Six Finalists Being Honored Oct. 23

by Nancy Pace

For 21 years, Whatcom Women in Business has celebrated the accomplishments of local businesswomen with our annual Whatcom County Professional Woman of the Year Award. Excitement is building this year as well as we prepare for the banquet and ceremonies to be held Oct. 23 at the Best Western Lakeway Inn in Bellingham.

Amid the numerous awards banquets held throughout the year, the Professional Woman of the Year award, sponsored by WWiB, has become a notable ongoing forum. It recognizes significant contributions through mentorship, business acumen, ethics, leadership and community involvement by the professional women in our county. These contributions are key factors in our mission statement and we use them as a guide when selecting the final candidates for our award from among the nominees.

Our outstanding finalists this year are: Holly Barbo, co-owner of Barbo Furniture; Cheryl Ferrier, Realtor with John L. Scott Real Estate; Francine Kincaid, executive assistant to County Executive Pete Kremen; Phyllis McKee, local real estate developer and member of various community boards; Lynn Wilson, author and entrepreneur; and Kimberlly Winjum, publisher of the Ferndale Record-Journal.

The winner is selected by a panel of judges who represent Whatcom County’s business and civic community. This year’s panel of judges includes three past recipients of this award: Anna Williams, Pat Rose and Jean Gorton, last year’s winner. In addition, we will welcome David Simpson and Rick Tremaine as judges.

We are delighted this year to have as our special guest speakers Dave Walker and Shari Matthews, the morning team from Soft Rock KAFE 104.3 FM. Dave and Shari captivate people each morning with their easy banter and clever audience participation games based on classic TV game shows like “Jeopardy” and “Family Feud.” Their commentary is intelligent without being stuffy. I look forward to their feature called “KAFE Kids,” which is derived from going into elementary schools armed only with questions and a tape recorder.

Our heartfelt thanks is extended to this year’s banquet sponsors for their contributions: Bank NorthWest, Bakerview Nursery and Garden Center, Laserpoint Awards, Port of Bellingham, Whatcom County Business Pulse, Best Western Lakeway Inn, John L. Scott Real Estate, Systems Consulting Group, Inc., The Art of Photography, Soft Rock KAFE, and Print & Copy Factory.

You won’t want to miss this exceptional event! Tickets are $30 and must be ordered in advance by calling Susan Harrison at 592-2223. Reserve a table of eight for your friends and business associates. Each year this has been a soldout event, so pre-purchase of tickets is essential. Social hour and silent auction begin at 6 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there!

At the start of each school year, WWiB awards educational scholarships to head of household women in Whatcom County. There are many women in our community who find themselves in need of a better education in order to provide for themselves and their families. These scholarships are funded primarily by a silent auction held at the banquet.

We are proud to be able to extend a helping hand to women who are working hard to improve their situation. If your business would like to make a contribution to the silent auction for this year, or in the future, please contact Betty Vargas at 671-0771.

WWiB is a non-profit organization established in 1978 by business owners and executives searching for a means to provide mutual business support and education. We meet twice each month for lunch and roundtable discussions on specific issues of concern to members, as well as occasional guest speakers and field trips to local businesses.

Nancy Pace is president of Whatcom Women in Business and co-owner of Celebrity Catering.

 

Francine Kincaid

by Dyas Anna Lawson

Francine Kincaid adamantly insists that the things she’s accomplished weren’t hers alone — and that one statement encompasses her philosophy of life.

Kincaid, executive assistant in the Whatcom County Executive Office, has a long list of responsibilities and accomplishments to her credit. In addition to raising three children as a single working mom, she’s had employers such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House. For the county, Kincaid investigates and resolves sometimes complex problems and numerous other things.

She’s probably most familiar in connection with the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Moving Wall, the half-size replica that travels the nation. She was instrumental in bringing that Ferndale last year, but prefers to share credit.

Her Harborview Lions Club president, Debra Wilson, wanted to bring the Moving Wall here several years ago, when Kincaid was a vice president. Wilson’s health prevented that, so Kincaid characteristically pitched in. Most of her core committee — a whopping 38 people — showed up at the first meeting.

“Everyone laid aside any personal agenda and worked together to bring the Wall here,” Kincaid recalls. “Everyone. I call it a magical time.”

Those of whom she’s most proud include the area community that financially supported the Moving Wall, the “leftovers” from which were enough to construct a memorial to Whatcom County’s fallen Vietnam vets.

“I’ve heard families say the Moving Wall and this memorial have made such a difference to them … making the veterans feel welcome. It was just a wonderful thing, the way everyone in the community supported it,” she says.

Other things on her “proud of” list include her children, who she has seen become successful and compassionate adults. Her boss, County Executive Pete Kremen, and co-workers make her list, as do her professional group, the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), and her Lions club.

Kincaid learned her philosophy early, watching her parents, who served as her primary mentors, practice what they believed.

“Dad couldn’t go to high school,” Kincaid says, “so for 10 years he went to night school. He would tutor classmates who were having a struggle. We were always the first ones people came to when they needed help. Mom and Dad lived what they believed: Love your neighbor and reach out to those who are hurting.”

Kincaid says that’s her primary motivator — the desire to improve life for others. In doing so, she admits, you’ll gain more than you think you’ve given. “My path has been somewhat circuitous and I’ve gathered a lot of blessings and learned a lot,” she says, citing things she’s done to “give back.” “I wish I could say I’d made a difference (to those people), but usually, the difference is made in me.”

Kincaid is involved in ham-radio activities and coordinated an emergency-preparedness program at Parkway Village. She was the IAAP’s 2000 Professional of the Year and serves on the regional board and local committees. She’s been involved in Bellingham Elks Club events and other activities.

“The most frightening thing is to get beyond the box of the familiar, but we have to if we’re going to grow,” she says.

Next on her agenda is a project already under way — providing and upgrading the library’s materials and equipment for the visually challenged.

 

Holly Barbo

by Dyas Anna Lawson

A constant thread through the tapestry of Holly Barbo’s life is art. Along with a double minor in art, she began self-employment designing wildlife-art cross-stitch designs for Pegasus, Inc. She was later nominated for a design award.

“I have been self-employed for the last 14 years,” she says. “The furniture store isn’t my first venture.”

The design work began five years after the birth of her and husband Chris’s son Mikael. In 1988, she began working in the family business. Though she was the accountant, she continued to design. Her first furniture design was for the Whatcom Museum’s Take a Seat Auction. She and Chris collaborate, though less since they opened Barbo Furniture in downtown Bellingham in 1999.

Barbo says the joy of sharing her love for art and beauty motivate her both in the store and in her personal life. “It’s the joy of sharing something beautiful with somebody else and seeing their excitement, watching them make their home individual,” she explains. Other motivators include the city of Bellingham, which she loves deeply; seeing people’s excitement; and pride in excellence.

“The store has given me the opportunity for all three,” she continues. “The store is our latest and, I believe, final endeavor; I’m using everything I’ve learned in my entire life and I’m learning every day.”

Along her path, she cites her grandmother as a primary mentor. “She never told us what to do; she had a very unusual teaching style,” Barbo says, adding that it was highly effective. Husband Chris has been a strong influence, as has an older friend who occasionally takes a mentoring role and “a flock of others.” Barbo says she’s always been drawn to people who “think outside the box and are able to see the permutations that can occur from various actions.”

She’s proudest of Mikael, who at 19 is attending college. “I delight in my strong marriage, though that’s something you both work on. I’m proud of the store, of the atmosphere we’ve been able to achieve, the artists we’ve brought into the store and the fact that my own art is there.” She calls her beautiful, evocative wildlife pillow-art contributions “humble.”

On Barbo’s list of things to do are success for the store and a budding role as an advocate for realistic change for Bellingham. She believes the store is on its way, and she’s been writing articles about what she believes Bellingham and Whatcom County need to become prosperous. “Many people don’t realize change is happening, and the longer we hold onto the status quo, the more change rolls over us like a steamroller,” she says. “If I can be a little bitty voice that can help, perhaps, bring things into focus … and help make things happen for this city that I love, man, that would just make it.”

Barbo also works with Chris, is on the Samish Neighborhood Association board, is a founding member of an investment club, co-chairs with Chris the mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission representing the central business district, belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and has written articles for the Business Journal and Business Pulse. In March, Barbo Furniture was also a finalist for Whatcom County Start-up Business of the Year.

 

Cheryl Ferrier

by Dyas Anna Lawson

If one word could encompass Cheryl Ferrier’s life, it would be “people.” The fully involved Realtor earned her license in 1988 and has earned the profession’s three designations since then, as well as obtaining an insurance license to serve her clients more fully.

She didn’t start out in real estate, but a Realtor friend in California suggested she’d be excellent in the field. When Ferrier moved to Washington, she obtained that license “and never looked back.”

“I love the people contact and the first-time homebuyers are my favorite,” she says. “They’re usually the most enthusiastic, but the least knowledgeable. You tend to remember everything about your first house, and it makes it special for me to be able to help people take that first step into the American dream.”

The surprises in real estate, personality- and schedule-wise, keep her intrigued. “That holds true for selling as well as my involvement in the (statewide) association,” Ferrier remarks. “The interaction and the wonderfully different personalities you get to work with.”

Ferrier points to two chief mentors: a political-science professor who encouraged her to keep her eyes open regarding a career and the Realtor friend. “He taught me the things I remember when I’m mentoring new agents,” Ferrier recalls. “He said to be very, very careful and take a long time to decide who you want to work for, then never look back. From that point on, the only place you’re going to find motivation is in the mirror.” She’s lived by that advice and passes it on to newcomers, who she often hears repeating it to her.

Ferrier is proudest of the adults her two children have become. Her son is a successful middle manager at a large Fortune 500 company and has become a wonderful father; her daughter returned to college and is “blasting her way through” civil-engineering classes. “I’m also proud of my ability to help my profession in what little way I can, because I see so many people who don’t give back,” she says.

That “little way” includes a dizzying collection of jobs for the Washington Association of Realtors, including this year’s presidency and last year’s vice presidency. She’s a member of the Whatcom County Planning Commission and active in the Whatcom Association of Realtors. She’s involved in political issues at all levels, particularly those regarding property rights. Ferrier has helped lead several Realtor-sponsored state-initiative campaigns and has raised funds with the realtors’ political-action committee. She is involved in the annual W.A.R. Education Conference and Trade Show, the local New Realtors Orientation and other events. On the national level, Ferrier’s served on the state and local fiscal affairs, political communications and public-policy coordinating committees.

With all that activity, a husband equally involved in his own business-related issues and grandchildren growing up — the newest arrived in July — Ferrier says she’s beginning to think of slowing down.

“At some point, I’ll start to quietly let go of all the things I do and do some serious thinking about retiring,” she says. “My husband (Gerald) would like to, but it’s kind of hard with both of us still so involved. I’d like to relax and travel and enjoy my grandchildren.”

 

Phyllis McKee

by Dyas Anna Lawson

With deep roots in Skagit and Whatcom counties — she says she’s never lived more than 25 miles from where she was born and raised — Phyllis McKee still devotes her best efforts to the home area she loves.

Best known for her building projects in the Fairhaven area, where she built and is renting retail and office space in Finnegan’s Alley, McKee started out with an education degree, teaching home economics for 21 years. After that, she managed the Northwest office of the Washington Teachers Association, a position that allowed her the creativity she loves.

She became involved in building in 1972 when she, her then-husband and other couples bought the building now housing Anna’s Kaddyshack and Bob’s Burgers & Brew. They started Gallery West to help cover building costs, then rented more space and bought the whole building. Eventually she bought out the two remaining partners.

McKee chuckles as she relates a discussion years ago about building on the parking lot when 2000 rolled around — “it sounded so far away!” — and that’s what she did. McKee also owns residential properties in both counties.

Among her extracurricular loves are the performing arts, so she was delighted when asked to be on the Mount Baker Theatre board. Now in the fourth year of her six-year term, the building committee was a natural and she loves it. She’s also an MBT STAR volunteer. She travels to New York for opera and loves dance and theater, as well.

Her greatest mentors, she recalls, were her parents. Born during a time when parents made clear distinctions between boys’ and girls’ roles, McKee was blessed with a father who allowed her to work and play outside with all the boy cousins. She’s always felt comfortable and confident in an all-male environment and credits that to her upbringing. Her parents taught her young to work and save her money, too, lessons that have helped her in life.

“They both instilled in me a sense of responsibility and accountability,” she says. “That’s just the way you lived your life. You have to balance your efforts and give the most attention to what’s most important.” She also credits a number of people along the road with having changed the direction of her life.

Among her proudest achievements is P-SUPs — pronounced “pea soups” — an innovative group she pioneered during her Washington Teacher Association days. It involved principals and superintendents — hence the name — in brainstorming and problem-solving sessions designed to solve difficulties and smooth relations among teachers and administrators. Later modeled on a national level, McKee says it made for “warm, nonthreatening relationships for those involved.”

Finnegan’s Alley of course makes her list. She says she “learned a huge amount about construction, codes and working with the city” and is curious to see what she’ll do with that knowledge.

Never doubt that she’ll do something with it; McKee hates to be bored. “So I create projects for myself. I love to learn new things. I like to do things that stretch my capabilities. We’re now in the rental phase with Finnegan’s, and there will be an end to that and I’ll be looking for something else to do.

— Dyas Anna Lawson

 

Lynn Wilson

by Dyas Anna Lawson

Family” and “business” are both important words in Lynn Wilson’s vocabulary. Put them together — as in “family business” — and you have the basics in a nutshell.

As manager of Cheryl Leaf Antiques and Gifts, she exercises both to her heart’s content. She left Los Angeles in 1993 to return to Bellingham and help her grandmother, Cheryl Leaf, run her store, after Leaf broke a hip. Though some of us might see that as a sacrifice, it’s more a natural extension of Wilson’s and Leaf’s relationship.

“The one person who has affected my life on all levels is my grandmother,” Wilson says. “She was an incredible lady and a pioneer as a woman in business.” She was the woman from whom Wilson learned business and personal ethics and her love for entrepreneurship.

In 1995, Wilson built a Web site for the antique store. She’s written a book on collecting Beanie Babies. She’s written and is promoting the books I Buy and I Sell, which ease record-keeping for those who use Internet auction houses. She’s designed antique-themed greeting cards and seen then placed nationally in Barnes & Noble bookstores. She expanded Leaf’s store to include four new rooms, added gift lines, remodeled the shop and more, in addition to helping care for Leaf and parenting her own two children.

Wilson says she loves opportunities that let her be creative. “I love taking interests and ideas, thinking about them from many different angles and turning them into business products,” she says. She adds that each project takes its own business plan based on its characteristics and she enjoys that challenge.

“When I’m working on a project and I’m challenged and excited, I can work for hours and days on end without realizing it,” she adds. Being an entrepreneur allows her to indulge those broad interests in many areas.

Those, too, were lessons learned at Leaf’s knee. Cautions about honesty, credit and others soaked into Wilson’s head even during her childhood, when she worked for Leaf to earn money for her first 10-speed bike.

“When I took over her business, she never second-guessed me or undermined me,” Wilson states, pleased with Leaf’s love for and trust in her.

Wilson says she’s most proud of her two young children and her decision to return to Bellingham . “My family and I worked very hard to get (Leaf) out of the rest home and back into her home, where she really wanted to be. We learned how to be caretakers, playing many roles to keep her out of a nursing home. … I was blessed to have those last seven years with (her) and to spend an enormous amount of time with her.”

Despite her love of her work, Wilson would like to reach a point where she can spend fewer hours on it.

“I would love to spend more time with my children. As a single mom, it’s heartbreaking to leave for work every morning and to spend so many of my at-home hours working,” she says.

Wilson also would like to start a local children’s charity, something that’s always been a dream for her, and to which she subscribes materially with donations from book sales to Toys for Tots.

 

Kimberlly Winjum

by Dyas Anna Lawson

Kimberlly Winjum, publisher of the Record-Journal weekly newspaper in Ferndale, wears more hats than most and relishes their roles. They include chairing the annual Tom George Award, given to outstanding community volunteers in Ferndale, and the annual Golden Apple Award that goes to outstanding Ferndale teachers.

Winjum has been a Ferndale Chamber of Commerce member since 1995 and is second vice president. She chairs the committees overseeing the Ferndale Harvest Festival, the pumpkin festival and the spring fling. Since 2000, she’s been on the board of the Department of Economic Development and is a board member of the Ferndale Boys & Girls Club. The club netted a record $65,000 under her guidance in this year’s “For the Kids” auction.

The Ferndale Image Group (F.I.G.) has had her on its board since 1995. Winjum was president in 1996, has chaired the community’s festival several times and served on at least three F.I.G. committees. She’s a six-year member of the Ferndale Heritage Society and has belonged to other community groups. Her other volunteer work includes working at school, coaching soccer and more.

Her efforts have resulted in awards from the chamber, press-association awards for the newspaper and others honoring her work and dedication.

Winjum says she’s goal oriented and competitive and those traits mark her business life. Volunteering is different. “I love helping people and knowing I’m making a difference,” she says. “I do that because it’s the right thing to do.”

She cites three mentors who taught by example. She met Carol Brumet as a new Kiwanian. “I was in awe of the way she commanded a room,” Winjum recalls. “I was amazed how, when she spoke, everyone listened. … It’s inspired me to be the one in the room that everyone listens to.”

Yvonne Goldsmith’s spirit also spoke to Winjum. “She is a fighter and doesn’t let obstacles get in her way. If you say it can’t be done, she will accomplish it the next day,” Winjum says. Winjum emulates Goldsmith’s fighting spirit, trying always to take a stand for what’s right.

Her mother also figures prominently. “Family came first and she showed me that through her examples of always doing what was right for us as a family,” Winjum recalls. “She’s now my biggest fan, and I love her more than she’ll ever know.”

Winjum cites her children — two girls, ages 10 and 9, a stepson, 16, and a stepdaughter, 13 — and her work as her proudest accomplishments. She works to lead by example, and has worked hard to build her business so she can take part in their activities.

At the Record-Journal, she’s proud of “breathing life into a newspaper that almost didn’t make it. Within a year I turned the paper around and within five years we were winning top community-newspaper journalism awards…. I am proud of accomplishing my goal of making the Record-Journal a profitable paper with integrity,” she says.

What would she still like to accomplish? That’s a tough one. “I’m very focused, so for me, it’s accomplishing the current project I’m on,” says Winjum.

The most important project is having her children grow up with confidence, courage and a sense of unlimited options. “That would be the ultimate accomplishment,” she adds.