Here are the highlights of my professional life. I’ll be adding a personal page soon. 
Short version:
- First female store manager for Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers.
- Top producing broker/salesperson in a Houston Texas based barter company.
- Assistant for two top producing A.G. Edwards stock brokers.
- Managed a computer store. Building customized computers was our specialty.
- Founded & managed Digital ColorKraft, Inc – a digital pre-press company.
- Top producing Broker / Real Estate agent
- Real Estate Investing is one of my personal favorite activities (residential & commercial)
Longer version:
In my 20′s I was the first (and only) female store manager for Wendy’s Hamburgers – recruited by upper management from the international corporate headquarters in Ohio to open several stores around the Houston Texas area. Starting with the first of 7 scheduled openings, I hired and trained all personnel, including manager trainees, one location at a time over a 2+ year period. It was a time full of challenge and accomplishment and I loved it.
Since then I’ve built and managed several successful businesses. I’m one of those people who is happiest when I’m creating new ideas and new businesses. After they’re up and running I tend to get bored and move on to the next challenge.
One of my favorite businesses was computer related. Basically I was on the cutting edge of transitioning 100+ print shops in the Colorado Springs area from using traditional typesetting methods to desktop publishing (now called digital prepress). It started out as a small home based business of one (me) and ultimately morphed into a buzzing office packed with cutting edge computerized technology. Our main focus was handling each stage of the prepress procedures necessary for publishing high quality, full color advertising pieces, magazines and catalogs for several household name international clients.
During that time, my proudest accomplishment was the difference I was able to bring to the lives of numerous stay-at-home moms and their families. In a nutshell, I utilized the talents and determination of those moms who wanted to learn about computers and desktop publishing while keeping family and children their utmost priority. Being a mom myself, I could greatly relate to their determination to be the best mom they could be and still challenge themselves to be productive in a career.
Eventually my business model was featured in a Washington Post news article about the increasing number of women in business working from home and, later it was also included in one of the first in a series of books entitled “MegaTrends for Women” by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene.
During our children’s early teenage years, we moved from Colorado to a mid-sized city in Missouri to buy an automotive chemical business. Soon after our youngest child turned 18 (about 8 years ago) I was bored again. That was when I went to real estate school to get my brokers license because I wanted to start investing in real estate and thought it was my best first step at the time. It quickly became obvious that I didn’t need to be a licensed broker to invest in real estate, but it did speed up my education a bit.
As a Realtor, I was honored with 2 annual achievement awards. One for the most listings, the other for most sales – both achieved on my own without a support team of people working in my office like many of the most successful Realtors have today. Since I’m such a voracious learner, my interests eventually expanded from just residential real estate to include commercial real estate as well. Real estate is a huge passion of mine and it has continued to hold my interest all these years.
Creative real estate investing strategies quickly caught my eye during that same time period and I’ve had numerous interesting and successful experiences in that realm as well. The first of which you can read about here: No Money Down Real Estate – T or F?
Now is a good time for me to set about sharing some of the knowledge I’ve gathered over the years with a few of my favorite groups of people. Since helping first time home buyers was something I thoroughly enjoyed during my time as a licensed Realtor, I’ve decided to set up this blog to serve as an advocate for first home buyers. I believe the online search scales are too heavily tipped toward only providing advice from licensed real estate agents and mortgage providers. Since I don’t have an allegiance / commitment to any licensing watchdog, nor am I focused on earning a commission, I can offer you an unbiased opinion and suggest options the others wouldn’t for fear of losing a commission. (Disclaimer, so my attorney can breathe easy again. )
Cheers to Your Empowerment,
D’MarieF
