At a recent South Florida women business leader conference Dr. Bernadette Russell Provost at Palm Beach State College was the moderator of a panel of women business leaders who shared their personal journey to business success. Jacquie Keely of Corporate and Continuing Education at Palm Beach State College opened the fourth annual women's entrepreneurial network.  The panel of three business women included Melanie Dickinson, President & Publisher of the South Florida Business Journal, Roxanna Trinka, President and CEO of Baseline Engineering and Land Surveying.  And, Mary Wong, President of the Office Depot Foundation, a charitable organization.  Each of the leaders shared the road that they traveled as they developed their leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

Roxanna Trinka described her ecosystem as...I am a girl in a boy's business, my ecosystem is all the mentors I have across the board. I decided in 1992 after hurricane Andrew hit, I was driving 60 miles one way to work, made a ton of money but never spent time with my daughter Chelsea.  In 1993, Chelsea started high school and I started Baseline Engineering.  "We started with a 600 square foot office, I had one licensed surveyor, one licensed engineer, one draftsman and me."

Mary Wong, President of the Office Depot Foundation, developed epilepsy in high school and had about 50 seizures in a day.  She was told she would never go to college and be institutionalized.  "I truly believe there is no failure if you don't want to fail, if you put your mind to it you can make things happen. I learned Social Responsibility demonstrated by big and small companies supports a strong community interaction to address its needs.

Melanie Dickinson, South Florida Business Journal President & Publisher is proud of the large conglomerate of business journals who believe in the power of mentoring.  "Figure out what you love to do what you're passionate about what you can do best and what's best for you and make sure you live true to it."

The state of women-owned businesses in the U.S. confirms there's almost 9.1 million women owned businesses and these businesses generate over $1.4 trillion in revenues and they employ over 7.8 million workers.

Keri Gohman the head of Capital One Small Business Banking shared the results of the capital one small business confidence score to honor 28 million small business owners across America who were a critical part of the economic recovery.  The small business confidence score, offers a small business Outlook, the actual sales results small business owners are experiencing and their hiring trends.

Jim Glassman, Senior Economist at J.P. Morgan Chase and Company said the recovering for the past six years has seen the larger business community benefiting, now we're starting to see the benefits of a recovering economy spread to the small business community finding they have to team up with community colleges they've got to develop in-house training programs they're working harder to find out how you beef up those skills, and it's a partnership with the public sector and the business community. 

Share your journey to small business success: roselee@roseleearchershow.com