1997 and purchased Cajun’s in 1999. Since then, Cajun’s has reclaimed its reputation for great seafood, an extensive and exceptional wine list and its 10,000square foot bar and outdoor deck area.

As a result, Cajun’s was awarded the prestigious Wine Spectators Award of Excellence in 2001 and every year since as well as the Wine Enthusiast Award of Distinction. In August, Capers was recognized with the prestigious Achievement of Excellence Award from the American Culinary Federation.

Ringgold and the Cajun’s partnership went on to open the Market at Capers, a gourmet-to-go market, in 2005, and Copper Grill and Grocery in 2007. Today, Cajun’s has expanded its service to include lunch, which is a first in the history of the restaurant.

“Copper Grill was an opportunity to grow our management team,” Ringgold said. “Many of our chefs, servers, bartenders and staff have been with us for years, and we try to cultivate that kind of loyalty through our culture.

“What I have learned in more than 30 years in this industry is to focus on why I’m in it. I love to serve people good food where they have a good time. That’s what makes the work worth it, what makes the long days and short nights fun. Anyone who wants to go into this business needs to get used to getting paid last and create a savings for the lean times. They are going to happen, but if you are prepared for it, have a strong work culture and trust in your partners, you’ll get through it and see success.”

Sponsored by

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

JAN Lewandowski BLUE CAKE COMPANY IN THE BLACK WITH ARTISAN PASTRIES, CUSTOM DECOR

I

f your happy place is where sugar, flour and butter come together in beautiful and delicious ways, you’d be hard-pressed to find a happier place than The Blue Cake Company in Little Rock. Much like its owner, Jan Lewandowski, The Blue Cake Company is unassuming, welcoming and beautiful.

“My husband, Steve, and I have had the bakery for nine years, and when I began, I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll get to do whatever I want! I can make all the pastries and cakes and desserts I’ve always wanted to do.’ But what I learned was the bakery business is much more intense than that,” Lewandowski said.

Lewandowski began her small business journey in Arizona where she attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute and trained as a pastry chef. It’s also where she met her husband, who was originally from Little Rock, and who later would bring her to Arkansas.

“At first, I thought I wanted to be a nurse so I started school pursuing that,” Lewandowski said. “I didn’t know you could learn to be a chef, much less a pastry chef, so when I learned about the culinary institute, I switched gears.”

When she and her husband moved to Little Rock, Lewandowski worked for a few culinary institutions in Little Rock - Capers, the Country Club of Little Rock and the Peabody Hotel among them. It’s when she worked at The Capital Hotel as a pastry chef that she first began to decorate cakes professionally. “We put together a wedding cake that was covered in sugar flowers, and when it was finished, it just glowed,” Lewandowski said. “I stood back and thought, ‘I want to do this all the time.’

When the hotel closed for renovations, I took the opportunity to make that come true.”

When Blue Cake opened initially, making cakes and fillings from scratch is what set it apart. It was at the beginning of the artisan trend in bakeries, and customers were looking for cakes that weren’t made from mixes. As a pastry chef, Lewandowski liked to use mousses, ganaches and Swiss buttercreams to make the cakes not so sweet and also as a way to develop new flavors.

As a business owner, however, she had to adjust to what her customers preferred.

“With desserts and birthday cakes, customers tend to gravitate toward the familiar, and the majority of our customers like a sweeter style of frosting and traditional flavors,” Lewandowski said. “It’s in the cake decorating where everyone likes to mix it up and take chances.”

When The Blue Cake Company opened, no one in Central Arkansas was really pursuing the types of 3D cakes the bakery is now known for making. Lewandowski credits the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes for exposing cake sculpture to a broad audience. “Once people saw what was possible, our business took off,” she said.

“Now, we have customers come in who have sketches of what they want, and it’s a lot of fun to help them realize their visions.”

But Lewandowski cautions that the creative side of the bakery isn’t all there is to being successful.

“If you want to open a bakery or pursue a culinary art business, be prepared for long hours,” she said. “When we

opened almost 10 years ago, I was working 12 hour days – sometimes I worked 30 hours straight. It’s not something where you can come in at 8 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. You have to be committed to doing everything yourself – from baking, decorating, taking orders and delivery to inventory, unloading trucks, payroll and other demands of daily business. You also need to have a strong support system of family and friends.”

Lewandowski advises aspiring bakers and decorators to work in their industries first to learn how to organize space and determine an optimal workflow. “You think, ‘Oh, this will be easy. We’ll just have everything wherever we want it,’ but it’s not that way at all. We’ve gotten that process down now, and we have a team of bakers and decorators who focus on what they do best, but it took us years to get that process down.”

Lewandowski also advises bakeries and pastry shops to focus on a few things they do well and find their niche. “I thought I would make all kinds of things in addition to custom cakes, and it was fun to have that variety, but you have to determine how much time that will take to make, how much to charge, how much display space it will consume, etc.,” Lewandowski said. “If it’s not making money for you, it’s not worth pursuing.

Now, we channel that creativity in competitions and at bridal fairs.”

Today, Lewandowski says she’s in the “fun stage” of business ownership, one in which she can focus on the creative side instead of the day-to-day details. In addition to her work at The Blue Cake Company, Lewandowski teaches cake decorating and is a pastry instructor at Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute.

“It gives me a chance to help other bakers and pastry chefs grow and go on to open their own businesses,” she said. “It’s nice to see employees and students move on to become master decorators and realize their vision.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

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CAPIPeck

PASSION, HOSPITALITY, HARD WORK FORM TRIO’S

I

t’s a wise person who listens to her muse and follows that guidance to success. Capi Peck, the owner of Trio’s Restaurant in Little Rock, is an artist at heart and uses food and hospitality as her mediums.

“I grew up in hospitality. My grandparents owned the Hotel Sam Peck from 1938 until the early 1970s, and I learned from them what it takes to have a successful business – hard work and vision,” said Peck. “I never thought I’d be a restaurateur. In fact, I studied art history, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do.”

It wasn’t until Peck catered a party for her sister that she decided to try food as a career. “I always enjoyed cooking, and I would make the food for friends and family gatherings, but it was at my sister’s party that someone said I should consider catering as a career. I thought about that for days

– it wouldn’t leave me. That’s when I knew I should try it.”

That was 1986, and Peck, her then-husband, Brent Peterson, and two other women opened Trio’s as the anchor business in Pavilion in the Park. At the time, Trio’s consisted of a gourmet shop and retail outlet that included cookbooks, coffee and cooking gadgets. What happened was the retail aspect didn’t really take off, but the food did.

“You have to be flexible in business,” Peck said. “We recognized that the retail aspect of Trio’s wasn’t really working, but our customers were asking more and more for our dishes. That’s what made us pursue a restaurant where we served white-tablecloth food in a casual atmosphere.”

Peck uses recipes from her family’s hotel, including the dressing for Trio’s signature Peck salad, but she continues to pursue recipe development and researches wines to

pair with entrees. She emphasizes that in food, entrepreneurs must stay relevant, whether it’s in culinary pursuits or managing resources.

“Both my mother and grandfather tried to talk me out of going into the restaurant business,” Peck said. “But it was my passion. Nurturing people through food was something I couldn’t not do, and I learned from my parents and

ALEXISJones

SOUTHERN GIRL BRINGS WORLDWIDE INFLUENCE TO LITTLE ROCK

M

adame C.J. Walker, this country’s first female millionaire, said she got her start by giving herself a start. In the case of Alexis Jones, owner and visionary of Natchez in Little Rock, she took that sentiment to heart.

“My family is not a cooking family,” Jones said. “My mother likes to joke that I wanted to learn early to cook so I could know what a good home-cooked meal was. My interest and appreciation in good food was instilled at a young age because of my parent’s appreciation. We did a bit of traveling, and I was eating more exotically at a younger age than most. My first food memory is eating raw oysters with my dad at the age of 2. ‘Nailing a dozen’ was usually a weekly ritual shortly afterwards.”

Jones, 30, started working in the industry 10 years ago, learning every aspect of the hospitality industry. She switched college majors from political science and pre-law to hospitality management. While in school at the University of Mississippi, she took summers to travel and work. After

graduating, she pursued internships and employment, eventually starting at the O Street Mansion in Dupont Circle in Woshington D.C. The mansion’s owner hired Jones to be a server, but she quickly started filling in as hostess, valet, bartender and hotel management. Toward the end of her employment there, Jones worked as the wine steward while taking sommelier classes outside of work and had input on menu development. She had applied to several different culinary schools and been accepted to start at I.C.E. in New York in the winter, but during that summer applied to Kendall College in Chicago and was accepted.

“I took my internship with John Currence in Oxford, Miss. who had just won the James Beard Best Chef in the South award,” Jones said. “While at Kendall, some of the chefs recommended a few different places where I should go work, and one of those was in Little Rock at Ashley’s.”

Jones worked the lunches at Ashley’s as well as banquets and, eventually, dinner.

“It was a great experience, and I had a lot of creative freedom from developing the lunch menu to the daily amuse-bouche,” Jones said. “I respected the chefs and had begun to feel acclimated with the people of Little Rock; I could see myself staying around for a couple more years so I bought a house. I left Ashley’s in 2012 and took a few stages around the country, I had really wanted to do a pop-up restaurant in downtown Little Rock and was approached by Graham Catlett about a property he had in his building. I really liked the space, it reminded me of

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grandparents that when you treat people with love and respect – be it customers, employees, vendors or partners – they will return. We grew into catering a year or so after we opened Trio’s as a restaurant because of that.”

This philosophy has worked so well for Peck, in fact, that eight of Trio’s employees have been with Trio’s for more than 20 years. “We have multiple generations of staff here, too,” Peck said. “You’ll see servers and bussers today who are children of our staff from when we first opened. We like to create an ambiance at Trio’s that’s accommodating and makes you feel at home, whether you dine here or work here.”

For people like Peck who are considering food as a career, she recommends they do something to set themselves apart from other restaurants and food-related businesses. “At Trio’s, we focus on what we call ‘good’ food, which means what we serve is good for the body, soul and planet as well as tastes good. As much as possible, we buy locally sourced ingredients, and all the art we display is from Arkansas artists. It’s a way to showcase just how unique and wonderful our community is.”

Peck also advises entrepreneurs to work every position in the restaurant, food service or culinary retail outlet to understand just what it takes to operate.

“It’s not glamourous,” Peck said. “It’s early mornings and late nights.

It’s heavy lifting, getting dirty, washing floors and then cashing out customers with a smile on your face. But, if you love what you do, the work isn’t as hard.”

“If I had it to do over again, I’d give myself more time. Because, even after 10 years in the industry, there was so much I

didn’t know.” — Alexis Jones some of my favorite places in New Orleans and Chicago. I was offered a deal I couldn’t refuse and opened two months after.”

Jones signed the lease at the end of August 2012 and opened in October. When she opened, she was the only one in the kitchen and had only a few servers.

“If I had it to do over again, I’d give myself more time,” she said.

“Because ,even after 10 years in the industry, there was so much I didn’t know.”

Natchez, which is named for her mother’s home city, operates on the concept of daily specials with some dishes offered every day.

Jones is quick to point out, however, that Natchez’s success isn’t all because of her.

“The team here is what makes Natchez successful,” she said. “It takes all of us to give our guests the experience of excellent food and service.”

DIANA

Bratton MOTHER KNEW BEST FOR RESTAURATEUR

D

iana Bratton nearly went back to Texas after a year in Hot Springs. Facing divorce, living in a state she barely knew, it would have been easy to go home, but her mom’s suggestion to tough it out led to the creation of two of the Spa City’s favorite restaurants.

Bratton, the eighth of nine children in her Texas family, took an aptitude test in the 11th grade that indicated she’d best excel in fashion, art or cooking. Her dad didn’t want her working in a restaurant, so she went to school for fashion merchandising, but five years later she changed her path.

“I called my mom and told her, ‘Mom, I want to go to cooking school.’ And she said, ‘I just want you to finish something. I’ll be proud of you, whatever you do.’ “ Bratton enrolled at El Centro in Dallas while working at a microfiche company. “The dean of the cooking school told me, ‘You’re going to have to quit your real job. You can’t skirt the fence, you have to jump in.’ I was living in Dallas and couldn’t afford to quit that job and take a lower paying job with no benefits. So I worked almost full time, went to school full time and worked almost full time at City Cafe.

“After about six or seven months at City Cafe, they called me into the office and promoted me to sous chef while I was still going to culinary school. By the time I graduated I was promoted to chef. When I graduated top of my class, student of the year, my mom about fell out.”

Bratton later married and moved with her new husband to Hot Springs, where she worked at Diamante Country Club. Eventually, she decided to create her own restaurant.

“I had looked all over town and what I could afford needed way too much work. I saw Peter’s Paint Store, which it looked like a paint can, and I went and said, ‘I’m looking for a spot to put a restaurant. I came from Dallas, and I worked at Diamante, and I just want a shop.’ Unbeknownst to me, he went to Dallas to City Cafe to see if I was legit. So he built on this whole thing for me to have this restaurant.

“People loved what we were doing at City Cafe, and I wanted to bring that to Hot Springs.

My landlord and I were handing out menus at places around town. I opened the door that day and nearly passed out – I lost the color in my face and had to go stand in the walk-in. There were people everywhere — standing and sitting and eating off the counter. It was nuts! We went from four employees to twelve in a month.”

But Bratton’s marriage was starting to fall apart, and about a year after Cafe 1217 opened, it was over.

“I thought about going back to Texas. But my mom told me, ‘Just stick it out for a year or two and see what happens.’ And within a year I met the love of my life. We fit together like a hand in a glove.”

Eight years ago, Bratton and her husband decided to buy the old hardware store next to Cafe 1217 and renovate it into Taco Mama’s, which was inspired by Bratton’s mother. At City Cafe and at both of her restaurants, Bratton has believed in the same things.

“I love working at City Cafe, I felt like it was my place and treated it like it was my place. If you can get someone to work for you and take care of your place like it’s their own place, you got it.”

“People loved what we were doing at City Cafe, and I wanted to bring that to Hot Springs. My landlord and I were handing out menus at places around town. I opened the door that day and nearly passed out. There were people everywhere — standing

and sitting and eating off the counter. It was nuts!”

— Diana Bratton

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Sponsored by

CINDY FOX

CAROL ANN

Minor

Hicks

C

LONG HOURS NOTHING NEW TO TEACHER TURNED LAWYER

arol Ann Hicks understands working half days. Sometimes, those 12 hours happen early, sometimes late, but for the bulk of her career as a lawyer, those half days were every day.

After 10 years of teaching school, Hicks decided to go to law school.

“At that time, I was in my 30s and had children at home. The youngest was starting first grade. That child, now a corporate attorney herself, sometimes teases me that I was irresponsible to go

to law school and start a practice while raising a family.”

What interested her most about a career in law, Hicks said, was helping people who were in the most need: children and families.

“When I passed the bar exam, I got calls from friends asking me to represent them in divorces or custody cases. I wasn’t sure that I wanted my own business, but I had the work so I rented an office. And I rented one that came with a desk.”

Hicks continued to take on cases while caring for her family, which she

says was difficult to balance. “I would work, come home and cook supper, get everyone into bed and settled, then go back to work,” she said. “On Fridays, I would stay up all night catching up on my caseload.”

Hicks’practice grew to the point she hired additional lawyers and support staff, eventually founding Hicks & Associates in North Little Rock. This allowed her more flexibility and to enjoy the practice of law, which is always challenging her knowledge and skills.

“Every situation is different,” Hicks said.

“I’ve been doing this since 1993, and every week I encounter a new legal situation. I would advise anyone who was planning to open a law practice to develop a good group of attorney friends for support and whom you can call to talk over difficult problems.”

Hicks also is a trained certified mediator, and while she can mediate any case, she focuses on those that involve divorce, custody and other family issues.

“People know their own situation better than anyone else,” Hicks said. “What I want to do is help families customize a solution based on their own needs. If I, as a neutral third party, can facilitate a discussion and help people arrive at that solution, everyone wins.

“As an attorney, I take every case I represent seriously. If a situation can’t be mediated, I want to work with my client as a partner to get the best outcome possible. What I tell people is, hiring an attorney is like buying a pair of shoes, not every pair is going to fit. You have to find an attorney you can work with that fits your needs.” n

N

MINOR IS AN ARCHITECT OF MEMORIES

ever in Cindy Fox Minor’s wildest dreams did she imagine she’d become a travel agent.

“I have a degree in history. The original plan was law school,” said Minor, the owner of Small World Big Fun, a travel agency specializing in family vacations.

Each year, Small World Big Fun helps thousands of families plan vacations to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla. “But Disney is not all we do,” Minor said.

“We also plan vacations to destinations all over the world, including Europe, South America and China.”

Minor knows that families are busy and planning a Disney vacation can be complicated. Small World Big Fun exists to take the stress out of vacation planning. “My clients realize that the time they have with their children is limited and precious. Family vacations are a priority to them, and my job is to make planning those vacations easy.”

Minor’s passion is to help families connect and spend quality time together.

She began planning trips to Disney World for friends as a hobby more than 20 years ago.

“Vacation planning turned out to be a great outlet for my penchant for research and planning. It didn’t occur to me that I could actually get paid to do this until early 2000. A friend was planning a trip, and I was sharing some tips and information with her.

Another friend overheard our conversation and suggested I talk to her mother. I said,‘Oh, is she planning a trip to Disney World?’ She said, ‘No, my mother is the vice president of leisure travel for a local travel agency. You need to go to work for her.’So I did. I worked for that agency as a part-time independent contractor for seven years.”

In 2008, Minor was at a point in her life where she was facing some big changes. “I needed to go back to work full time,” she said. “Being a travel agent was the only thing that made sense to me, but I knew that I couldn’t make the money I needed working for somebody else.”

She started her own travel business

— at the beginning of a recession, with no money, no guaranteed income and no safety net. “It seemed ludicrous. Who starts a travel agency when the economy is so bad? But, I knew in my gut that starting my own agency was the right decision, even though I was petrified.”

A close friend, Vivian Blair, gave her the nudge she needed. “Vivian told me

point-blank, ‘You can do this.’ She gave me a boot pendant I wear on a necklace every day. It was a not-so-subtle kick to get me off center, and it reminds me every day to keep walking forward.”

One year after founding Small World Big Fun, Minor was awarded the Authorized Disney Vacation Planner designation, and recently she was appointed to Disney’s EarMarked Travel Advisory Council, a group of 20 travel agency owners and managers who are selected by Disney leadership to review travel industry trends and share feedback on a variety of business topics. In the past six years, she has grown a hobby into a multimillion-dollar business with 18 agents in four states.

“If you know you can do it, but fear is holding you back, take the leap,” Minor said. “Don’t let fear stop you.” n

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JOYCEFowler, PH.D. DEEP ROOTS OF STRENGTH CARRY FOWLER

I

t takes someone with a certain strength of character to look within and accept her strengths, weaknesses, needs, wants. But it takes a person with a unique depth to help others do this. Joyce Fowler, Ph.D., is that person.

Fowler, the founder and president of The Fowler Institute, knew she wanted to be a psychologist from the time she was 19 years old and attended the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

“I started college to study science and biology, but I took my first psychology class and loved it,” Fowler said. “I was considering psychology as a major, so I visited with my uncle, who was an academic and clinical psychologist at a medical school in Oklahoma. We discussed the profession and the many different things that a psychologist could do.”

Fowler earned her undergraduate degree in three and a half years, then earned her master’s in social work from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She worked in many different settings, including community mental health, residential treatment, inpatient rehabilitation, inpatient substance abuse and employee assistance before returning to school to work on her doctorate in psychology. It was when she moved to Little Rock to work for an agency that she developed a plan for beginning a private practice.

“I negotiated with my employer to use my office in the evenings to begin seeing people privately once I became licensed to practice psychotherapy,”Fowler said.“I began seeing more and more people until I rented my own office and had to cut back on my hours with my employer. At first, I went from five days to three days to two days a week until I went into private practice full time.

“I come from a family who values hard work, education, service to others and living what you value. I found being an entrepreneur was the best way to realize these values.”

After six years in private practice, Fowler pursued her doctorate in clinical psychology while continuing to build her business. “I was limited to providing psychotherapy

services with my master’s degree, and I still wanted to become a psychologist,” Dr. Fowler said. “I didn’t want to lose any of the progress I’d made in building my practice so I continued to work nights and weekends while also completing coursework and getting clinical psychology training.”

Fowler credits the guidance and counsel of her attorney, accountant and banker for helping her develop the business side of her practice and craft a five-year

business plan at the beginning. She also had the counsel of other private practitioners who mentored her.

Today, The Fowler Institute has expanded its staff and developed a team to provide a broad range of comprehensive services. It also is a training site for doctoral psychology trainees, and the comprehensive assessment/testing services has enhanced the practice’s ability to understand clients and develop better interventions.

“These testing services also have led to consulting opportunities with other clinicians and organizations,” Fowler said.

Fowler notes continuing education/lifelong learning, an enduring commitment and passion for her work, and networking as reasons for her success as an entrepreneur and psychologist.

“I would not be in practice without the relationships I have developed over the years,” Fowler said. “Get to know your peers, keep abreast of what’s happening in your profession or industry, and contribute to it. Otherwise, you risk becoming isolated and out of touch, and you could become stagnant. I also believe it is important to give back to your profession and invest in the next generation.”

Passion for the work you pursue will help carry you through the tough times, Fowler said. “Just as important is the love and support from my family, which has sustained me during difficult times. When you own your business, you take on a lot of risk, put in a lot of sweat equity, and at the end of the day you are the one left to handle the crises. There are times when life can get out of balance, and it’s OK if it is temporary, but it doesn’t need to be a way of life. It is important to maintain a healthy balance personally and professionally.

“My uncle died a few months ago. At his memorial, this quote from a poem he wrote spoke to me as I strive to keep a healthy work-life balance: ‘… take heart most of all from where you’ve come, from where you are, and especially, my family, rejoice in that quiet but enduring love of each one for the other!’ ” n

“My uncle died a few months ago. At his memorial, this quote from a poem he wrote spoke to me as I strive to keep a healthy work-life balance: ‘… take heart most of all from where you’ve come, from where you are, and especially, my family, rejoice in that quiet but enduring love of each one for the other!’ ” — Joyce Fowler, Ph.D

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MARYParham PASSION, GRACE KEYS TO PARHAM’S SUCCESS

M

ary Parham, the founder of J Kelly Referrals and Information Services Inc. in Little Rock, leads her life by faith in her family, God, community and herself.

“God gave me a purpose, which is to serve the community,” Parham said.“One day I sat down in my living room and wrote a business plan to address the needs in our communities that were not being met. I stepped out on faith with $600 to start J Kelly Referrals, which is named after my father, and I felt there was no greater calling in my life.”

Parham followed that passion to improve the opportunities for Arkansas, raise awareness of minority health and diversity issues, and hire people who need a second chance. She quit her job at St. Vincent Health System in 1999 and began working out of her home, providing business-to-business telecommunication services and free referrals to the public.

While Parham knew she would succeed, others weren’t as

sure in the beginning.

“My family and friends would ask me why I would quit a good job when I’d never run a business,” she said. “I just marveled at such a question, thinking ‘Well, if we stopped being creative when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, we would never have experienced the technology of today.’”

Parham is no stranger to challenges and adversity. A relative molested her when she was 9 years old. She was utterly devastated, feeling like she had no one to talk to about it.

“I turned to the Lord, who gave me strength and courage to overcome,”Parham said.“He gladly took my burden so that I could forgive myself as well as the relative in question. From that point on, I decided that I am more than a conqueror and

MICHELETowne SMALL BUDGETS, BIG DREAMS LEAD TOWNE AND INVITING ARKANSAS

M

ichele Towne embodies the characteristics that her publication, Inviting Arkansas, portrays: She’s welcoming, beautiful, Southern, hospitable and charitable. A natural leader, Towne began her career in sales, ultimately moving into starting her own publication in 2002.

“My first job was selling office equipment for straight commission,”Towne said.“It taught me to manage a territory like it was my own business; if I didn’t sell anything, I didn’t make anything. After some initial success, the reality check came when I slacked off one month and didn’t get a paycheck.

So I learned early about self-motivation and perseverance.”

Towne said that first job shaped her career, and she went on from there to work for herself. In 2001, she had an idea to start a social, fashion and entertaining magazine for Central Arkansas. Towne saw it as an opportunity to build a business from the ground up, which she had never done.

“Being competitive by nature, it was a challenge I couldn’t resist,”she said.“Since my children were both in grade school

then, I felt the timing and schedules would never be better, so we launched in early 2002.”

A native of Memphis, Tenn., Towne didn’t know anyone when she moved to Little Rock.

She says that through Inviting Arkansas, she was invited to and attended “almost every type of social event in Central Arkansas imaginable.

The magazine has allowed me to meet so many wonderful, generous people from all walks of life.

We work closely with the nonprofit community; these relationships have rewarded our staff with insight and appreciation we would not otherwise have been exposed to.”

All of the events posed a challenge for Towne, too. Working with a small budget, she thought she could put together a part-time staff, but there were so many components to publishing – scheduling, writing, photography, layout, advertising sales and

wouldn’t let the regret of yesterday destroy my hopes for the future.”

AfterParhamfounded her company, funding and breaking into the market were her main challenges. By supplying diversity to the business community, she exposes her clients to an untapped resource while also helping the community.

While it was hard to sell her company’s concept to a bank, through perseverance she serves as the president and CEO of J Kelly, as well as hosts her own radio program, J Kelly Business to Business, on KPZK “Praise 102.5 FM” every Saturday at 10 a.m.

Throughout the company’s 15 years, Parham has worked with such clients as CenterPoint Energy, Entergy and Intralot.

Sponsored by

“If we stopped being creative when Alexander Graham Bell

KAYBona

invented the telephone, we would

never have experienced the technology of today.”

— Mary Parham Her career achievements include completing the business program at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; being named the U.S. Small Business Person of the Year; the Minority Business Enterprise of the Year for eight years running from the ArkansasMississippi Minority Business Council; and the 2007 Tax Bite Award in recognition of Outstanding Support of the Pulaski Empowerment Zone. In 2007, the Racial Cultural Diversity Board appointed her its commissioner, and in 2008 Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Parham to the Arkansas Workforce Investment Board, where she is still an active commissioner. She has accomplished all of this with the support of her husband, Herbert, to whom she has been married for more than 30 years.

Her counsel for others considering starting their own businesses is based in passion, not business.

“Make sure it is not only about making money,” Parham said. “You have to be committed, and no matter your gender or your own family circumstances, you must be passionate about your business and employees. Don’t let the regrets of yesterday destroy the hopes of tomorrow.” n

distribution, among others — that she had to build a staff, and quickly.

“We were ultimately able to assemble a small, full-time staff of very talented people who truly believed in the magazine and gave their hearts and souls to make it successful,” Towne said. “I will be forever grateful to all of those people who have worked for me. We could not have done it without them. The 2008 recession was certainly no fun for anyone, especially small businesses. We kept our heads down and our staff lean, and were fortunate to have loyal readers and advertisers to pull us through.”

More than a decade later, Inviting Arkansas remains a premier social and lifestyle magazine for Central Arkansas and has featured personalities from Gov. Mike Beebe to G. Dennis to P. Allen Smith. Towne says the mission of the publication is the same today as it was the day she launched the publication: to show photos of happy people enjoying a great time, generally in support of a great cause that benefits the community.

“When you see us taking those pictures at a black-tie event, more than likely we have on our jeans and boots underneath our gowns,”Towne said.

Her advice to others considering taking on a publication of their own is similar to the advice for living a happy life: Follow your dream.

“Don’t sleep your way through the planning process,” Towne said.

“And never take anything for granted. Your idea may sound great to you and those around you, but research and testing are critical.

We printed mock issues before our launch and showed them to hundreds of people before making our final decision to go. If you will need employees, hire people who believe in your concept and who will be dedicated to its ultimate success. Be realistic about how quickly success will come; nothing is as easy as it looks from a time perspective and certainly not from a financial perspective. But, if it really is your dream, don’t give up.” n

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

NEWSPAPER GIG NOW IN BONA’S BLOOD

O

f all the things Kay Bona thought she would do as a career, publishing a daily newspaper in Arkansas was never one of them.

“I was living in Colorado and working as the receptionist for a CBS television affiliate,” Bona said. “That’s where I met my husband, Don. He was running the station, and he was a Razorback through and through.”

Kay and Don married and moved back to Arkansas to care for Don’s parents. It was this same time that Bill Rector asked them to take on the Daily Record, Central Arkansas’s source for real estate, legal and business information.

The Daily Record, a weekly newspaper, provides news about business and commerce, and it is a resource for public notices and business data. While the newspaper had survived seven decades, it was waning in the 1990s.

“I didn’t know the first thing about working at a newspaper,” Bona said. “When we became partners in 2001, I worked every position except layout and mockup. I had to learn how to post the public notices, handle subscriptions and work with advertisers. It was a blur.”

Within the first few years, the Bonas reduced staff to just four employees: original staff members Bill Rector, Amy Sherrill (who remains with the Daily Record today), and just themselves. Gradually, they began adding staff, the first of which was David Smiley, a recent graduate in information technology, who Bona credits with bringing the paper’s processes into the 21st century.

“At one point, we grew to 25 employees,”Bona said. “Many of our employees have been with us for years. We function much like a family. In fact, our son, Bobby, is the general manager. Our niece, Becca, is the managing editor. And Molly Rector, Bill Rector’s daughter, is a columnist.”

Throughout more than a decade of ownership and management, Bona and her team have transformed the Daily Record into more than a public notice and data publication. Today, the Daily Record each week brings its readers in-depth articles and profiles from consistent, award-winning journalists and photographers.This complements the paper’s consistent promotion of the most comprehensive information on real estate, the courts and local business activity, all gathered each day from public records, including

lawsuits, court actions, business licenses, tax liens, corporate charters, building permits, deeds, foreclosures, bankruptcies and more.

“It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to take on this challenge and turn it into an opportunity for our family and community,” Bona said. “If I

had it all to do over again, even after all I know now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s been a long and wonderful ride.”

Bona notes that while the newspaper industry has changed radically, the Daily Record is still a product that people want and use.

“You have to be willing to change,” Bona said.

“Particularly in the newspaper business, you have to evolve with the way people consume their news. If that’s the Internet for some and newsprint for others, we work to accommodate both.”

Bona follows this advice with management, too. “You have to be patient and not expect too much at one time,” she said. “Building a business and its success doesn’t happen overnight. You have to work at it one day at a time, and you have to be patient and persistent.” n

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MARALeveritt AUTHOR LEVERITT PADDLES WITH PURPOSE FOR SURVIVAL

T

he Arkansas Delta is fertile in many aspects: rich soil for cotton, rice and soybeans and as the birthplace of the blues. It also has poverty, apathy and marginalized citizens. It was in the world’s spotlight when three teenage boys were accused and convicted of the brutal murders of three elementary schoolboys in West Memphis in 1993-94.

Tagged the West Memphis Three, they spent almost two decades in prison before entering Alford pleas, which allowed them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.

It took one person to tell the collective story of the West Memphis Three, and by telling it in such an effective way, she brought enough attention to the case to help them leave prison. For Mara Leveritt, the power of telling a story well and accurately led to her career as an author

and activist for justice.

“Sometimes life presents us with one-time opportunities,” Leveritt said. “A divorce in 1995 became that for me. I spent some time alone, in the mountains and at the sea, and decided to throw all my resources — spiritual, intellectual and financial — into the possibility of a book about a story I believed needed to be told.

“Realistically, with a part-time job, I had one year to get an agent and a publisher’s advance. My fallback plan, if time ran out, was a job waitressing at Waffle House. Seriously — I’ve always liked Waffle House. But a publisher bought my book proposal in the nick of time, setting me on a course that has since allowed me to merge my concerns about justice with my craft of writing.”

Leveritt doesn’t care for true crime, but she does care

about how public officials behave in the justice system.

She first wrote “The Boys on the Tracks,” about corruption in Saline County. Next, matching her natural talent for writing with her honed reporting skills, she turned to court papers to find answers in the West Memphis Three case. What she found were more questions. It was then she decided to write “Devil’s Knot.” This summer, she self-published “Dark Spell,” her second book about the case.

“Challenges and opportunities are part of earning a living,” Leveritt said. “For example, banks don’t recognize

GLORIALawson TRUSTING IN THE EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS

“I

’vealwayshadastrongindependentstreak,sothatlaunched itall,”saidGloriaLawson,ownerandCEOofLawson&Co.,a marketing, printing and image consulting company in Little Rock.

True to her spirit, Lawson says she always believed she would have her own business; she just did not know what industry. After growing up in Heber Springs, Lawson began her career in administrative roles, which she says afforded her a different perspective on business.

“When I first started working, I was in secretarial roles, and I learned you had to be flexible and learn all the different advances that were happening,” Lawson said. “I learned in sales that customer service was the first priority.”

Lawson took on the position of office manager for the Arkansas Times, the first one ever for the publication. It was the Times publisher, Alan Leveritt, who told her she should be in sales.

“That scared me to death,” Lawson said. “I told him, ‘Let’s see how this office manager role goes,’ but after about

a year or so, I’d learned how the business worked, how publishing worked, and I said, ‘I think I’d like to start in sales.’

“Alan said I had the personality for sales because I was approachable, all business and wouldn’t waste anyone’s time. When you’re in your 20s, you don’t see that in yourself, but he was right, and I still try to be all those things in business today.”

Lawson continued in sales roles, moving from publishing to become the first marketing director of Brent & Sam’s Cookies. It was printing, however, that would ultimately lead her to starting her own business.

“At one time, I had accepted a sales position in Fort Worth, and I was traveling back and forth betweenTexas and Arkansas,” she said.“A friend told me about a job with Little Rock Printing.

I didn’t know anything about printing, but I ended up loving it, and I did really well. There is so much jargon and specifications in printing that your customers just don’t want to deal with.

An effective sales person could take that pain away and

deliver them just what they wanted, or better. I really like that.”

After a few years, Lawson said, she could see the glass ceiling in working for other companies. It was the reason she decided to strike out on her own, and opening her own company on almost nothing but faith is what made it successful.

“I sold my house and took the equity in it to start Lawson & Co. Graphics and Printing,” Lawson said. “I didn’t have a significant other or a nest egg to rely on, so I knew I had to make it work.”

Today, Lawson & Co. has expanded to marketing and consulting in addition to providing print brokering services.

“Sometimes life presents us with

one-time opportunities.”

— Mara Leveritt ‘writer’ as much security for a loan. On the other hand, the freedom the word holds is invaluable. The best move I made was to seek serious financial advice — and follow it.”

While traveling, researching and writing drafts for “Devil’s Knot,” Leveritt still had to accomplish all the administrative, public relations and accounting functions of her business as a self-employed professional. She took a practical approach to keeping her head above water.

“For me, survival has included partnering professionally and personally with another self-employed woman, living modestly — meaning no lavish vacations, old cars kept in good condition, etc. — hoping for the next contract while not betting on it, availing myself of talented friends, trying to laugh off rejection and accepting with profound gratitude every good thing that has come my way,” she said. “Canoeing works as a metaphor. Every day, you slip into the river with an idea — but no certainty — about what lies ahead. You paddle, trust your skills and stay ready to hunker down if conditions turn fast.”

In addition to her three books, Leveritt served executive producer of a feature film based on “Devil’s Knot.” She is now working on the third book in her “Justice Knot Trilogy” about the West Memphis Three, and she speaks often at universities, legal conferences and legal reform events. Her philosophy about work extends to all parts of her life, and Leveritt embraces it with pragmatic simplicity.

“Somehow or other, you must be organized,” she said. “If you’re not a techie yourself, you’ve got to find a geek. To me, plain writing and plain living pair well.

Both seek what’s essential, and in my experience, that works.” n

“I sold my house and took the equity in it to start Lawson & Co. Graphics and Printing. I didn’t have a significant other or a nest egg to rely on, so I knew I

had to make it work.”

— Gloria Lawson In January, the company announced the addition of Jason Chitwood as a business partner, and Lawson says it is the best business decision she has ever made.

“It takes an incredible amount of energy to open your own business and run it effectively,” Lawson said. “What Jason brings to this business is a vision for how printing fits in with other marketing tactics today. If I had to give any advice to someone thinking of starting her or his own business, it would be to believe in the evolution of your industry. It will happen, and you can fight it kicking and screaming or be forthright with yourself and stick to what you are good at doing.

It’s important to be genuine, whatever your business.

“I’d also say you should learn to have fun being serious. Just because it’s work doesn’t mean it has to be drudgery.” n

Sponsored by

JENNIFER

KATIE

Herron

G

HERRON FINDS ANOTHER ANGLE

rowing up, Jennifer Herron didn’t dream of being an architect. The founder of Herron Horton Architects needed to take a fine arts class toward graduation, so when she was in 11th grade at Little Rock Central High School, her guidance counselor suggested she take up mechanical drawing. It helped that Herron had loved taking art credits at the Arkansas Arts Center.

“It was with Mr. Clive Floy, and we were doing drawings of engines,” she

said of the mechanical drawing class.

“You had to be real precise, look at the engine, cut it in sections, pull it apart, put it back together. I could get the layers — I knew how to draw that.

So he asked one day, ‘Have you ever considered architecture?’ I don’t come from a family of architects, but he told me, ‘You have a sensitivity to it.’ ” She chose the University of Kansas for her college studies, one of three women in her five-year course. Her sophomore year she backed off, taking core architectural classes while delving into liberal arts. “After my second year, I realized I missed those liberal arts, so I took a year off from studio. What it did was open me up to the other parts of the university. I could take figure drawing, photography, fine arts, the humanities,

world religion. That year I could explore these things I was really starving for.

“After that, my third year, I could see where I was going. It’s not that you wise up, it’s that you get more aware of what you want. So I was like, this is it, I could see pulling in the psychology, the sociology, the history part, I could pull in all that.”

She met her husband, Jeff Horton. at KU, and after graduation in 1991 they moved to California to work for a firm retrofitting buildings for earthquakes.

Work was scarce, and hearing of better options in Boston convinced them to head east. They set down in Little Rock, where Jennifer’s parents live, for a short stay. “We were just going to stay for three months, and I picked up a job and we saw things really happening here, Clinton was president, things were moving. Also, you could work on a project, design it, it wasn’t stuck at the city level for three years like in San Francisco. We learned a lot out there but we were meager living.

“We married, bought a house. When we had Jake (now 16), I wanted to have flexibility so I went out on my own, had my own firm. After a year Jeff realized that he had to make a decision in his career, so he hooked up with me. We started a family and a firm at the same time.”

In Little Rock’s blooming market, Herron was able to use her liberal arts education to influence the projects they accepted. The couple even built their own home at 13th and Spring streets, just outside the Capital Improvement Zone, which allowed them to express their architectural style while remaining in an area they both love.

Herron says her career has been fortuitous. “I think I was fortunate for Clive Floy to ask, ‘Did you ever consider architecture?’ and just realizing liberal arts is an important piece of it. There’s a reason why you’re doing things, there are people that you meet along your journey. It all comes together sometimes.”

Short K

ALWAYS A FARMER AT HEART

atie Short always wanted to be outdoors, and she always wanted to be around animals. The Berkeley, Calif., native grew up in the city but knew she needed to get her hands into the dirt and work a real farm.

On a trip, her mom found out about Heifer International in Perryville, and Short, who was very interested in livestock agriculture, made the pilgrimage to Arkansas.

“I have always been interested in food and science,” she says. “I grew up in the city, so I really didn’t have a lot of role models to look up to with that combination of interests. I found my way to Heifer Ranch in Perryville and realized this is what I wanted to be doing, and started my own farm after that.”

Short spent two years at Heifer before starting her own small sheep ranching operation in 2005. She headed back to school, studying at Arkansas Tech University and earning a degree in animal science and agricultural business.

Afterleasinglandtomaintain from Heifer International and purchasing another 30 acres in Perry County, she added goats, pigs and dairy cattle and meat poultry to herAnimalWelfareApproved farm. She believes the way the animals are raised and treated directly influences the quality of the product.

“At the core of it, I really think the highest quality eating experience comes from animals who have lived the highest quality life that a domesticated animal can have.

I think that we go to lengths here that probably a lot of farms are not willing to go to, to ensure the incredible quality of our animal products and the incredible quality of our animals’ lives.”

The animals raised on Short’s farm are

fed natural feed and grow up unrestrained.

Today, Farm Girl Meats offers chicken, eggs, pork and milk through farmers markets in Little Rock and Conway, to Community Supported Agriculture programs and, every Wednesday, at the farm’s store in Houston. The products are also sold directly to several Central Arkansas restaurants, including Boulevard Bread, The Root Cafe and South on Main – and through the farm’s website, farmgirlfood.com.

For others interested in tackling the efforts

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RETT PEEK

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

of creating and sustaining a farm, Short offers this advice: “Find a job working for someone. I didn’t know where to start when I started, and I know there are a lot more resources now than there were before. There are websites for farm food jobs, as well as just a lot of farms now advertising positions on their website. Find a farm that’s doing what you want to do and offer to work for them. It’s not a lucrative career, but it’s very rewarding.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

L. ELIZABETHBowles,JD JENNIFERPeper AND MARLA JOHNSONNorris ARISTOTLE ALWAYS HAS EYES ON THE POSSIBILITIES IN TECH

I

nternet technologies evolve rapidly, and the women of Aristotle have proven nimble enough to keep up. Marla Johnson Norris, Jennifer Peper and Elizabeth Bowles blazed paths to create the company and constantly adapt to keep it on track.

In 1993, Norris, Aristotle Inc.’s chief executive officer, was working with a group of people in Little Rock on a contract with Electronic Arts to create a video game called Immercenary.

“That is the same year that the World Wide Web came onto the scene with the introduction of Mosaic, the first web browser and a proliferation of servers globally from 50 in January of 1993 to over 500 at the end of the year,” says Norris, whose friend suggested she start an Internet company the following year.

Norris wasn’t yet hip to the Internet.

Left to Right: L. Elizabeth Bowles, JD, Jennifer Peper, Marla Johnson Norris “So, I got on a friend’s Internet help rural people who can’t get to a doctor but need account, surfed the Web for the first time, and my mind amazing health care — how can the Internet solve that was blown. I was in love,” she says. “All my interests and world problem?” she says. “That, to me, is the essence passions around creative communications and global of this technology.” interconnectedness were moved light years in that Right out of the gate, Aristotle’s founders turned a one moment.” roadblock into a leading edge.

Her mind reeled with the possibilities for connecting “We learned that Netscape required a licensing fee people, organizations and companies to information that no other ISPs paid, but it was the law,” Norris said. and to each other.

“This really stood us on our heads, because most of us Jennifer Peper, too, was drawn to the possibilities. had software development in our background, and we Peper, president of Aristotle Interactive, joined the had a lot of respect for licensing and honoring the talent company more than 15 years ago, bringing insights from of the software engineers. But, the price was prohibitive previous work in health care, law, the nonprofit sector and paying it would have made us so uncompetitive as and food service. an ISP that we knew we would not survive.”

“Those insights are really what gave me a passion for Aristotle, it was decided, would make its own browser the industry, because, for example, how can we make client. health care more available, more effective, how can we

“We went ahead and developed an email client software to go with it so our new ISP customers could have one piece of software to browse the Internet and read, compose and send emails,” Norris says.

While the software was in development, several new Internet service providers set up shop in Little Rock.

“Still, because we had a great service and software product and because we went to the Park Plaza Mall to show people how to use the Internet, we ended up being the biggest ISP in the Little Rock area and voted Best ISP by the Arkansas Times’ readers over and over again,” Norris said.

Elizabeth Bowles, president and chairman of Aristotle Inc., was working for Arnold and Porter, a Washington, D.C., law firm, in the area of intellectual property during the technology boom, and she did some legal work for Aristotle as the company was formed.

Bowles was up for partner at the firm in 1999, but she realized she preferred an environment where she could combine her entrepreneurial spirit and her knowledge of the laws governing Internet security, law, privacy and technology. She joined Aristotle in 2000 and led the Internet Service Provider division of the company, expanding the company first to offer dial-up service nationwide and subsequently to offer broadband Internet service over fixed wireless.

Norris says that in business, flexibility is key.

“Every day there have been new and exciting possibilities, some new combination, and out of that an entirely new business,” she says. “We have had to keep thinking and acting like a start-up to stay relevant, even 19 years into this business.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

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DEEElias ELIAS KEEPS PRIORITIES, FOCUS, FAMILY STRAIGHT

W

hen you think of women in bail bonds, Stephanie Plum probably comes to mind. Janet Evanovich’s Jersey girl, who stumbles into recovering fugitives and solving crimes because she can’t find any other gainful employment, has made the author a lush living. But Evanovich’s portrayal only has one thing in common with Dee Elias’ story, and that’s the need to make a living.

“I was married with a 6-month-old baby, and I had to find a way to make a living for us both,” Elias said. “I got a job working for an attorney, and he said I had the personality and temperament to be in bail bonds. He’s the one who encouraged me to do it.”

That first year of work, Elias got her license and got a divorce – all in her early 20s. Her goal was to raise her son, keep a home and take care of her expenses all by herself.

“When I started, it was a male-dominated industry,”she said.

“I earned the respect of the officers, deputies and court personnel because I did arrests alone.

Once they saw that I wasn’t going away and that I could do the job, they worked with me.”

In the more than 20 years that Elias has been a bondswoman, she’s made 623 arrests. She says it’s a grown-up game of hide-and-seek, and in most incidences the person who has failed to appear in court will surrender willingly.

“I’m never going to match a man in physical strength, so I have to use my brain to get someone to surrender,” Elias said. “That’s what women have on their side – the ability to reason and appeal to a person’s humanity. I had a kid pull a gun on me once, and I was completely alone — just him with a rifle and me on the business end. I told him there were teams of deputies just feet away and if he shot me it

JANACohen GOING PLACES WITH COHEN’S ARKANSAS DESTINATIONS

J

ana Cohen understands the tourism and transportation industry well. The owner of Arkansas Destinations pairs event planning and transportation logistics to ensure seamless journeys for her clients, whether they’re retirees or rock stars.

Cohen worked with the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau for 15 years before setting out on this leg of her career. “I never figured I’d be an entrepreneur. I think a lot of women are accidental entrepreneurs because of child-rearing and careers don’t always seem to match up to other people’s expectations, so you have to go out and do your own thing.

“That’s what pushed me [into private business], I wanted to work part time. I was about to have a third child and they were all spread out in age. I wondered, ‘How am I going to travel and represent this city, and who’s going to take my kids to school?’ I loved Little Rock and I wanted to sell Little Rock, so people were just going to have to come see me.

“It was about the time the Clinton [Presidential] Library was going to open, and people realized we were going to have all these conventions here and we needed people to service them and plan their tours and move them around, and I ended up being one of those giblets on the gravy train.”

In 2000, seeing that need, she started Arkansas Destinations as the city’s first destination management company. “It got to the point where you needed private enterprise to do these things. You can’t depend on the taxpayers to cover it. Those CAT buses are for routes, not for characters.”

Cohen started out with a single bus. “I started planning tours and events for people and didn’t have the transportation I needed after 9/11 — all these 55-passenger buses

would be so much worse for him than going back with me and facing the relatively minor charge he had against him already. He finally decided to put the gun down and come in with me, but there wasn’t one person — much less a team of officers — anywhere around.”

Elias eventually expanded her capabilities to include civil process serving, but it was just six years ago she began her latest adventure: LeCig Electronic Cigarette Stores.

Her husband, Mike, was a heavy smoker, and she started looking for ways to help him quit. She found electronic cigarettes online, ordered one, and after the third day of use, her husband had quit tobacco cigarettes completely.

“We decided then to start our own business to educate

Sponsored by

NATALIE

“When I started, it was a male-dominated industry. I earned the respect of the

Canerday

officers, deputies and court personnel because I did arrests alone. Once they saw that

I wasn’t going away and that I could do the job, they worked with me.”

— Dee Elias customers and provide them with great customer service,” Elias said.

“When I was dealing with the company to get Mike’s kit, their customer service was just abysmal. I wanted a place where people could come to feel comfortable and be able to ask any question they had about electronic cigarettes without feeling embarrassed.”

To date, LeCig has Arkansas locations in Bryant, De Queen, Glenwood, Hot Springs and Nashville, as well as Broken Bow, Okla., with plans to open more in Northwest Arkansas. For now, LeCig sells wholesale electronic cigarette products to stores from coast to coast and ships worldwide.

“It’s so much better for your health than tobacco,” Elias said. “If I can get someone to stop smoking or dipping tobacco, I feel like I’ve succeeded. In fact, that’s how I succeed as a bail bondswoman, too. I always had my priorities in order. My son kept me focused, and I knew whatever I did for a living would have to provide for him, me, our home and our finances. Any woman who wants to go into business needs to get her priorities straight first, then not look back.”

in town, when people came back after 9/11 they were smaller groups, maybe 30 or 25 — and so I couldn’t find buses, so I bought my own.”

Arkansas Destinations’ most iconic vehicles are the trolleys. “Polly and Dolly the Trolleys were retired

by Central Arkansas Transit. They were showpieces for the future River Rail, and as soon as CAT got them, they realized they couldn’t use them for what they wanted to do because it was unfair for the city to rent the trolleys as charters; it was unfair competition.

“So, they came up for bid. I was already doing shuttling, and they were girly. I had a friend Polly who had just gone through breast cancer surgery and survived and got her clean bill of health, and I named one of the trolleys after her and Dolly after another one of my friends.”

Arkansas Destinations has continued to grow. Today it uses four trolleys and several buses and mini-buses, and Cohen says the company is about to purchase its first full-size 55-seat charter. It’s also an umbrella corporation that includes other companies, including Arkansas Events and Arkansas Weddings. Cohen spends about half her time working on event planning.

For Cohen and her operation, every job is important.

“We’ll work with a group of 100, and it could be 100 dignitaries from all over the world or 100 people that graduated from high school together 50 years ago.

Whatever it is, it’s a big deal to them, so it’s our job to make it successful for them. It’s fun. I’m living the dream.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

AUDITIONS, TRANSITIONS AND GREAT PARTS FALL CANERDAY’S WAY

N

atalie Canerday didn’t grow up thinking she’d be an actress.

“Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, there wasn’t any theater in Russellville, but I took tap and ballet. I was always the littlest, so they’d send me out to do the bow.”

A recruiter convinced Canerday to head to Hendrix College, where she fell in love with the stage. She acted at Dogpatch USA near Harrison. “Summer of 1980, the first time I got paid, we worked six days a week and got $135, and I thought I was just rich! The first year I was Dateless Brown, got to carry around a shotgun and ask little boys to marry me.

‘C’mere little fellah, ya wanner get hitched?’

They’d run off screaming.”

After college, some productions at Murry’s Dinner Playhouse and a few locally filmed movies (including the acclaimed “Sling Blade” in 1996), Canerday decided to try Hollywood.

“I went out to L.A. to get an agent. The William Morris woman in New York loved me, said ‘You need your own series about you.’ She set up the meeting, and the girl I talked with was the only one that had not seen “Sling Blade” yet. She asked me, ‘Yeah, can you be funny?’ and the smartass in me said, ‘Nope, not a bit, not me!’ but then I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m real funny.’ And she said, ‘Well, you need to do something about your weight, you need to do something about your hair, you need to clear up your complexion.’ ” Canerday called fellow actor John Ritter, who suggested Bauman-Hiller. “There were three old people and three young people in this room, all asking about me. Everyone else, as soon as I said Arkansas, they ask about Billy Bob [Thornton] or the president, one of the two.

“So they were the only ones really interested in me. Wally Hiller gave me his card and said, ‘I can speak for everyone at this table when I say we want you.’ He told me, ‘Don’t dye your hair blonde, don’t get your tits done, and for God’s sake honey, don’t lose that accent.’ ” The actress, whose credits include “October Sky” and “Walk the Line,” found roles changed when she went into film.

“All my plays are usually comedies. I’m always the wacky crazy aunt, the silly funny neighbor, the possessed alcoholic, just somebody really

funny. All my 12 first movies, I was someone’s mother, very serious, quiet, the voice of reason, and cooking. And all my friends died laughing, because every movie I’m making food and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, you’re making biscuits. You of all people wouldn’t know where to begin.’ Sure

enough, I’m opening the cabinet, you should see all the shit I’m getting outta there, how do you make biscuits?

“I came back summer of 2001 to do one play at Murry’s and haven’t been back [to Hollywood] since! I do like L.A. and I like the vibe, but it was just a lonely existence. I’d spend all my day driving and going to auditions and did get jobs and make money, thank God, but I was homesick. I missed cheese dip. Every year, my mom for Christmas, she’d give me a case of Rotel!”

In the past six months, Canerday’s worked in two shorts and four feature films, including “The Grace of Jake” (starring Jordin Sparks) and the controversial “All the Birds Have Flown South,” a Southern Gothic psychological thriller. She takes it in stride.

“It’s always been my dream to live in Arkansas and jet off and do movies when they send for me. Luckily I’ve been able to.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

ROBINConnell GROWING INTO A GREAT BUSINESS AT PLANTATION SERVICES

T

here are few entrepreneurs who take off immediately after college on the career that will define them. Robin Connell is the exception. The Louisiana Tech graduate became the owner of Plantation Services at the bright and early age of 28. She has always known she wanted to work with plants.

“I always studied plants – but this industry, I didn’t know about until I graduated college,” Connell says. “I had studied outdoor plants since I was in junior high.

My senior year project was a houseful of Boston ferns that I grew and raised for a Mothers’ Day sale. I went on to college and really didn’t know what my direction would be, I just knew that plants were my thing. I went into it thinking I was going to be a landscape architect, thought I’d get my horticulture degree and go on and get

my master’s in landscape architecture and who knows.

But I realized that they don’t get to work with plants at all, they’re architects! They sit behind computers drawing plans. Yes, that would feed my creative side, but I like plants!

“I panicked as a junior in college and added AG business as another major, so I got a double major and a minor in four years and graduated still not knowing what I was going to do. I started researching jobs across the nation and sort of stumbled on this industry.”

Connell found Plantation Services, Inc. while researching the Little Rock area, where her boyfriend (now husband) was from. She came to town, met with owners Randy Cooper and Tina Shelby and soon found herself with a job, learning everything from selecting plants to placing them

in businesses and homes to handling the finances for the corporation. When Cooper and Shelby considered retiring in 2011, Connell was their first choice for continuing the 30 year old operation.

“They looked at the decision as they wanted to sell when they wanted to, not when they had to sell it,” Connell says. “They told me ‘we know that you dedicated a lot of devotion and time and energy to this place, and we want you to have the opportunity to take it to the next level.’ They very much let me be the driver in how the deal was structured.”

Plantation Services mainly offers plant service to businesses and events, providing ferns, ficus and other leafy

SARAHTackett GENUINE GRIT, GRINS LEAD TO BRIGHT LIGHTS FOR TACKETT

“W

hen I was seven or eight, I would spend my allowance at the Sterling Five and Dime in Conway on cheap makeup,” Sarah Tackett said.

“It never occurred to me I could make a career out of it as a makeup artist.”

The owner and president of The Agency, one of the largest full-service casting agencies in the South, Tackett says she built her career on recognizing where service was needed and filling that void. Freelancing as a makeup artist on set, Tackett’s passion for her art as well as her efforts to go above and beyond to assist the crew in any way was evident. Producers and directors would consult with her about professionals to fill a particular cast, which led to her referring prospects.

“I thought, ‘Bingo! This is how I can make myself indispensable,’” Tackett said. “I began to work on crews, and I could troubleshoot on set.”

In 1984, Tackett founded The Agency while still pursuing

on-set makeup. By 1987, she had six successful films under her belt as well hundreds of successful commercial castings.

“That year, I would wake up and say, ‘What state am I in?’

It was an amazing education and a whole a lot of fun, and I made great contacts. Though the 16-18 hour days were grueling, I never tired of the process. Between casting films and commercials, I was still doing makeup to maintain a cash flow for the business.”

As The Agency took on more work, Tackett devoted her time to being an agent and a casting director. “What we do is listen to our clients and find what they want,” Tackett said. “If we don’t have it, we find it. Our searches range from our own backyards to major markets. It makes a world of difference to clients if they know they can count on you. Advertising agencies, production companies and companies looking for talent not only became our repeat clients but also led to more referrals. Although we love the film work, it is our steady and growing advertising clients

that keep us in business. We would not still be here if it was not for them.”

Tackett credits her parents with her work ethic and sense for treating people with respect. “They grew up in the Great Depression and made sure I learned the invaluable lessons of honesty, pride, respect for others and ethics,” she said.

“They stressed the importance of going those extra miles to succeed and never spend outside your means. Their influence is still with me.”

In 2002, Tackett was diagnosed with breast cancer, and dealing with this inconvenience, as she refers to it, called on the same grit and determination she used when opening The Agency.

“Plants also provide something that’s really hard to quantify, and that’s the way they make us feel

in our innate desire to be within nature.”

— Robin Connell plants to a location. The addition of living greenery has a tangible effect. “Plants also provide something that’s really hard to quantify, and that’s the way they make us feel in our innate desire to be within nature,” Connell says.

At 31, Connell is one of the state’s younger business owners. Plantation Services covers much of Arkansas, including the central portion of the state as well as Hot Springs, Heber Springs, Conway and more.

“I never expected to own my own business. I didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur or someone that was really innovative, I just work every day to do it better. But, I love being a business owner. My days are always different, and I always do something different: budgeting, going out and placing plants, loading a truck, cleaning a job, it’s a lot of different hats but for everybody here, we’re all a team, we’re all going to wear all the hats. You never hear anybody say here, ‘it’s not my job,’ it’s all hands on deck, we all have the jobs.”

THEY DON’T JUST OWN THE MEETING. THEY OWN THE COMPANY. Proud to support women entrepreneurs – and all Arkansans – investing in our home state.

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“Whatever it takes, you have to

deliver successful results. I built my business by paying attention to what the people around me

needed. — Sarah Tackett “I was 42, and all of a sudden I was having surgeries, aggressive treatments followed by several years of additional medication,” she said. “It made me step back from The Agency for a bit, and I promoted Yancey Prosser to agency director. I take care of the administration responsibilities from my horse farm in Scott, which has been my healing ground. Having never been married, I didn’t have a safety net for lean times, but I always relied on myself so I was never worried.”

Today, The Agency has more than 30 film credits and hundreds of professionals in its talent pool within its multi-state network. While Tackett was the first to make a viable business in Arkansas of an industry usually limited to Hollywood, she believes that any entrepreneur can be a success if he or she does one thing - listen, research, execute and deliver.

“Whatever it takes, you have to deliver successful results,” Tackett said. “I built my business by paying attention to what the people around me needed.

Now more than 30 years later, The Agency’s business model is the same as it was in 1984: to serve our clients with whatever they need, and if we don’t have it, we find it.”

WOMEN DON’T JUST OVERCOME BARRIERS. THEY DEMOLISH THEM. Proud to support women entrepreneurs – and all Arkansans – investing in our home state.

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AMYDunnavant DUNNAVANT TREATS EVERYONE’S DOGS WELL

A

my Dunnavant was happy enough teaching school, but she envisioned a different life, one that let her nurture man’s best friend as well as her own.

“Teaching is great, but there is a lot of administrative work that goes with it that doesn’t have anything to do with teaching,” says Dunnavant, a former high school special education teacher. “My other love was animals and I saw a need here.”

Armed with previous business experience from helping manage her dad’s transportation company years earlier, she opened Just Dogs! Gourmet in 2008, amid a spate of pet food recalls related to melamine contamination that caused renal failure and even death in thousands of beloved pets across the country.

“When all those dogs died from the tainted pet food, there was just a lot of uncertainty, and I wanted to kind

of create a place where people could come and know that a local person had researched and was getting the good treats and [was] just a really customer-serviceoriented place,” Dunnavant said.

She liked to find special treats for her own dogs, though there weren’t many options locally.

“Usually when I would go out of town I would find things for them, or I would have to order them online, and when you do that, you aren’t really sure what you’re getting,” she says. “Unfortunately, there just wasn’t that much available.”

She began baking dog treats and discovered she had a knack for that, and she enjoyed it, too.

Now she sells a wide variety of canine confections, including gourmet peanut butter, shortbread, oatmeal, molasses and apple cinnamon treats, Razorback-themed

and seasonal treats, and pastries like whoopie pies and cannoli. There are also Goldfish and Pigs, sold in bulk, and some of the store’s best-selling items are peanut butter cups and a rotation of strawberry, mint, eggnog and pumpkin, made fresh in season.

Dunnavant makes sure also to stock treats made especially for dogs with dietary requirements, including both wheat-free and corn-free treats.

Holiday cookies aren’t just for humans. Just Dogs! has

JOYCEHolt HOLT SEES AN OPPORTUNITY THROUGH A WINDOW

T

he career climate for women 50 years ago in this country was far different from what it is today. Women could choose to pursue teaching, nursing or secretarial roles as careers, and the glass ceiling was installed at a much lower height.

In the 1960s, Joyce Holt chose one of these roles, but it was when she decided to take on her own business that she shattered that glass ceiling — by decorating it.

The owner of Window Works in Little Rock, Holt had no idea that when she learned to sew as a little girl in Tennessee she would have a thriving business designing draperies for homes, hotels and commercial properties throughout the United States and France.

“I didn’t want to be a secretary and I sure didn’t want to be a nurse, so I decided to become a teacher,” Holt said. “At that time, it didn’t even enter my head I could be anything but a wife, mother and teacher, and I sure never thought I’d have my own business one day. But here I am.”

Holt learned to sew as a girl, noting she made all of her own clothes and home decor. In fact, it wasn’t until she was

in her 40s that she purchased her first off-the-rack outfit.

“Back then, you sewed because you had to,”Holt said.

“I enjoyed it, but sewing wasn’t something I considered doing for a living until after I was married and had to.”

Holt worked as a teacher when she was first married, but it was when she moved with her husband and young children to a reservation for Native Americans in South Dakota that she switched her career path. Holt’s husband worked for the government, and when they moved to the reservation, Holt met and started working with a woman who made draperies for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through this contract they made and installed draperies for 150 houses. Soon, her husband was transferred to Nashville, Tenn., and she decided to continue designing and sewing draperies.

“I had children then, and I didn’t want to go back to teaching,” Holt said. “I found ladies who wanted to work at home, and I taught them how to make draperies. When I left Nashville, I was working with eight ladies who sewed draperies from their homes.”

It wasn’t until she and her husband moved to Arkansas that Holt made her drapery business an official business. “I remember driving over the bridge across the Mississippi River,” she said. “There was a sign that said, ‘Welcome to Arkansas — Land of Opportunity,’ and I took that seriously.”

As Holt became familiar with her new home, she happened upon a new neighborhood development on Pebble Beach off Hinson Road. Many homes had moving boxes in the driveway and sheets in the windows, and Holt knew this was the place to start.

“I made myself go back the next day and knock on three doors,” she said. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. At the first house, no one was home, but someone was

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all kinds of holiday goodies for the furry set.

And for people who want to celebrate their dog babies’big milestones — or their mere existence — there are birthday cakes and party snacks.

“We just wanted a more personal touch with high-end luxury items for dogs,” she says. “They’re just like regular cakes. I’ve got a peanut butter recipe and banana recipe and they’re just soft like the cakes we eat. We use honey instead of sugar, for example, so it’s safe for the dogs. And then we ice it with either yogurt, peanut butter yogurt or carob, which looks like chocolate but is not chocolate.”

Just Dogs! also stocks the latest fashions in collars, leashes, harnesses, bandanas, pajamas, carriers and sportswear and has toys for every kind of dog.

Running a business has its challenges, Dunnavant said.

“We opened at a time when the country was kind of in a recession, so we had to be a little more innovative about what we did and the way we went about it,” she said.

She recommends that people considering opening their own companies prepare themselves for the long haul.

“Prepare to work many, many long hours — probably more than you think you will,” she says. “And everything costs probably almost twice as much as you think it’s going to, so you really need to have emergency money, and things break and you have to be prepared for that.”

The hard work she’s invested is offset by the joy she gets from being in her store.

“We enjoy getting to know our customers and people bringing in their dogs,” says Dunnavant, who sometimes brings her own dogs, a Jack Russell terrier, Maggie, and a miniature schnauzer, Mya — both rescues — to work with her. “It’s a really happy place. People bring their dogs in or they start talking about their dogs and they are instantly in a better mood. We feel like we’re just a happy, positive place.”

“Women need to be able to stand on their own two feet and know they can care for their family by themselves if it comes to that.” — Joyce Holt

at the next house and she was happy to listen to what I had to say, and I left with an order.”

That was 1978, and since that time, Holt has designed, delivered and installed custom draperies, pillows and fabric accessories for some of the most stylish homes in Arkansas, California and the world.

“Our main strength is windows,” Holt said. “We know what will suit a room, how draperies can be used to control light and heat, what options are available to serve what someone needs.”

Holt is passionate that women should prepare to care for their families and themselves without the assistance of a spouse or other family members.

“You never know what can happen,” Holt said. “Women need to be able to stand on their own two feet and know they can care for their family by themselves if it comes to that. I started my business by myself, and I had no idea I’d still be doing it today. It has been a great source of satisfaction and pride for me as well as a way for me to sustain my children. I’m grateful for that.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

CYNTHIAEast I

CYNTHIA EAST FABRICS WEAVES UNIQUENESS, CREATIVITY AND SUPPORT INTO SUCCESS

to the market.” f you’re in a ho-hum mood when you walk “And, as we’ve grown, we’ve expanded the into Cynthia East Fabrics, you won’t be store and added products,” Dilday said. when you leave. Lush colors, unique patterns Today, Cynthia East Fabrics offers decorative and accommodating staff make browsing a trim, home accessories, headboards, pillows treat rather than a chore, and this atmosphere and draperies in addition to in-stock decorator is by design. Founded by Cynthia East in 1977, fabrics, wallpaper and a variety of gift items – Cynthia East Fabrics has transformed from one all in the same location as when it opened its of the few custom fabric suppliers in Arkansas to doors in 1977. Despite the many challenges a design, decor and gift store serving dedicated of retail over the past 37 years, Cynthia East clients for almost four decades.

“I’d always loved fabrics,” East said.

“Before I opened, you couldn’t get decorative fabrics anywhere in Arkansas; you had to drive to Memphis or Dallas.

East had pondered leaving her job at an advertising agency and opening her own retail fabric store, but she was hesitant to make the leap. It was her husband, Bob, who encouraged her to try.

“He was very supportive of the idea,” East said. “My banker was as well, so I didn’t have any reason not to open then!”

Cynthia East Fabrics opened at 1523 Rebsamen Park Road in the Riverdale area of Little Rock where it is still located today. As the store grew, East brought on staff to help meet with clients and manage the office. She hired Terry Dilday, a college student, to work part time in 1981.

“I was just looking for a job to help Partners: Cynthia East and Terry Dilday me pay for the things college kids spend money on,”Dilday said.“What I didn’t expect was Fabrics remains sought-after and on-trend. to fall in love with the fabrics and the business.

East and Dilday attribute their success primarily I went full time, and then I tried to make myself to their exemplary staff and customer service indispensable to Cynthia.” they provide.

“And she did,”East said.“She started out as my “There’s a strong culture of family that exists employee, then she became my ‘daughter.’ After within the staff at the store,” Dilday says. “Many a few more years, she became my best friend.” have been with us 10, 20, even 30 years. We’ve In 2003, Dilday became a partner with East grown up together, been through a lot together in the business. Throughout their 30 years and rallied around each other through the wide together, East and Dilday have encountered range of life issues.” many changes in the market, the industry and East and Dilday acknowledge that this sense the economy. of support and community carries over to their “We didn’t really have a vision for what the clients. “We have a rare glimpse into our clients’ business would be in the beginning,” East said. lives,”Dilday says.“Some of them have been with “What we did was listen to our customers. We us since the very beginning, and we’ve seen them moved from lightweight fabrics to much sturget married, have babies and see their babies have babies. It’s an industry like no other, and dier, more opulent fabrics, and we kept them in we are glad to be a part of it.” stock in the store. That was something unique

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TANARAHHaynie BIG CITY MEETS DOWN HOME AT TANARAH LUXE FLORAL

Y

ou know those chic, sophisticated boutiques where everything from the decor to the merchandise looks effortless and modern? Tanarah Luxe Floral has this approach perfected, but Tanarah Haynie is as down-to-earth and accessible as they come.

Haynie is the owner and creative director of Tanarah Luxe Floral, a floral design firm that specializes in weddings, parties and events. In addition to fresh flowers, Haynie and her team also use permanent botanicals, lighting and props to create unique and nontraditional environments. In 2012, Haynie opened a boutique in addition to the design firm, and in it she offers jewelry, candles, books and other decor and gift items, many of them sourced from Arkansas artisans. While she maintains a significant space in Riverdale where her design firm and boutique are housed, she began

her career at home.

“I had what I call a ‘shower epiphany’ one day,” Haynie said. “I knew that if I wanted to create what I envisioned, I had to do it on my own. My husband, Rob, and I were living in Leawood at the time, and I started with 12 weddings a year, then doubled it to 24 a year, and then doubled it again the year after that. I worked 10- to 12-hour days and every weekend, and I did it all out of my house.”

That was 1999, and Haynie said she was naive when she opened that first business, Distinctive Designs by Tanarah.

“If you knew everything that was involved in starting your own business, you wouldn’t do it,” she said. “That may be the saving grace, too. I saw a hole in the market — an approach to floral that was with an artist’s eye — so I went about the business in my own way.”

As her business grew, so did Haynie’s need for room for her business. When she and her husband moved to a new home in Mayflower, Haynie took over a shop on the property, thinking she’d never outgrow it. She was there for a year.

“When we outgrew that, I bought a warehouse in Maumelle, and we were there three years,” Haynie said. “Our clients kept saying they wished we were closer, and I had

GARBOHearne HEARNE HANDLES THE ART OF PRIORITY

I

n success, the shortest route from point A to point B is curved, looped, jagged and steep. For Garbo Hearne, her route started in nursing and continues past art gallery curator, framer, bookseller and community advocate to certified appraiser of fine art.

Embracing a niche market is key to her success. She says, “The meat and potatoes of being in business is being versatile and knowing there is a need for what I do.

Underrepresented talented artists need galleries, new and emerging authors need independent booksellers to connect with their core audience, and the beauty of a custom picture frame cannot be replicated by a machine.”

As an intensive care nurse, Hearne was used to deadlines, precision and pressure, but it wasn’t until she had her first child that she began thinking of a different career path that would allow her more time to nurture and educate.

Garbo and her husband, Archie, wanted their children to be exposed to their culture and heritage. She said it was

Archie, who collected and appreciated African-American art, who had the idea to open Pyramid Art Gallery at 12th Street and Fair Park Boulevard in 1988.

She built her business with popular prints and with local artists such as Aj Smith. Through participation in fine art fairs, she met regional artists such as Brenda Joysmith and Frank Frazier and created a market for original art. She added the service of custom picture framing and eventually African-American books and gifts.

Moving to the River Market allowed Hearne to combine all three businesses into one, establishing Pyramid Art, Books and Custom Framing and Hearne Fine Art. The business moved once more to its latest location on Wright Avenue in 2009.

“Archie and I were driving by the area one day, and I said, ‘We ought to purchase property here.’ I was thinking out loud. The next thing I know, we are working on a business plan to combine our respective businesses in one location,

fast forward and here we are.”

At first, Hearne worried how the move would affect traffic and subsequent sales. But she soon realized relocating to the historic Dunbar neighborhood was a direct reflection of her personal and professional mission: to serve the community by sharing culture and building generational knowledge and wealth.

Today, Hearne’s business hosts exhibitions of original African-American art by local, regional and nationally-

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an idea to open a boutique where we could do flowers for all occasions — get well, sympathy, bereavement, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I thought since we had grown so much, we should rebrand to really set ourselves apart. That’s when we opened Tanarah Luxe Floral.”

Haynie and her team have designed events for clients on a national scale, including the 46th Annual Country Music Awards, Blake Mycoskie of Toms Shoes, Paula Deen, the Rolling Stones, the Washington Post, LULAC, the Little Rock Nine, the National Black Caucus of State Legislatures, the Clinton Foundation and Heifer International, among others. This year she will be traveling to Italy to style a villa for an American client. Her design will be the prototype for additional villas the client will offer as lodging.

“That business came to me from a relationship with a photographer who we work with all the time,” Haynie said. “That’s really the foundation of a solid business: customer service and great working relationships with our clients, vendors and partners. Excellent customer service will win every time.”

Haynie notes that what she and her team do is sell art; the flowers are their medium.

“People want unique arrangements for their friends and families,” she said. “They want something that reflects their style. We accommodate that, and we understand that need. We aren’t the regular florist or event stylist. We have a cat and a bird in the boutique, and we maintain an upbeat, positive atmosphere that is conducive to our creativity and our clients.”

known artists, and serves as a place for the community to gather, exchange ideas and learn about the African-American experience.

Hearne advocates building cultural pride and self-esteem through the promotion of excellence and character. She said, “Knowing our ancestors and how they remained steadfast through the hardships they endured ... how do we not go back to this essence of fortitude to move forward?”

Hearne attributes her success to a pursuit of excellence through education and to evolving with the times. Currently, she is seeking certification as a fine art appraiser with a specialty in African-American art.

“My clients come to me and ask me to help them with valuing art they have had in their families or found on their travels,” Hearne said. “It’s a precise vocation, so I want to make sure that I am qualified to do this job right.”

This if-not-me-then-who approach to business has led Hearne and her family in the adventure of their lifetimes — one she never thought she would travel.

“If you identify your priorities — be it family, travel, a particular passion — find a way to make that your life,” she said. “I came upon challenges that turned into opportunities — children led to pursuing a way to make them aware of their roots, and that led to opening a gallery and bookstore. Now, my children are adults and I am nurturing my clients who want to know the origins and value of their artwork, which is leading me to become an appraiser. I never imagined being an entrepreneur, but what I’ve learned is, no matter how old you are you never stop learning and evolving.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

MELISSA

Tanner

TANNER’S LUXURIOUS DESIRES REALIZED WITH VESTA’S

W

hen her children were young, Melissa Tanner imagined owning a store in Little Rock, and even pictured what might be on the shelves.

“Once my children were off to college I began to execute my ideas,”she says. “My mission was to offer Little Rockians a cool, unique spot to find luxurious linens and fine home accessories.

Fortunately, I had means of financial backing, and shortly my ideas came to fruition and I opened Vesta’s.”

Vesta’s opened in 1998, initially offering luxurious bed linens and unique home accessories. Tanner later expanded her offerings to include gifts. Then, to create an upscale one-stop shop, she added women’s clothing.

Located at 11525 Cantrell Road in Little Rock, the store specializes in “Desired objects for a domestic goddess.”

Tanner is diligent about bringing the most luxurious linens to Vesta’s clientele, and makes careful recommendations about mixing textiles, textures and colors of high-thread count bedding. The store’s premier bedding lines are Bella Notte, Peacock Alley, SDH and Traditions by Pamela Kline. And while there is always a large selection available at Vesta’s, they take special orders as well.

Vesta’s is also host to a lotions and potions bar, featuring L’Occitane soaps, bath gels, shea body butter and perfume, as well as clothing and shoes for every occasion, whether it’s in new lines or timeless pieces. Old Gringo Cowboy Boots, handcrafted and always in stock, are just one example of a Vesta’s selection that will not go out of style. And there is artisan jewelry — much of it one-of-a-kind — that can add a special touch to any outfit available at the store.

While there are myriad beautiful things in her store, opening a business required plenty of old-fashioned hard work.

“Opening your own business has plenty of hurdles to jump,”Tanner said.“Buying merchandise, advertising and marketing your goods, yourself.

Keeping up with trends of the market. I continue to learn every day in my business. The flip side is that I have gained the opportunity to become friends with many of my clients. After 16 years in business, I can attest that the opportunities

are boundless.”

Some of the possibilities that have come along with Vesta’s were anticipated, while others have been utterly unexpected.

“I’m not really one to look back and say‘shoulda,

coulda, woulda.’ Owning a business doesn’t come with a blueprint. Much is trial and error,” Tanner said. “I have found surrounding myself with folks that know the retail business has been beneficial in our growth. A business owner won’t always make the right decision, but after years in the business, those times are much less frequent.

Owning your own business is hard, long work.

Be prepared.”

After all these years, Tanner says she is happier than ever that she moved forward to make her vision a reality. It’s all she dreamed of and then some.

“I want folks — particularly women — to know that owning your own business can be very empowering,” she said. “I have a huge sense of accomplishment and [feel] so fulfilled with the lives I’ve crossed in the process.”

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MERIDITH HAMILTONRanouil RANOUIL POSSESSES THE VISION FOR THE BUSINESS OF BEAUTY

“W

hen you get a call or a text from a client on a Friday at 6 p.m., you think, ‘this can’t be good,’” said Meridith Hamilton Ranouil, a certified kitchen designer and an allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers.

Ranouil, who owns MLH Designs, a full-service interior design firm specializing in custom residential interiors and select corporate projects, was not prepared for the message she was about to read. After putting the finishing touches on a home, she read that 6 p.m. message from the owner: “Meridith, it is better than we could have imagined.”

“That makes all the hard work worth it,” she said. “When I watch clients go through their home or office, and I can see on their faces they are pleased, or they tell me it is better

than they expected, it makes me want to do even more.”

Ranouil pursued entrepreneurship from the time she graduated from college in 2001. With a degree in interior design from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Ranouil opened MLH Designs in 2003. She craved the artistic freedom that comes with owning a design business.

“When you work for someone else, you have to pursue their vision,” she said. “To do what I wanted, which was to work directly with the clients and help them bring their idea to fruition, it meant I had to open my own business.”

Among the assets Ranouil had when she opened MLH Designs was the support of her family, friends and peers as well as a clear vision of what she wanted to accomplish.

The challenge she faced, however, was balancing her time

between work and home.

“When I first opened, I thought I needed to be in the office during traditional working hours, as well as offer clients the flexibility of meeting at other times. I knew I needed to meet clients when they could accommodate me, not the other way around,” Ranouil said. This made for extremely long workdays. “As MLH Designs became more established, I realized that traditional office hours are not necessary. Now, I make my own hours. That’s not to say they aren’t still long hours, but I can be available

JEANCazort CAZORT FINDS WORDS ARE WORTH WEIGHT IN GOLD

W

ordsWorth Books & Co. is an Arkansas institution.

The largest independent bookstore in Little Rock, WordsWorth has helped bibliophiles feed their craving for prose and poetry for more than 20 years. But for Jean Cazort, devoting all her energies to this venture was never something she considered.

“The bookstore was my then-husband’s dream,” Cazort said. “He had worked his way through college managing a bookstore and had always wanted one, but neither of us knew much about running a business.”

When the couple purchased WordsWorth, they were its third owners. While David Cockcroft, Cazort’s husband (they are now divorced but still work together), worked at the store, Cazort was working at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in the English as Second Language department. The more she visited the store, the more she became drawn to it.

“I’d visit during the day,” Cazort said. “Then I would stop by after work, and I noticed I was spending more and more time there. I started enjoying it and all the people who would

and the right number for our clientele. Our customers are come by. David got everything into place, and once that great at letting us know about new books or new authors, was complete, I left UALR and joined WordsWorth full time.” and we get a lot of ideas from National Public Radio as well.”

Cazort, who has an undergraduate degree in English, Cazort notes that making her own hours has been a real always loved books. In fact, as every devoted Southern benefit of owning her own business, and she and Cockcroft reader does, she read the Faulkner oeuvre as well as Flannery still work together every day with their son, Jacob, who O’Conner, Harper Lee, Mark Twain and other writers from serves as the store’s manager, and Delilah DeVary, who, the American South. The store’s original owner sold used according to Cazort, does everything. books, but Cazort and Cockcroft changed their business “If you enjoy the people you work with and you love model to offer new paperback and hardcover editions what you do, it’s easy to go to work every day,” Cazort said. of fiction, nonfiction, history, art, cooking and children’s “Finding the right people to work with is a challenge for books. Cazort notes that choosing the right books for any business, but we have WordsWorth’s clientele is a an excellent team here challenge.

“We try to keep a now, and it makes the “We listen to what our store a pleasure to be in customers want and try to here. We want people to come in and each day.” carry what they are interested That same atmosphere in rather than being swayed behind the counter carries by bestsellers,” Cazort said. over into the store itself.

“That’s always a balancing — Jean Cazort “We try to keep a genial act — carrying the right books

genial ambiance

browse, talk, exchange ideas.”

for my clients at their convenience and still have lunch with my daughter at her school if I want.”

Ranouil’s approach to interior design is, as she says, “holistic,” and she specializes in designing kitchens and bathrooms. Her spaces and interiors are classic, but also modern and livable.

“My projects range from urban apartments, family homes and gourmet kitchens to a shoe boutique,” Ranouil said. “In fact, I recently finished a hair salon, and that was something I had never designed before. It really gave me an opportunity to think outside of what people expect. I always design for the particular client to make the room or area work for them, both aesthetically and functionally.”

Ranouil notes that a design business is about more than the artistic vision.

There is pricing, budgeting, contract negotiation, invoicing and collecting, and, most importantly, quality control.

In Ranouil’s firm, she alone is responsible for the outcome of the project.

She advises anyone interested in pursuing interior design to keep this in mind when working with subcontractors and vendors.

“As the interior designer, I’m responsible for all the steps in making the space complete and functional,” she said. “That means if the subcontractor I use to complete an installation makes a mistake, it’s still on me to make right.

When you’re the project manager and direct client contact, you either get all the blame or all the credit.”

Today, Ranouil takes care of all aspects of her business except accounting.

She notes that hiring professionals to handle what you are not skilled at doing is a sound investment in your business and your sanity. Her main piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, though, isn’t about the business so much as the passion for it.

“Be sure you love what you do before you decide to open your own business,” Ranouil said. “When you start your own firm, it becomes your life.

If you start with a big idea and come up with something no one else can offer, you will set yourself apart, and with good service and a lot of hard work, the business will come to you.”

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“It’s our customers who make WordsWorth a community place, which is what we’ve always

wanted.” — Jean Cazort ambiance here,” Cazort said. “We want people to come in and browse, talk, exchange ideas. In the 20 years we’ve been here, we haven’t had many of the problems big-box stores have — bounced checks, shoplifting, that kind of thing. Our customers are generally kind and generous. In fact, for several years, an anonymous donor regularly bought books for other customers and their children.”

While WordsWorth offers national and international bestsellers, the store’s focus is on Arkansas books and authors. Published Arkansas writers such as Kat Robinson and Kevin Brockmeier have had booksignings at WordsWorth, and the store handles most of the booksignings for the Clinton School of Public Service, an invaluable partnership, according to Cazort.

“President Clinton came in to shop one day,” Cazort said. “We weren’t expecting that.”

Rubbing elbows with celebrities may be a rarity at WordsWorth, but Cazort notes that it takes a good amount of elbow grease to keep the store’s cogs in the wheel turning.

“It takes a lot of communication and the right combination of personalities to make a business successful,” she said. “But it’s our customers who make WordsWorth a community place, which is what we’ve always wanted, and that kind of endorsement is worth its weight in gold to me.”

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CYNTHIA L.Conger CONGER HIT HIGH NOTES IN FINANCIAL PLANNING

“I

was going to be Barbra Streisand’s replacement,” said Cynthia L. Conger, a nationally recognized financial planner in Little Rock. “I went to a college in San Antonio on a scholarship to study voice and theater. When I got there, I found out I had been a big fish in a small pond in Colorado.”

Conger worked as the house manager for a small theater in San Antonio. “I found I liked that aspect of the business much better,” she said.

A summer job as a bookkeeper helped her decide to change her major to accounting. At the time Conger was attending college, few women were pursuing accounting as a career. She was advised to return to school to get a degree in accounting because, as Conger said, “they were just starting to let women take the CPA exam.”

“When I moved home and started at Colorado State, I

was the only woman in a class of 100 men,” Conger said.

“When I finished that year, I was first in my accounting class. My average was 102 percent.”

Love then entered the picture. Conger met and married her husband, who was studying to be a veterinarian. She worked to support him through his last three years in veterinary school. The couple moved to Philadelphia after his graduation, had their first child, and then moved back to Colorado — all within the same year. After another move to East Lansing, Mich., for his job, and another baby, Conger decided to return to college.

“I had a 5-year-old, a 2-year-old, and had to start all over in accounting because my credits as a fine arts major didn’t fit the accounting curriculum.” Conger said. “I was determined to make it work even though at the time only about 25-30 percent of accountants were women.”

Conger and her husband moved once more, to Arkansas, where she transferred to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1979. She finished her degree in 1980, took the CPA exam and went on to get a master’s degree.

“I had a plan,” Conger said. “My marriage was failing, and I had children I needed to care for as well as myself.

My mother always told my sister and me to do whatever it

CHARLOTTEJohn REAL ESTATE REVOLUTIONARY

I

n 1982, Charlotte John rocked the real estate boat in central Arkansas.

“I had practiced with two other real estate agencies in Little Rock for seven years, and I had ideas to do things differently,” John said.

With the relationships she had built with clients and a line of credit from Pulaski Bank, John struck out on her own. The first thing she did was to charge 1 percent less commission than the industry standard.

“The national rate was lower than what it was in Arkansas then,” John said. “It drew a lot of controversy from other real estate companies, but it set me apart.”

At the time John started her business, it was a seller’s market. “People looking to purchase a home had to call the realtors for the price, and the agent wouldn’t give you the address unless you gave them your information,” she said.

“I started putting both the price and address in ads, and that resulted in more buyer calls.”

John also made up flyers with all the available listings

she represented and delivered them to the agent in the area. “I paid the normal fee to agents from other companies,” John said. “That gave them initiative to sell houses listed with me, the buyers got the home they wanted, the sellers were able to sell their home in a timely manner at a lower commission rate, and I had a happy client. There was no loser in the equation.”

In 1982, John founded the Charlotte John Co. in the Prospect Building in Little Rock. She convinced her sister, Diane Hinkle, to join her as an agent.

“She didn’t know anything about real estate, and now we’ve been together as agents for more than 30 years,” John said.

As her company began to grow, John made it a priority to hire and keep the top agents in the area. “I offered the agents a generous split,” she said. “It didn’t lead to much profit in the beginning, but eventually we grew to 20 agents.”

In 2005, John moved her company to 5813 Kavanaugh Blvd. in the Heights in Little Rock. People can drop in as they stroll among the retail shops and restaurants, and

John now sees how foot traffic is a boon for her business.

“We have visibility now that we never had before,” John said. “The move to the Heights opened up a whole new world for us.”

Today, John’s company has locations in Little Rock and Conway, and in addition to selling homes, the company is now managing rental property.

“Some of our clients have to move to another home before theirs sells,” John said. “We expanded into rental management to help them. We also sell homes to inves-

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took to be able to care of ourselves and our families. I knew completing my education was the key to that.”

Taking 12 hours per semester to finish graduate school while also looking for a job, Conger saw an ad to work in an insurance agency to pursue financial planning. She had no desire to work for an insurance company, but a mentor encouraged her to consider the financial planning aspect of it.

“No one really knew what financial planning was,” Conger said. “It was a unique way of working in accounting while helping the client achieve personal goals — securing the present and future. I really liked that facet of it.”

In 1983, she interviewed with Rick Adkins at Arkansas Financial Group — five times. She joined the firm, eventually becoming its president and co-owner with Adkins.

“We wrote financial plans for a fee then,” Conger said. “We would host luncheons on financial planning for doctors and lawyers. We did a lot of groundbreaking together — we put the client first and developed relationships with them instead of one-time plans.”

Conger was with AFG for 20 years before opening her own firm, Conger Wealth Management, in 2005. She switched her focus to helping women in life’s transitions.

“Most of my clients are women in their late 50s and early 60s,”Conger said. “My goal is to create a culture where my clients know I care about them and want the best for them and their futures, no matter what.”

Today, Conger looks back over her life and career and notes two things that made all the difference in her success: education and perseverance.

“If I had not gone back to college, I would not be here today,” she said. “And I have lived all over the country, traveled all over the world, and I’m always glad to be back in Arkansas.”

“For anyone who wants to start her or his own business, my advice is to get your financial ducks in a row first. I was a single parent, but I knew this was something I could do. If you

have a vision for a business, by all means, follow it.”

— Charlotte John

tors who want us to handle the homes they buy as rental property.”

John says one of the biggest reasons for her success is the support she received from her family, friends and allies in the industry. “My brother-in-law encouraged the bank to give me a loan,” John said.

“Janet Jones encouraged me to get into real estate, and another agent, Carol Jenkins, took me under her wing and helped me get my start.

For anyone who wants to start her or his own business, my advice is to get your financial ducks in a row first. I was a single parent, but I knew this was something I could do. If you have a vision for a business, by all means, follow it.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

ANNE

Powell-Black CONTINUITY WITH COMMUNITY KEY TO SUCCESS FOR POWELL-BLACK

F

or Anne Powell-Black, insurance has long been a way of life.

“My father built the North Little Rock Funeral Home in 1955. In 1963 he bought a stipulated premium insurance charter, American Home Life Insurance Co., to allow individuals to buy enough funeral insurance to pay for their final expenses,” Powell-Black said. “In 1969 the Arkansas Legislature passed a law that all future business written had to be legal reserve [cash] life insurance. I enjoyed working with my father and decided to learn all I could about the life insurance business.”

When her father retired in 1975, she became president of the company.

Over the years, she has stared down the challenges of finding and hiring the right people to work in the company she has watched grow from a few thousand dollars in assets to over $18 million today.

“I have also had to find the right consultants to advise me,” Powell-Black said. “I work with an insurance lawyer, a certified public accountant who is knowledgeable about the life insurance industry, an actuary and investment professionals. There are many regulatory issues that affect my business. It is imperative that I know and understand these issues, which are constantly changing.”

Being the owner of a company has afforded her the chance to glean knowledge from various sources she might not otherwise have encountered.

“I have had many wonderful opportunities,” Powell-Black said. “I have learned from many professionals in the industry. I have attended many great conventions and meetings where I have met many people and heard outstanding speakers.”

She tells entrepreneurial hopefuls that they should, first and foremost, be in touch with their audience.

“The best advice I can give someone looking to start their own business is to first be sure the product or service you plan to offer is needed in the community,” she said. “Second, learn everything you can about the product or service.

Provide a good product/service to meet the

need and always make sure your clients know you care! You need to become the ‘best’ there is in your line of business. It is also important for everyone to understand some basic accounting.

Next, find successful business leaders who are willing to help you.”

Though she entered the insurance industry after thoughtful consideration, she couldn’t have known then how much satisfaction she would get from following through on the business to which her father introduced her.

“I had no idea in 1969 when I started attending a class at UALR that was sponsored by the local CLU (Chartered Life Underwriter) Chapter that I was beginning a career that would offer me so many challenges and opportunities. In 1974 I was the second lady in Arkansas to receive the Chartered Life Underwriter designation from the American College in Bryn Mawr, Penn. I later received my ChFC (Chartered Financial Consultant) designation from the American College,” Powell-Black said. “I am very proud of American Home Life Insurance Co. We offer good products at competitive prices. We primarily write insurance to cover final expenses. We offer excellent service and make it possible for people to work with a local home office in their home town.”

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by

CARAHazlewood CHALLENGES UNVEIL TALENTS FOR HAZLEWOOD

C

ara Hazlewood recognized that people turn to technology in all kinds of fact-finding missions, and that creating a home — or a home-buying experience — should be no different.

“With the advances in the way we communicate and instant access to information through smart phones and tablets, the real estate industry is literally at people’s fingertips,” Hazlewood said. “My business partner and I saw the need for a new real estate company to lead that digital force on a local level. From our digital marketing strategies to helping clients decipher the enormous amount of information available to them online, the entire Property Group team sees firsthand the shift that has and will continue to take place in our industry.”

The Property Group, founded by Hazlewood and her partner, Robert Klein, has an eye toward making the most

of emergent technologies and social media strategies to help clients find their perfect homes.

Honing her real estate craft has required not only business savvy, but also chutzpah mixed with a little trial and error.

“Owning your own business requires that you wear many hats and face unfamiliar situations that challenge our abilities and reveal new talents that we wouldn’t have discovered otherwise,”said Hazlewood.“Sometimes a decision is a home run. Other times there is room left for improvement. But a smart business owner takes the lessons learned from challenges and applies them to future opportunities.”

She has a passion for small home projects as much as for more comprehensive ones and strives to envision a home’s potential upon entering it, usually with individual clients’ needs in mind.

She is the creator of Live the Home Life, one of Arkansas’s

most widely read real estate and home-improvement blogs, where she writes about her own do-it-yourself endeavors. She owes her inspiration for that lifestyle, she says, to her father, an architect, and to her “do-it-yourself rockstar” mother, and she gives photographic evidence of the before-and-after transformation of her own first home.

“Until I was old enough to strike out on my own DIY adventures, I watched my parents tear apart/rebuild/ add-on to every corner of my childhood home,” she writes.

Hazlewood is also a regular contributor to At Home in Arkansas magazine’s blog.

LISALeggett TAKING A LEAP LEADS LEGGETT TO LEADERSHIP

L

isa Leggett’s sense of independence and her craving for organization have made owning her own company attractive and practical.

“Early in our marriage, my husband and I both worked in the corporate world at Alltel,” said Leggett, who specialized in marketing communications. “My husband’s parents have always been entrepreneurs. Before we got married, he told me that he would like to eventually own his own business as well.”

Leggett left Alltel in 2002 after she and her husband, Mark, adopted their first child.

“At that time, I started doing freelance work,” she says.

She was thriving as a freelance database designer and writer and liked working for herself, which is why she jumped at an opportunity to take on a new challenge.

“So when my husband told me a year later that he was also ready to leave corporate, I was ready to take the leap,” she said. “We have been our own bosses since 2003.”

Leggett’s first big endeavor, with Mark at her side, was to buy a struggling Closet Factory franchise, facilitating the company’s marketing and managing its design staff while also custom-creating storage systems for homes and offices.

Real estate was a natural progression for the duo. Selling the Closet Factory and moving into the real estate arena allowed her to take full advantage of her ability to visualize and unlock the potential of homes she was showing to their clients.

She and Mark, now parents of three, continued working as Team Leggett to help clients buy and sell real estate for about five years for an established Little Rock agency before they took a bold step back into entrepreneurship, using their collective experiences and joining with four other established agents to open an agency of their own earlier this year.

Their agency, Aspire Realty, operates under the slogan “You aspire, we achieve.” With an office in Little Rock’s

Hillcrest neighborhood, the company quickly grew to 21 agents that serve Central Arkansas.

While Leggett values the freedom that comes with owning a business, she sometimes realizes how much easier it would be to let someone else make the hard decisions. She said she shakes off those thoughts and rises to the occasion, with a little — or a lot of — help from God.

Sponsored by

WOMEN Entrepreneurs

JANET

“Surround yourself with those whose strengths are your struggles. As a business owner,

Jones

it’s impossible to excel on every level, and to think that you will is foolish.”

— Cara Hazlewood

GOLDEN RULE LEADS TO SHINING SUCCESS FOR JONES

Hazlewood thrives in the positive environment with which she purposefully envelops herself.

“Surround yourself with those whose strengths are your struggles.

As a business owner, it’s impossible to excel on every level, and to think that you will is foolish. Find a group of trusted individuals that you can turn to for advice or just to bounce ideas off of.”

Her own success is bolstered by that of those around her. She takes great satisfaction in seeing everyone at The Property Group do well and is constantly looking for tools that might help them do even better.

“As a business owner and real estate broker, the most rewarding part of my day is watching our agents succeed,” Hazlewood said.

“Knowing that the skills and support provided by The Property Group allows our agents to successfully assist clients with as large of an asset as their home is an amazing feeling. Our agents’ training, think-outside-the-box mentality and drive for excellence is what sets them apart, and maintaining a sharp focus on helping them succeed is always my top priority.”

“There are so many ups and downs. I have had times when it was so tempting to go back to the security of a job. But, in the end, you are still relying on someone else along the way to provide, at some level.” — Lisa Leggett “There are so many ups and downs,” she says. “I have had times when it was so tempting to go back to the security of a job,” she says. “But, in the end, you are still relying on someone else along the way to provide, at some level. I have found that when we have only ourselves and our faith to rely on, we can do some really great things.”

Self-discipline and self-motivation are characteristics Leggett sees as crucial to being a successful business owner. So, too, does she value humility.

“You have to have thick skin and be able to fail. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from failing,” she said. “You also have to be willing to know when you need help and be willing to ask (or pay) for help!”

J

anet Jones is the epitome of a Southern lady: gracious, calm and astute.

The owner and president of The Janet Jones Co., Jones was one of the first women to sell real estate and establish her own agency in Little Rock.

Successful in sales, Jones sold real estate for more than five years. When the owners of the company where she worked decided to form two different companies, she decided it was an opportunity to strike out on her own.

“I thought, ‘If I’m going to another company, it might as well be my own.’ An older person in my life tried to talk me out of it, but my husband, Bud, was always behind me,” Jones said.“I took the chance, and that was 1980.”

The Janet Jones Co. opened in one office at 7915 Cantrell Road. Jones said she centered the business on her value system, which was to treat people the way she would like to be treated and put their needs above her own.

“The relationships were, and still are, my greatest love,” Jones said. “I appreciate the relationship between a buyer and seller, between an agent and client. It’s all interwoven, and I appreciate how it works in a business setting.”

Jones notes that her biggest challenges were her biggest opportunities, too. While her schedule was her own and allowed her more freedom, she also answered only to herself and was a much harder taskmaster than any other employer may have been.

“I think women aren’t afraid of working hard and doing what has to be done,”Jones said.“We’re accustomed to juggling families, work, home, community and church responsibilities; we’re good communicators, and we are patient because

we have to be. We also are natural collaborators, and in real estate, that is a skill that sets agents apart from those who are strictly sales-oriented.”

As she and her company became known throughout Central Arkansas, Jones began to grow strategically.

“I didn’t have a detailed plan when I started,”Jones said.“I followed my instincts and went with the flow of things. We eventually outgrew that one office, so we rented another one in the same building.

Then, when the company needed more space, we rented another office in the same spot until, eventually, we took over the entire building.”

Jones says she was always mindful that the buck stopped with her, and that as the proprietor of her business, she was responsible for its culture as well as its success.

“If you ever see someone sweeping up the parking lot at 7:30 a.m., that’s probably the business owner,” she said. “Many people don’t think about owning a business in those terms, and a lot of younger people want to start out at the top. But you have to pay your dues, do your homework and get experience so you know what you’re doing before you ever start out.”

After more than three decades as one of the top real estate agencies in Little Rock, Jones’ business philosophy remains the same as it was in 1980.

“Particularly now, when everything is moving so fast, it’s crucial to treat everyone with kindness and respect,” she said. “I followed my dream and believed in what I was doing, but it was the people I surrounded myself with that had similar standards and goals that helped make the agency a success.”

“A lot of younger people want to start out at the top. But you have to

pay your dues, do your homework and get experience so you know what you’re doing before you ever start out.” — Janet Jones

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