Published July 2003

Women of Achievement

Joyce Olson
Joyce Olson need look no further than Snohomish County’s roadways to see the impact of her life’s work.

As chief executive officer of Community Transit, the Texas native heads an agency that provides some 8 million passenger trips annually through its bus routes, serves more than 1,000 people per day through its vanpool program and has 4,000 registered disabled paratransit users, with an average weekday ridership of 600.

“The best part of working in this field is that at the end of the day, I can look back and see that my work is based on service,” said Olson, who became the first woman to head up a transit agency in the United States when, in 1978, she was appointed general manager of MIDTRAN in Midland, Texas.

“It feels good to have made a difference by not only helping folks with transportation, but by contributing to good traffic mobility and leading a company that protects the environment,” she added.

Since Olson’s arrival at CT in 1994, bus service has increased more than 70 percent, and the vanpool program has almost tripled to 322 vans, making it the third-largest fleet in the nation. The operating fleet has grown as well, to more than 300 buses and more than 50 paratransit vehicles. And the agency’s work force now numbers 570 direct employees and 283 contract employees.

To go along with that growth in service, Olson has made employee training a focus of her leadership. To better equip employees to meet new challenges, she developed a training program in visionary leadership, supervisory development and work process improvement team training.

In 1996, Olson received the National Transit Institute’s Champion’s Award, recognizing outstanding leadership and commitment to employee learning and growth. In 1997, the NTI awarded CT’s training department the Partners in Performance Award.

Another focus of Olson’s has been promoting a diverse workplace. Her work in that area has garnered recognition by the American Public Transportation Association, which in 1999 awarded her the Women & Minority Advancement Award, and by the Puget Sound Women’s Transportation Seminar, which awarded the transit agency its Employer of the Year Award in 2000.

Olson’s commitment to serving the community extends past transportation. Active in many local and regional organizations, she is a member of the Everett Rotary, YMCA Board of Trustees and the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Lisa Purdy
Visitors to Lisa Purdy’s place of business might feel as though they have traveled back to a more refined, genteel era, when tea time was strictly observed, china and silver place settings were the norm and the evening meal was a gastronomical event to be enjoyed course by course.

But that is to be expected, because Purdy is founder and owner of Rosa Mundi’s Antiques and Interiors for the Dining Room, an Edmonds shop specializing in American, English and French dining-room furniture and accessories of the mid-19th to early-20th century.

It is a more focused inventory than when Purdy began her business more than a decade ago, working as a dealer in an antique mall before opening her store in 1994.

“As my experience and expertise grew, so did changes in my inventory,” said Purdy, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in public administration. “Rosa Mundi’s began as more of a general antique store, evolved to fine furniture and now just specializes in dining-room antiques.”

Like a late 19th-century solid mahogany, 10-piece, Chippendale-style dining suite or a Scottish sterling tea set, circa 1870, which are among the items to have graced the 4,000-square-foot store at 318 Main Street.

“I have done extensive research on my products, although there is something new to learn each day,” said the former human resources director, who researched the industry itself, working part-time at a Duvall antique store for a summer, before committing her resources and energy to a venture of her own.

It’s advice she gives to other would-be entrepreneurs: “Do your homework. Choose an area you are passionate about. Intern in that business before branching out on your own.”

Despite the challenges of doing business in a soft economy, challenges Purdy has handled by cutting expenses, narrowing her focus and closely monitoring cash flow, the Woodinville resident continues to enjoy the entrepreneurial experience — especially when it involves antiques.

“I like the ability to make people happy by providing them with a memorable shopping experience. I like to be accountable for my own decisions and the freedom to succeed or fail,” she said.

For more information on Rosa Mundi’s call Purdy at 425-771-6598 or visit the shop’s Web site, www.rosamundis.com.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Julie Lowry
Julie Lowry has made a career out of helping others achieve their financial dreams. It’s a career that started right after high school, when she went to work as a bank teller, helping customers with deposits and withdrawals.

Over the years, she worked her way up to new-accounts representative, then assistant manager, then branch manager.

Today, Lowry manages the Lake Stevens market for Wells Fargo, overseeing two banking stores and 13 team members — and ensuring that the company meets the financial needs of area residents and businesses.

“The biggest reward is helping my customers achieve their financial goals, whether it’s their first checking account, their first home or their retirement account,” the Marysville resident said. “You build long-term relationships with your customers and follow them through the stages of their lives.”

Lowry also has built a long-term relationship with her employer. The San Francisco-based financial-services company, which has more than 120 locations in Washington state, hired her in 1985 to be a teller in its Lynnwood office, and she has been a part of the Wells Fargo team ever since.

“I have been lucky to work for a company that provides career development training and tuition reimbursement,” she said of her own professional growth, which has included learning how to handle a diverse staff and customer base.

“Financial services is a constantly changing field. It’s challenging and keeps you on your toes,” Lowry said, adding that it’s an “excellent career path for women.”

“There are unlimited opportunities to grow with a company, and you are limited only by your own initiative,” she said.

Along with seeing to the financial needs of her customers, Lowry has lent her time and expertise tending to Lake Stevens’ economic development activities. A past president of the Greater Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce, Lowry serves on the Lake Stevens Economic Development Committee and the Downtown Merchants Association — “two groups that are helping attract new business to the downtown area while maintaining the integrity of the old mill-town history,” she said.

For more information on Wells Fargo, call Lowry at 425-334-5012 or visit online at www.wellsfargo.com.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Trish Osgood
Trish Osgood isn’t an acrobat, but she does perform a balancing act every day as owner of The Country Nook in Granite Falls.

The antique and gift shop, located in the heart of the “Gateway to the Mountain Loop Highway,” serves the needs of two different markets: the local citizenry and tourists who stop by on their way to the Cascades.

“Balancing that need, I think, has been the hardest challenge,” said Osgood, who started her business six years ago as an outlet to sell her husband’s hand-crafted wood furniture. Since then, The Country Nook’s focus has evolved, and the store now sells a variety of collectible items, antiques, gift baskets, locally made honeys and salsas, and paintball equipment.

Paintball equipment? Paintball markers and other supplies are in high demand with the recent opening of a paintball field three miles outside of town, a project Osgood’s husband, Todd, is involved in.

“It’s a sport not just 12- to 15-year-old boys play,” Trish Osgood said, noting that often it becomes a family affair out on the field — and something to talk about around the dinner table.

“It’s been really cool to see,” Osgood said.

Along with its product mix, The Country Nook’s locale has undergone a change since its inception, moving down the block to 104 E. Stanley St. more than a year ago. The new location, at the main downtown intersection, offers more space for her wares and those of the six antique dealers who share space there, Osgood said. It also offers a family connection.

“My grandfather used to play music in the 1940s in the same building I am in today. Recently, I had a mural painted of him and had it placed above the outside door,” said Osgood, whose roots in the community extend to involvement in the Granite Falls Chamber of Commerce, the Granite Falls Economic Development Committee and the Granite Falls Community Coalition.

The group, made up of business and community leaders, parents and school administrators, works to address social issues facing the town, sponsoring health fairs, drug awareness campaigns and open gyms for kids.

“I believe the coalition has a lot to offer the Granite Falls community, and I want to be a part of making that happen,” Osgood said.

For more information on The Country Nook, call 360-691-5244.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Marilyn Kyd
More than four years ago, free-lance writer Marilyn Kyd received a call from a publisher asking her to contribute a collection of sayings on motherhood for a book series. She said she needed 24 hours to think about it, and the publisher promised to e-mail more information.

During the next 24 hours, Kyd created more than 50 sayings on motherhood, some funny, some sweetly sentimental, but she never heard from the publisher again.

“There I was, with all of this stuff and nothing to do with it,” the Lynnwood resident said.

Until she shared a few of the sayings with friends, sayings like “A mother’s heart is so full of love, it often breaks” or “Children inhabit our bodies for only a moment; our lives, forever.”

Some of them actually cried, recalled Kyd, a mother herself. It was then she knew she had something and started Mom Thoughts, a business selling her sayings on magnets, mugs, notepads, key chains, weekly planners and, the flagship product, a collection of 50 “thoughts” printed on small cards.

By 2000 she had her Web site up and running as well as a catalog to sell and market her wares. She began making the rounds of mom-and-pop gift shops as well as trade shows. And she sent out mailings to groups in her target market: Parent Teacher Organizations, schools, florists, members of the gift-basket industry — groups that put her Mom Thoughts in touch with “anyone who is, has or knows a mom.”

Sales, which continue to build slowly, are concentrated around Mother’s Day and Christmas, said Kyd, who has learned a basic truth faced by most start-ups: that the first years are, indeed, the roughest. But she also has a vision of Mom Thoughts’ future, a vision that includes licensing agreements with other companies that put her sayings on product shelves across the country.

“What keeps me going is that I know it’s good,” she said.

For more information on Mom Thoughts, call Kyd at 800-999-4593, send e-mail to Marilyn@MomThoughts.com or visit online at www.MomThoughts.com.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Nancy J. Wagner
Small businesses are big business for Nancy J. Wagner and Cut to the Chase Marketing, a Bothell-based marketing-service company that has found its niche serving sole proprietorships and companies with 50 or fewer employees.

It’s a niche the 5-year-old company developed over time, said Wagner, company founder and owner.

“The greatest challenge was in deciding to work with small businesses. Everyone told me the profit potential was in working with the large corporations, but I didn’t find the process satisfying,” said the Bothell resident, who previously worked as a director and copywriter for a Chicago ad agency. “Now that I work only with small businesses, their survival depends on marketing efforts that eliminate the feast-versus-famine syndrome, so I have to keep thinking constantly to help them grow.”

That thinking has led Wagner to offer a variety of marketing services, from consulting and Web-site development to photography and production of marketing materials. She also teaches a four-week “Cut to the Chase Marketing” seminar at Community Capital Development in Seattle, a marketing course for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s SCORE program and a “Starting Your Own Business” course at Renton Technical College.

The seminars, combined with other public speaking appearances, networking activities and referrals from satisfied customers have helped build Wagner’s client base, but she also uses direct mail and sends out a bimonthly newsletter geared for small businesses that turns prospects into clients.

The result: “I’m very niched now, and it’s paying off in the growth my company is experiencing,” Wagner said.

A former board member of Women Business Owners in Seattle, Wagner’s Cut to the Chase Marketing is a major sponsor of the Women’s Network for Entrepreneurial Training, an SBA-sponsored workshop series that provides training for small-business owners in five Puget Sound locations, including Everett. Such programs are important for women entrepreneurs, she said.

“It’s a great way to get good ideas for running your business while also getting the support you need to succeed.”

For more information on Cut to the Chase Marketing, call 425-415-6427 or visit on the Web at www.cuttothechasemarketing.com.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Catherine Kessel
After 27 years of making quilts as a hobby and taking the occasional order on commission, Catherine Kessel decided to go into business full time.

“I wanted to work out of my home and become my own boss,” said the Marysville resident, whose formal education has included bookkeeping, mechanical drafting, business and purchasing management as well as quilting.

So, in January 2002, with a mission statement, business plan and marketing strategy in hand, Kessel started American Quilt Works, offering machine quilting services for hire.

She began advertising in an international quilting magazine, sending business cards and a newsletter to quilting guilds and shops around Washington state, lecturing for quilting organizations and sending out news releases to media outlets when she had something to announce, like her annual open house. And as her clientele began to grow, so did her products and services.

Now, Kessel teaches a beginner’s quilting class, designs quilts and quilt patterns, and sells custom finished quilts and crafts to go along with her machine quilting services.

“The greatest challenge is having lots of ideas. Because I am a one-woman operation, I don’t have anyone to delegate some of my mundane work to so I can concentrate on business planning and the creative aspects of my business,” said Kessel, who is in the midst of developing an American Quilt Works Web site.

To stay on track, Kessel plans her time with care, prioritizing tasks as they fit within her mission statement.

“My vision and goal for American Quilt Works by 2006 is to be a Master Quilter owning a home business that offers a machine quilting service, teaches quilt making, makes and sells quilts and crafts (and) offers a quilt appraisal service. I also want to self-publish my own designs for quilters and other crafts people,” she said.

Along with the satisfaction that comes with running her own business, Kessel has enjoyed meeting other quilt artists through her work and memberships in such organizations as the International Machine Quilters Association, the National Quilting Association and the Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters. Kessel said she values the networking opportunities such groups afford her, and it’s something she advises other women to take advantage of when starting a business.

“Network with others in your field and locate mentors to help you develop your business,” she said.

For more information on American Quilt Works, call Kessel at 360-658-1086.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Sondra McCutchan
In the fiercely competitive food-service industry, Sondra McCutchan has stood the test of time, clocking in more than 30 years on the management side of the business, 25 of them as owner of The Cabbage Patch Restaurant in Snohomish.

Before buying the Victorian house-turned-eatery in 1978, McCutchan had been the assistant manager for Vince’s Italian Restaurant in Seattle. It was there that she gained experience — and confidence — to venture out on her own.

“My previous employer had offered me a partnership in his business,” McCutchan said of Vince Motala, owner of Vince’s. “His confidence inspired me to believe that if I could partner with his restaurant, I could definitely run my own.”

And she has, turning a 13-table establishment into a destination restaurant complete with a 23-table dining room, a lounge on the second-floor and an expanded kitchen to serve both guests and a growing catering business.

Over the years, McCutchan has had to contend with the challenges of marketing what her business has to offer — whether it’s the restaurant’s Dungeness crab quiche, barbecue dip sandwich or prime rib dinner or her catering service’s array of dinner, buffet and tray menus.

She also has had to deal with keeping up with the “ever changing” demands of the public.

“This is not a challenge that can be easily met. My solution has been to try and remain flexible to what my guests want,” she said, noting that the restaurant staff works to accommodate a variety of dietary needs.

As for marketing, the Snohomish resident believes in — and relies on — three things to attract clientele: word-of-mouth, well-placed advertisements and the Internet, where The Cabbage Patch has a virtual home at www.cabbagepatchrestaurant.com.

And when customers do sit down to a meal at her restaurant or have an event catered, there’s a sense of fulfillment that comes with making them happy, McCutchan said, adding that there’s a special thrill that comes from catering a wedding and “seeing a young couple starting their journey through life.”

For more information on The Cabbage Patch, located at 111 Ave. A, call McCutchan at 360-568-9091 or visit the restaurant’s Web site.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Connie Pachek
When Connie Pachek started in the banking industry as a check filer in 1968, she wasn’t looking for a career, as the majority of jobs women had at the time tended to be at “clerical levels and not management,” she said.

But a lot has changed for women in the banking industry during the past three decades, said Pachek, a past president of the Snohomish County Chapter of Women Bank Executives. Today, she is an executive vice president for Frontier Bank, overseeing the operations and human resources departments for the Everett-based bank, which has 38 branches and some 600 on staff.

“I have seen the doors open, not only for myself, but women in general. The educational opportunities are outstanding, and I have always enjoyed the challenges that have been given to me,” said the Stanwood resident, who credits her own advancement to hard work and a willingness “to do more and learn more.”

“As the executive vice president for the bank’s operations and human resources areas, I stay extremely busy. I am fortunate to have a great group of people working with me to keep all of the departments running smoothly,” said Pachek, who has attended numerous specialized banking schools and courses during her career.

It’s a career centered on community banking, with its focus on customer service and the communities in which the banks operate, Pachek said, noting her 23 years with Frontier and 11 years with Olympic Bank, formerly Everett Trust and Savings Bank.

Pachek’s own community focus has led her to serve on the board of the American Red Cross as well as on the Allocation Committee for the United Way of Snohomish County.

“Being involved makes you a better business person and citizen in your communities as well as rewards you as an individual,” she said.

As for women considering a career in banking, Pachek offers this advice: “Stretch beyond your comfort level and grow in your responsibilities and leadership levels. Work hard, volunteer to help out in other areas than your current job assignment and remember, the learning never stops and the opportunities and challenges will continue to come your way.”

For more information on Frontier Bank, call the administrative offices at 425-514-0731, visit any one of its branch offices, or visit online at www.frontierbank.com.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

Joan Miles
Joan Miles has always been a “people person” — a quality that comes in handy as the foundation and volunteer coordinator for Cascade Valley Hospital and Clinics in Arlington.

In her many roles, Miles works with hospital volunteers; oversees public relations programs such as Senior Services, community education and the Lifeline, or Medic Alert, program; and serves as liaison between the hospital and the Cascade Valley Hospital Foundation.

Since its founding five years ago, the nonprofit foundation has established a number of fund-raisers, from a 5-kilometer “Poker Walk” in September and a Christmas tree ornament sale to the “Donate a Phone” program and sales of the hospital’s own Cascade Valley Blend coffee.

“We realize we are not the only health-care foundation in Snohomish County, so we understand and pride ourselves in being creative with our fund-raising programs,” said Miles, who has been a part of the foundation since its creation.

The foundation’s programs have paid off for the hospital and the community, funding a variety of needs, including a mobile X-ray system, a bone densitometer to assess not only bone loss but also how a patient will respond to treatment, and Spanish language classes for admitting staff.

“While we are still considered ‘young’ and ‘growing,’ we are very proud of our accomplishments,” said Miles, who began her career with Cascade 15 years ago working in the hospital’s social services department, helping patients discharged from the hospital make a smooth transition back to their homes.

In today’s health-care environment, the foundation’s services are in even greater demand, she said, noting shrinking reimbursements and a rise in the cost of doing business. “The two combined make it difficult for the hospital to operate, let alone expand and improve its services.”

But Miles, who recently began a second career, opening the Bronze Salon tanning salon with her family in Arlington, said “perseverance” is her favorite word.

“If you have determination, if you don’t give up, you can do anything,” she said. “I love a challenge, something new. That’s where health care is today — you have an opportunity to improve the lives of people every day.”

For more information on Cascade Valley Hospital and Clinics or the foundation, visit online at www.cascadevalley.org.

Back to the top/Business Women 2003 Main Menu

 

© The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA