Published: Sandy Post – Wednesday, July 22, 2015
If you stand in the middle of the downtown Sandy business complex between Strauss and Shelley avenues, you will be surrounded by woman-owned businesses.
Impact Learning Center was founded by Evelyn MacLean. Next door, Dolly’s Pet Shoppe has been owned by Anna Judd for almost 10 years. Across the parking lot you’ll see the Massage Therapy Center of Sandy, run by Christine Andrade, and Hair In Style, established by Vivian Casanova.
Even the Sandy Library, located just to the north, is managed by a woman.
Although the business world is still dominated by men, it doesn’t seem that way in Sandy.
In 2013, the Small Business Administration reported that 40 percent of Oregon’s small businesses, with 500 employees or less, are owned by women.
This year, the city of Sandy issued more than 260 business licenses to women.
Although it would be easy to learn the story of any of women-owned Sandy business by chatting with their very approachable female entrepreneurs, here’s a look at some of the easily spotted Sandy businesses and how they got to where they are today.
Firwood Design
After an educational career where she was often one of few women in the room, Kelli Grover, a professional engineer, runs her own engineering company in Sandy.
Firwood Design, a civil and environmental land surveying company, was founded in 2003 by Bruce Erickson. In 2008, Grover took over.
“I always had kind of in my mind that I would own my own company,” Grover said. “I’ve always considered myself an entrepreneur.”
Grover began working at the company in 2007 with the potential for ownership. One year later, she bought the business.
Firwood Design is now located on Pioneer Boulevard in the same complex of A.E.C. and has seven employees.
Although Grover said she never experienced why, she has seen a disparity between men and women in the engineering field.
“Women in science and math is rare,” Grover added. “I liked the challenge of working toward my engineering degree.”
Most of Grover’s employees are men and she often finds herself the only woman in a room full of men during work. She has noticed a generational mindset of older men being hesitant to take her seriously, something she doesn’t see in younger generations.
“Working with that generation, I never really run into that situation,” she said.
Grover’s goal for Firwood Design is to restore it to what it was before the Great Recession. Prior to the crash, the company had 11 employees.
“I’d like to get back up to 16 or 20 people,” Grover noted.
Impact Learning Center
Evelyn MacLean started her tutoring business in September 2009. After nearly six years in business, Impact Learning Center is experiencing its busiest summer ever.
“I got into my own business because I couldn’t find a job as a full-time teacher,” MacLean said.
She started her business with the intention of providing homework help for a few students. It has since morphed into a center that helps more than 130 kids in first- through 12th-grade with the aid of 10 tutors. Recently, she began offering help to adults who need it as well.
Although being a woman in a teaching role is often an advantage, running a business hasn’t come without challenges for MacLean, who said she felt like she had to prove herself over and over.
In addition to overcoming the negative stigma that can surround tutoring, MacLean struggled with not believing people when they said she wouldn’t be successful.
“Self-doubt certainly was a challenge,” she said. “I think we all have that self-doubt when we try something new.”
However, surrounded by other female business owners at her location on Pioneer Boulevard, MacLean eventually found community support.
“Community wise, I feel like it’s really a sisterhood between women business owners,” MacLean said. “We want to see each other succeed … I’m overwhelmed sometimes by how blessed I feel to be operating a place like this.”
And after support from neighboring businesses, support began coming from parents.
“To be successful, you really have to believe in yourself or surround yourself with people that believe in you,” MacLean said, as advice to future small business owners. “Everyone said it takes a couple years (to get the business on its feet) and it did. Now it’s bigger and better than anything I could have ever imagined. And it’s changed me.”
Because she has seen a need coming from all areas around Sandy, MacLean hoping for the opportunity to open a second center in Gresham in the future.
“It’s needed,” she said. “It’s needed in every district in every state.”
Ria’s Bar
Having previously worked in Sandy at Washington Mutual, Ria Brower decided to open a bar when she moved to Sandy in 2011.
“I’m a very confident person,” she said. “And I kind of already knew the people.”
Brower is the owner of Ria’s Bar, a local destination at 39024 Proctor Blvd., that serves cocktails and beer and offers entertainment in the form of pool tables, lottery machines, dancing, karaoke and music on the weekends.
When she opened Ria’s Bar, Brower drew from past experience having owned an Oregon City bar with a previous partner in 2009.
A couple years later, she was presented with the opportunity to purchase the restaurant next door.
“I was reluctant since owning my bar was a full-time job and I did not want the added pressure of more responsibility,” Brower noted. “However, I saw this opportunity as a way to expand my business.”
And expand she did. Not only did taking on the Sandy Family Restaurant add more options for dining at Ria’s, it added about 20 employees to Brower’s plate. Despite the challenges, she feels making the jump to own the whole building has been a positive.
Brower has never felt held back by her gender in the restaurant industry and said her confidence has made all the difference.
“That trait has enabled me to work well with both men and women,” she said. “Having that confidence, I believe, is a key element when owning a business.”
Drawing from her own experience, one of Brower’s biggest pieces of advice for a woman wanting to start her own business is to be ready to put lots of time into it, especially when caring for a family.
“I am a single mother and in the beginning I had to prioritize and find that balance for business and family,” Brower added. “It’s a lot of work. You have to be willing to be here.”
She also suggests researching the business thoroughly before diving in and said taking business classes could only help.
With the experience of Ria’s Bar and Sandy Family Restaurant behind her, Brower hopes to open a small upscale bar in the future.
“Even though there are challenges,” she said, “owning my own business has been very successful.”
Iris Healing Arts
Heather Michet, Registered Aromatherapist and Reiki Master, grew up with an interest in health and healing.
“My father … was doing really great health things before they were cool,” Michet said with a laugh. He lifted weights, ate whole grains and made himself a breakfast “formula” smoothie every morning.
In the 1980s, Michet began evaluating her own health and began a little experimentation. What she found made all the difference.
“I definitely saw the results in myself,” she added.
After noticing major body shifts due to small changes, Michet started down the path of healing the community.
Michet opened her Sandy business, Iris Healing Arts, LLC, following her training in British Columbia in the French method of Aromatherapy.
Located in Pearl Acupuncture and Healing Center, 38530 Pleasant St., Iris Healing Arts provides aromatherapy and Reiki, as well as Michet’s own blended modality of Reiki-roma.
Before embarking on a treatment program with Michet, clients are invited to an in-depth intake interview so she can learn what plan and blend of essential oils is right for the client.
“It’s a common belief that one can use any essential oil, for anything, any body, at any time, and that’s not true,” Michet said.
Michet devotes time to getting to know each client in order to steer clear of any essential oils that would be ineffective or unsafe.
But Iris Healing Arts is not just about on-site care and consultations. Michet also maintains a regular blog with health tips and earthy recipes.
Her two best-selling essential oil products — “Fresh Air Fare,” a blend to help relieve allergy symptoms, reduce jet lag and boost the immune system, and “Tranquility,” meant to relax nerves and ease tension — can be purchased on her website. She also offers waterproof keychain canisters to keep your oils handy.
It’s not easy starting an alternative medicine business outside Portland, where most people expect them to show up.
Michet does what she does because she sees herself as a server, an educator and she enjoys solving problems.
“It brings meaning, it brings joy, to myself and ultimately to the clients in the community,” Michet said.
A core piece of Michet’s business, which is wrapped up in her blog, the classes she teaches and her one-on-one care, is her belief that humans are provided for by the earth where they live.
“I’m a nature girl and that shines through not only my life, (but) by my work,” she said.
Sandy Community Action Center
As director of the Sandy Community Action Center food bank, Dawn Loomis spends a good amount of her time educating the community on what it is the nonprofit organization does.
“It’s really bringing awareness to what it is we do here,” Loomis said.
Before she started her position with the action center in October 2014, Loomis was introduced to it through a Ford Family Foundation community project.
In her new position, Loomis is in charge of outreach, fundraising, financial management and facilities management.
The food bank, which serves families within the Oregon Trail School District from Boring to Government Camp, is overseen by a board of eight, has three part-time employees to run the business and 30-40 volunteers to keep it successful in its mission.
“It is what makes us run,” Loomis said. “We could not do what we do without volunteers.”
Volunteers help with everything from operating the thrift store, taking in and sorting food donations, helping clients self-shop the pantry and delivering boxes to Boring families in the new mobile pantry.
In addition to grants and donations, the action center runs on connecting with businesses in the community.
The money it raises not only goes toward keeping the lights on and running operations, it also helps fill holes in the shelves. Unlike many professions, from Loomis’ point of view, the nonprofit industry seems to be dominated by female volunteers. She’s not sure why.
“I’m glad we have a lot of male volunteers,” she added. “But this is a more female industry.”
Kylie L Wray 