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Prosperity is balanced success in various areas of life. One pathway is to 1) create earned income to exceed overhead, 2) align income with one’s core values, 3) build passive income exceeding overhead, and 4) improve the value of contributions to others. Along the way: be curious and generous. Be sensitive to the spirit of life. Love, serve and remember. People who found and manage organizations take responsibility for themselves, their families and communities.
My dad was a federal marshal 30 years, and then started a travel agency with my mom in which my sisters and I worked over the next 20 years. Between ages 16 and 24, I worked some summers in the travel agency, graduated from a college prep high school, studied literature and arts for an Associates degree, received a BA in philosophy and completed three years of graduate studies in philosophy and anthropology. While attending school, I wrote at weekly and daily newspapers, then a prestigious international trade paper in New York. My first marriage ended after the death of my three-day old son from birth defects: tragedies and successes.
It was the time of the Vietnam War. I left corporate America, traveled a year, became a yoga instructor, studied Sikhism and eastern thought. I began my first business at 24, a natural food store and restaurant. Back in Manhattan I was assistant to the French Line vice president of finance while living in an ashram. The combination of writing about business, being in business and studying philosophy influenced my direction in life.
Joining my family’s travel agency in Central Florida in the mid-70s, I founded and sold ventures: I was a tour operator, a tourism developer, a publisher of travel brochures and a monthly cultural magazine. I traveled and assisted in the founding of a spiritual community in Oregon. More schooling in finance, accounting, taxation and insurance culminated with specialized training in marketing, real estate and communications. I shifted from project management to consulting on marketing, finance and planning projects in the 80s. I’m an early adopter of computers and the Internet.
Consulting carried me from Florida to Cape Cod to the Chicago area, then Oregon in the late 80s. New creative projects included greeting card lines, gift lines, an art gallery and art/music videos broadcast over public access cable in the 90s. I built a network of retail stores from Key West to Maine, San Diego to British Columbia selling art and gifts. I worked with artists and artisans, assisting in the selection, development, production, marketing and sale of their work. Independent retail shops were struggling with the explosion of chains and franchises. Presenting at the New York Stationary Show in Spring 2000 and going on a last national sales tour, I saw the future for ill-prepared independents experiencing turbulent change. Market-conscious, proactive management teams who can quickly adapt continue to compete.
In 2001, I began a consulting contract with George S. May International Company. I was in management with the firm in Florida. Invited to the company’s Christmas 2002 Las Vegas celebration, I was presented top sales and quality awards for Western North America. I began graduate management studies at Antioch University in Seattle. Executive coaching and large group facilitation graduate projects inspired me. From these I founded Be Cause Business Resources in 2003. Upon acceptance of my Master’s thesis and graduation, I resigned my position at the consulting group in 2005. Hurricane Katrina tore into the Gulf Coast. I formed a development firm with a partner and we repaired and built 50 construction projects.
I learned lessons, and happily have returned to my home in the Pacific Northwest.Be Cause Business guides firms growing from $500,000 to $20 million with organizational development for sustainable prosperity. Integrated communications with staff and clients anticipates and propels market demand. Designing adaptive systems to fulfill the changing needs of customers, employees and owners is my challenge and delight.
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