Entrepreneurs are a special breed. They enjoy a challenge, go beyond the ordinary, and work hard. They look for new business opportunities or they innovate and refresh existing businesses.
We have examples of great entrepreneurial success stories in Southwest Washington. Among the successes are five determined women who have turned their ideas into reality. These women add value to their enterprises and their community with their products or services. Most importantly, they initiate multiplier effects by creating jobs, regional recognition and sustainability for our quality of life.
Included are a woman who runs two major resorts; a woman running a successful ship repair business; a pioneering engineer who designs and produces control panels for companies around the world, including a high-tech design for robots; and a former dancer who has created Zumba routines designed to improve seniors’ health. Finally, we recognize and give credit to a social entrepreneur with a passion for history. Here are their stories.
Marianne Guetter
Marianne Guetter, owner of Riverside Marine Services in Washougal (www.riversidemarineservices.com) loves the boating industry. She and her family are longtime recreational boaters. She started her boat repair and maintenance business 15 years ago with five employees. She now has seven full-time employees and could hire more, but her ability to grow is limited by cramped facilities with no room to expand. The company leases from the Port of Camas-Washougal, and her business is connected to the port’s marina and boat launch, which is an important access point for her business.
Guetter is entrepreneurial in projecting her long-term needs and anticipating opportunities as well as obstacles to overcome. She scans for changes that impact her industry to include legal as well as technological changes and certification requirements her employees must meet to repair, restore or maintain the expensive boats under her business’s care. She must balance seasonal demands and use slow periods to send employees to upgrade certifications. She reduces liabilities while she keeps a sharp eye on safety requirements both for her employees and the boats that they repair or maintain.
Guetter says her biggest challenge is in finding quality time to think and plan strategically. Daily operations consume her time. Yet she enjoys the one-on-one interaction with boat owners who share her love of boating and appreciate the service she provides for what she calls a rather expensive hobby.
Guetter’s advice to others is to avoid burnout by not taking on too much and by creating support systems at work and at home.
Marfa Scheratski
Marfa Scheratski is in charge of two resorts — famous for their therapeutic mineral waters — in the Columbia River Gorge. Her businesses are among the major employers in Skamania County, attracting tourist dollars to the region. Depending on the season, she leads 140 to 170 employees, who manage 10 operations within the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort & Spa (www.bonnevilleresort.com), which opened 12 years ago, and the newly renovated Carson Hot Springs Golf & Spa (www.carsonhotspringresort.com).
A family person with five children — two still at home — Scheratski adapts her schedule to fit multiple responsibilities into her day. Before starting her family, she was active in the commercial fishing industry in Alaska and studied business and accounting. She took over the management of the Bonneville mineral pool facility built by her father, who runs a construction company. She reaches out beyond her own businesses to serve on the Skamania Economic Development Council to collaborate with others in building sustainable growth in the region.
Scheratski admits to a passion for the healing properties in mineral waters, which forms the foundation for her businesses. A keen thinker and decision-maker, she believes her nurturing side fits well with a hospitality business that promotes rejuvenation and health. Her many challenges include keeping up with the changes in reporting and taxation, adapting to weather and seasons, and human resource issues of recruiting and training local employees and those who have long commutes.
Scheratski believes in a management style that encourages commitment and loyalty among employees, customers, vendors and the larger community.
Her advice to others: “Love what you do, and create a standard of value and integrity.”
Charlene O’Day
Charlene O’Day is president of Charter Controls in Vancouver (www.chartercontrols.us), which designs and customizes high-tech control panels for customers all over the world. As a Clark College student in the 1970s, she was one of only two women in her engineering class. O’Day became a designer/creator and problem-solver in the engineering field. She took on drafting and worked for Columbia Machine in Vancouver while learning and transitioning to the emerging new technologies. O’Day stresses competencies and learning to stay relevant and competitive in her field.
Although an engineer by choice and training, O’Day considers a balanced life and family a priority to being a good business decision-maker. Her first business venture was a partnership with another engineer who she eventually bought out to forge ahead on her own. She found running a business very challenging and sought help with seminars, classes and through SCORE. She outsources some aspects of her business to get expert advice on changing legal requirements and tax codes and still does so.
O’Day’s major challenge as an entrepreneur is dealing with the uncertainty of operating in a global environment. She has to adjust to changing specifications, potential inaccurate language translations, and voltage requirements, among countless other details. She is linked to other component part producers in the U.S. and around the world.
She fine-tunes her interactions to suit both her linked project partners, suppliers and final customers to meet restrictive specifications and delivery dates. Currently she is completing customized control panels for a large paper manufacturer in Brazil and an assembly line robotic device for a Japanese company.
Melissa York
Melissa York’s company, MyFit Nation (www.myfitvancouver.com), is still in the startup phase and brings an entrepreneurial twist to fitness. York’s life revolved around dance from the age of 5 and led to a dance career including professional dancing, coaching dance teams and dancing for the Portland Trail Blazers. While raising a family of four children, she branched off into becoming certified in fitness routines, including Zumba. She established her own group fitness center in the Salmon Creek area and now teaches a series of fitness classes specializing in Zumba for people older than 50, while also renting out spaces to several trainers for specialized personal training.
York’s challenges as an entrepreneur are in learning the business skills necessary to generate revenue for sustainable growth. Although she grew up in the Clark County area, she gained much of her dance and fitness experience in the greater metropolitan Portland area. She said that her mind-set and marketing techniques were urban/Portland focused and this has created many challenges in getting her customer base established in the Salmon Creek area. She is now getting business tips from Washington State University Vancouver’s Small Business Development Center and says she is making great progress.
York’s main advice to others is to truly love what you do and to learn basic business survival skills before venturing out on your own.
Katie Anderson
Social entrepreneur Katie Anderson is the new executive director of the Clark County Historical Society and Museum in Vancouver (www.cchmuseum.org). Not-for-profits such as museums have traditionally not been categorized as businesses. But this concept has changed as experts in entrepreneurship, such as Peter Drucker, have promoted the idea that entrepreneurship is a practice and includes public service institutions. This concept has become mainstream in the last 10 years.
Anderson is responsible for preserving many Clark County treasures while managing a staff of four and 25 volunteers. She coordinates significant decisions with 14 board members as she plans and directs multiple stakeholders including museum members, visitors, and the larger Clark County community. Her challenges are to produce revenue and source funds to maintain both a professional institution and create spirited and “customer-friendly” events, activities and displays.
Anderson’s biggest challenge as a newcomer to the area is to meet and connect with people across Clark County, find necessary resources including funding, and prioritize needs.
Her advice to others: Love what you do and monitor your energy. Learn to say no to avoid burnout. Take care to relax and recharge your batteries so that the energy can be maintained in conducting your business.
• o o
Buck Heidrick, business adviser at Washington State University Vancouver’s Small Business Development Center, says entrepreneurs need a passion for what they undertake and a vision of what they want to be — strategically — long term. Entrepreneurs also need analysis and problem-solving skills, he says. A major mistake for fledgling entrepreneurs is avoiding financial realities or failing to be objective about specific situations, he has found.
In summary, although none of the women interviewed believed that entrepreneurship is gender-related, they shared a belief that an ability to establish and foster relationships, plus a caring sensitivity to nurturing a fledgling business, are traits needed by successful entrepreneurs.
The value of entrepreneurship in a region needs to be recognized as the catalyst that adds energy and viability to our business ecosystem and ultimately to our quality of life. Entrepreneurship thrives when there are links to stakeholders within a free society.
Lucia Worthington has owned and managed several successful businesses and teaches business, management, and entrepreneurship at Clark College. She can be reached at: success@lworthington.com.
