Heather Wentler No Wrong Turn by Kyle Jacobson Webster’s dictionary defines doyenne as a woman considered to be knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field or endeavor. I’m not forcing clichés into the world’s most obscure wedding speech, just figuring out what doyenne means. It’s also the name of Heather Wentler’s organization focused on, per mission statement, unleashing and igniting the power and potential of women
"So part of why I wanted to become a teacher was so students wouldn’t feel the same way I did.”
entrepreneurs to create entrepreneurial ecosystems where all women thrive. Through more than coincidence, igniting and unleashing one’s potential speaks to Heather’s personal journey. Experience has since shaped her reality, but we’ll start with what she roadmapped beforehand. When Heather was young, she knew who she wanted to be professionally, and opportunities that weren’t stepping stones to that end were questioned with prejudice. “I have a vivid memory of being in algebra class in high school and sitting there going ‘why do I need to learn this?’ The teacher, having this poster that had all of the concepts that we were learning in class relating to different jobs, she said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ “I said, ‘I think I want to be a teacher.’ “And she was like, ‘Well that’s exactly why you need to learn this.’ “And I go, ‘Nope. I don’t want to be a math teacher. I want to be a social studies teacher, so what else you got?’
Photograph provided by Heather Wentler
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“Why should, beside the fact that you get to check a standards box, why should I have to learn this? And no one ever had a good answer for it. So part of
Photograph provided by Heather Wentler
e ssential community
why I wanted to become a teacher was so students wouldn’t feel the same way I did.” As fate tends to play it out, she did end up teaching math. Still, she had built up in her mind a way to teach that she believed would be better than what textbooks could provide outside a general outline in concept. Instead of studying geometry in the abstract, Heather took students to the basketball court. Instead of learning fractions through story problems, she brought the stories to life through brownie recipes. To the dismay of some students, those recipes were baked per their math, and Heather would discuss with them why the brownies didn’t turn out. She got a lot of pushback from the school. Disenchanted with what she would be able accomplish in the classroom, Heather saw the door closing à la Indiana Jones, grabbing what she could before the door closed completely. It was her husband, Chris, founder of Sector 67, who showed her that what she thought was her path in life wasn’t set in stone. It was 2011 when Heather started her first business, Fractal. “I did S.T.E.A.M. enrichment programming for schoolaged kids. It started as a partner program with MSCR for summer school, and then I also worked with the children’s museum. People kept saying, ‘Can we
