Crafting the entrepreneurial fit

Women weave both trendiness, traditions into their businesses

Two teams of business-minded women are weaving Los Angeles trendiness and Indonesian traditions into the financial fabric of Whitefish.

They are women willing to take a risk.

But they have done their homework and balance risk against return when marketing high-end products.

Cindy Howe and her daughter Chelsi Blackwell opened their upscale Fifty Seven Boutique on May 8, offering casual but upscale women's fashions from their cozy shop on Lupfer Avenue.

Kim Collier founded Jamu Asian Spa Rituals after living for nearly a decade on the Indonesian islands with her husband, Cary Collier, then settling in Whitefish in 2000. She is working with Miriam Lewis, Carolyn Smith, Pamela Nitopi and Cindy Weaver to produce and market lotions, oils, scrubs and other spa products - and offer spa design and staff training - from Jamu's quarters at the Mountain Mall, leased since October 2006. In September they will move to new offices that double their space.

These women are among the entrepreneurs making the Flathead Valley their home as well as their marketplace.

One reason the businesses work is the partners' commitment to teamwork and growth.

Collier and her husband already had created high-profile resort spas and started a trio of spa-related businesses, including the product line.

But as the companies grew she needed help.

One by one, Collier assembled a team of women she believed would mesh. As working moms who support each other when they need family time - and who are committed to operating "green," Nitopi said, with a "carbon footprint that is very dainty" - they have a chemistry born of a shared vision.

Collier attributes it to divine intervention. Her team members like the result.

"Our priorities are on the family and a balance of life and work," Lewis said.

"I never feel I've been asked to balance it," Smith said. "There's never been any question. Family is first and work is second."

Each holds an area of expertise in the business. Lewis is the sales guru, Smith is customer support, Nitopi does production and design, Weaver is administration. Job descriptions tend to change at annual job reviews, reflecting expanded duties and new skills learned.

"Because we're not in any specific niche," Nitopi said, "we can make the most of each other."

The team credits Collier's flexibility. Although she's at the helm, she's as much in the mix of mutual support as the others.

"We're growing together professionally," Collier said. "I've seen the skills, and helped develop the skills we didn't know we had."

This synergy is no accident - and it's no small player in Jamu's success.

"It goes back to the start in 1993 with the core of people in Bali … who have great joy and pride in their work," Collier said. "As a business owner, the flexibility of schedules and the quality of life in the work you choose to do is key to the success of any business."

While Jamu's business works like family, for Howe and Blackwell the family is the business.

Howe is the widow of former New York Yankees pitcher Steve Howe. After his April 2006 death, she found herself alone in California, facing the sale of the home she had been renting. Their son Brian graduated from high school and was headed for college in the fall. Daughter Chelsi Blackwell had married and was pursuing a career in music and modeling.

She didn't ask for it, but Howe was faced with a new beginning. In September she moved to Whitefish, the family's off-season home since 1985. Chelsi already had relocated here.

As mom and daughter, the two knew they could work well together - but at what?

Howe had studied interior design and could parlay that into a career. Or she could go back to school for something new.

Eventually Howe and Blackwell teamed up on what they knew best - fashion.

Howe had been wearing "designer casual" to her husband's professional ball games for years. Chelsi was modeling it. Both were immersed in the lifestyle clothed by it. Confident they knew what to buy, they started looking at their potential clientele.

"Whitefish is more of a resort town," Howe said. "People are more aware of fashion."

So they had the town, but they needed a shop.

"The hardest thing is finding a place to open a business," Howe said. "There's only one good place in Whitefish and that's Central Avenue."

That's when a cousin came to the rescue. Reecia Maxwell had moved Reecia's Salon to Lupfer and was doing well there. The perfect complement to her upscale hair, nail and massage salon would be a trendy fashion shop. They cleared out quarters, did a minor remodel, and Howe hung out her shingle for Fifty Seven Boutique - a play on her husband's jersey number.

Howe learned business basics by taking an online business course, sitting in on seminars at market, talking with sellers there, meeting with a tax accountant and picking Marsha Ingraham's brain on how she runs Indigo Creek in downtown Whitefish.

She hit the tourist-heavy summer season at its beginning, started stocking something new every week, and waited for word of mouth to draw customers in for their stock of embellished sweatshirts, high-fashion tops and shorts, and jeans selling from $90 to over $200.

It's important, too, she said, to offer a personal shopping experience, helping customers find the right fit.

"It's all about being helpful, honest and friendly," Howe said.

Working in an international arena that puts Jamu's spa products and staff training in the world's finest resorts, Collier is facing new learning opportunities that come with such growth.

"We've hit that quantum formula" for going global, Collier said. "Now we're finding challenges in different countries. U.S. trade barriers are changing."

It means 60 to 65 percent of their products are formulated in the United States from imported ingredients.

"All formulas are inspired by and indigenous to Southeast Asian traditions. We preserve them to the best of our abilities" while complying with federal regulations, she said. They used to formulate them in Southeast Asia for import to the States, but "that was like squeezing a car through a door."

Collier is leaving a legacy in Bali, where 13 residents now own a similar operation with profit-sharing and the prospect for purchasing land soon. "Cary is a very wise husband," she said. "He encouraged me to keep the Bali business going when we moved back to the U.S."

She hopes to steer the Whitefish company toward profit-sharing, too, with a five-year plan to become a million-dollar company.

Still, the Jamu team's bottom line is authenticity, education and integrity.

"I believe that we're pioneers" in products, treatments, education and ingredients, Lewis said.

Jamu massage is an entirely different experience from Swedish massage, the women agreed - and calls for an entirely different educational approach.

"Our approach is to honor the traditions. We don't ever exploit them," Lewis said. "We have to educate. It's holistic."

Besides, Collier said, "we want people to share this experience."

Nitopi, Collier's longest-time employee in Whitefish, takes her job of formulating and packaging the products seriously.

"We pay attention to what we're doing," Nitopi said.

"Not only that," Lewis added, "but we believe in it."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com