Dialing up success: Firestone leads Tempest Telecom to clear skies
Jessica Firestone has built a business by making sure that your e-mails, text messages and phone calls get where they’re supposed to be going, and fast. In five years, Firestone has grown Goleta-based Tempest Telecom Solutions from a four-person startup to a 100-employee firm with operations across the country. Tempest pulls in about $30 million Read More →
Lopker tells her story at CSUCI
Today, Pamela Lopker is the founder, president and chairman of the board of Santa Barbara-based QAD, a $220-million-a-year manufacturing software company with 1,300 employees. But back in the in the 1970s, Lopker, the daughter of a U.S. Navy engineer, was coding software at a defense subcontractor when she realized she had brighter career prospects. “As Read More →
She
Donna von Hoesslin opens her car door and pulls out a magenta-colored surfboard with her company’s signature shellflower logo in blue. “I’m pretty stoked about this,” she says, tossing sun-bleached hair back over her tanned shoulders. A passionate surfer, Von Hoesslin is the owner of Ventura-based Betty Belts, a company that makes and sells surf Read More →
Learning hard lessons: Meier regroups, writes again after selling Writers Conference
Marcia Meier has been knocked around by the publishing world enough times by now to know how to navigate it. That’s because the former owner of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference has learned about writing and publishing — and business — the hard way. Meier, who makes her living as a writing coach, recently released Read More →
When the going gets tough
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Kelly Magne knows that as she watches the clock and sips on a soda. Every day at four o’clock, the president and chief executive officer of Jensen Audio Visual clears her late afternoon schedule for her most important appointment: visiting her husband. Since January, Magne has Read More →
A woman in charge
Katie Lichtig has had to help cities walk the fine line of economic development before. The new San Luis Obispo city manager, installed Jan. 19, comes to town after working in city management in Santa Monica, Malibu and most recently, Beverly Hills. The switch to much-smaller SLO means Lichtig will be managing more than 358 Read More →
Economy encourages women to look to entrepreneurship
Rosandra Heffefingers was a successful project leader at a Ventura insurance brokerage firm — until her job fell out from beneath her. “They just decided it was no longer a lucrative project, so my position wasn’t necessary,” she said. Facing dim prospects in a difficult job market, she decided to look into entrepreneurship as an Read More →
