The following was written by my friend Gina as a Personality Profile for an in-depth reporting class. Incidentally, she got an A for that class! Of course, I am very proud of her. I was very surprised by her subject material and my head swells a little when I read this as you will see, (trying to be humble here).

The guide asked the interpreter accompanying the party what all the shouting was about. ‘Some of them,’ replied the interpreter, ‘insist it can’t be done!’ I was the one who was told it couldn’t be done. So, I did it." After six successful businesses, Kathi does seem like a ‘do it’ person. She says she has had many business ventures because, "In my teens, I realized I wanted to be a millionaire before I was 30. After having lived on the ‘wrong side of town’ and observing what lay on the other side, I knew I wanted to work hard to create a better future for myself." Business is a success, she says, "If all involved gain and no one is hurt or loses."

THE SMALL SIGN ON KATHI'S

DESK SIMPLY SAYS,

"DO IT."

  
Kathi's machine business is Sciatek Industries, located in Corona where she lives. She defines herself as "unlikely" because her success was unexpected due to her dropping out of high-school. At 17, she became bored with the school routine and decided to make a go on her own. (In a word of advice, she paraphrases a popular cliché coined from television, "Don’t try this at home," recommending to others to stay in school.) She says the lesson she learned between dropping out and starting her first business is, "Success is not in never falling, but rising every time you fall."

After dropping out, Kathi became a short-order cook at the Colony Kitchen, later moving to Bob’s Big Boy. She moon-lighted as a machinist’s trainee at B&T Screw Products. Simultaneously, she started and sold a restaurant, The Grinder Hut in Norco, a beauty shop called Hair Tailors in Anaheim and Gil’s Western Wear in Corona. At B&T she worked her way to top forewoman. She was 23 when she quit to start her own machine business. Borrowing $4,000 from a friend, she made a down-payment on a machine and started Custom Screw Products. Within four weeks she was able to repay the loan and began networking with sales calls and referrals.

Custom Screw Products grew from one machine and one owner/employee to 24 machines and 18 employees. They made products distributed nationwide for commercial and aerospace firms, landing contracts with Hughes Aircraft, medical supply manufacturers and other national businesses. Self-taught in mathematics and computers, Kathi created her own machine programs while integrating her own software ideas into her business management for bookkeeping and graphic design.

In 1995 Kathi changed her business name from Custom Screw Products to Sciatek Industries and with General Partner Cristina, expanded to include engineering and consulting. She admits that early on, "when potential contracts were offered and the bearers learned I was a woman, they would try and confuse me to their advantage. I would let them go on and smile demurely, carefully making mental notes as to what to address and in what order. They assumed I was just a lure to get them to bite. When they finished, I addressed them in their own lingo and confronted every detail. I raised a lot of eyebrows and eventually gained a lot of respect and won a lot of bids."

Kathi has also kept busy after hours. One love is writing poetry. She writes about various subjects from personal experiences to those of an historical nature. Appreciative and knowledgeable about American Country Western history, she has written poems and songs about the Old West as a creative outlet.

Other hobbies include: Country Western dancing, (winning many competitions), building and running Dancetime her country and western dance hall, building landscape accessories and making children’s wooden toys.

Today, Kathi is designing an Internet web-site. Why so many businesses and hobbies? "Keep growing and producing and don’t rest on your or other’s laurels of success," says Kathi.

The sign says, "DO IT." She has done it. She continues to do it.