‘I’ll go get paid what I’m worth’ – Idaho ranks fourth in nation in growth of female-owned firms

Brandi Coffey wanted to create a new soap that wouldn’t irritate her children’s sensitive skin.

Elaine Martin became the family breadwinner after an accident incapacitated her husband.

Joe Estrella
The Idaho Statesman

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040606/NEWS02/406060311/1029

And Layne Simmons wanted the flexibility to tutor at her children’s school and go horseback riding in the afternoons.

The three are among a growing number of Idaho women who own or control their own businesses — enterprises that experts say are helping drive the economic recovery in Idaho by providing employment for thousands of workers and generating revenues at a rate similar to all other firms in the state.

According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Women’s Business, Idaho ranks fourth in the nation in terms of women-owned business growth, trailing only neighboring Utah, Arizona and Nevada.

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• From 1997 to 2004, the number of Idaho companies controlled by women grew 28.2 percent, while employment at those firms increased 49.9 percent and sales grew 70.6 percent.

• In 2004, Idaho ranks fourth in the nation for average overall growth of privately held companies owned 50 percent or more by women.

• An estimated 38,160 privately controlled companies, or 30.3 percent of all privately held companies in Idaho, are equally owned (50-50) by men and women.

• Women are the majority owners of an estimated 36,553 privately held companies, or 29 percent of all closely held firms in the state.

• Overall, there are an estimated 74,713 privately held companies in Idaho where women are at least half-owners, accounting for 59.2 percent of all privately held firms in the state.

• Nationally, 48 percent of all businesses are at least half-owned by a woman.

• One out of every 11 adult women in the United States owns a business.

Top 10 states for growth of women-owned businesses

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"Oh, those independent Idaho women," said Amy Davis, executive director of the Women’s Business Center in Boise, who speculated that gender-based pay disparities in male-run businesses might be behind the trend. "It’s an economic fact that women aren’t paid as much as men, so some determine that ‘I’ll just go out and get paid what I’m worth.’ "

The study measured the national growth rate for privately held companies owned or controlled by women, then ranked the states in terms of the number of these firms, their sales and employment growth.

It found that Idaho women own at least 50 percent of 74,713 businesses in the state. These businesses account for 59.2 percent of all privately owned Idaho firms, generating $17 billion in sales and employing 140,743 workers.

Using U.S. Census Bureau data, the study broke that total down and found that women own at least 51 percent of 36,553 businesses in Idaho.

They share ownership equally with men in another 38,160 businesses.

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Related Links

* Women’s Business Center http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/www.womensbusinesscenter.org

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Moreover, the study revealed that the number of women-owned businesses in Idaho grew by 28.2 percent between 1997 and 2004, compared with 17.4 nationally for the same period.

Employment at these firms increased 49.9 percent during that time, compared with 24.2 percent nationwide.

Davis said the growth rate of women-owned businesses in the state is directly attributable to the growth of the Idaho high-tech industry, which opened the door for dozens of service-related companies.

"If you have two high-powered people working 60 hours a week, who is going to get the food? So you have personal chefs. Or if you had a hard day, you go to the day spa, or a massage therapist," she said.

These are the stories of some of those women.

Brandi Coffey: A hobby becomes a business

Brandi Coffey’s search for a less-irritating soap produced Tranquil Bath & Body, a skin care company she operates out of her home on the Boise Bench.

A graduate of Boise State University, Coffey discovered that her degree in culinary arts came in handy when she began experimenting with different oils in her search for a less irritating soap.

In turned out that making soap — like cooking — is often trial-and-error, she said.

"And with no formal training in chemistry, that was good, because it’s a joke in my family that I can’t follow a recipe to save my life," she said.

Coffey began thinking seriously of turning her "hobby" into a business a year later, when friends she’d shared her soap with began asking to buy more.

"That’s when I decided I’d keep my little hobby," she recalled.

Today, her product line has grown to include soaps, shower gels, salt and sugar scrubs and soap petals dipped in glycerin that can double as potpourri — all manufactured out of her home.

She markets her products through a display at The West Wind Radiance spa and at area trade shows like the Women’s Fitness Celebration at the Boise Centre on The Grove and the annual Christmas Show at the Western Idaho Fairgrounds.

She routinely enlists the help of her husband, Michael, a superintendent with Northwest Technologies, which handles hazardous waste removal. Always supportive of her business, he accompanies her to trade shows, and for more than just loading and unloading of boxes.

"He’s the only man in a place that’s full of women," she said. "So when he’s there, we get more women in the booth. If I ask a woman if she wants to try something, she’ll often say ‘no,’ but he gets a ‘yes.’ "

Coffey said revenues for Tranquil Bath & Body have doubled each of the first three years she’s been in business, although she has not yet broken even, because of the cost of materials.

She’s thinking about contracting out the manufacturing process in order to make more time for her children, Emma, 3, and Ennan, 5.

"It’s getting a little overwhelming to make, package and label everything, plus take care of the kids," she said.

Even so, she wants to expand the number of locations where she displays her products to include more salons and boutiques.

"I thought the business would stay small," Coffey said. "But I’m to the point where I would like to see it get bigger. It’s still manageable, but some nice, steady growth would be nice."

Elaine Martin: home ec to highway guardrails

"What else does a girl with a degree in home economics do in Idaho?" joked Elaine Martin, when asked how she became the 78.4 percent owner of Marcon Inc., a Nampa-based outfit that last year installed about 200,000 linear feet of steel guardrails along public highways in three Rocky Mountain states.

Martin, who grew up on a farm near Jerome, recalls that it was 1986 when "financial necessity" led her into the business world. Her husband had been injured in an accident. The family farm was in danger. She needed a job that would support her family.

Farming wasn’t the answer.

"It was the mid-’80s, and everything was going to pot," she said. "Prices were down, and interest rates were running about 22 percent."

Calling on her farm background, she decided to start a company that installed wire fence along the highway. That meant working in the fields during the day putting in fence, keeping the books at night and bidding on jobs on weekends.

"What I didn’t know was that I wasn’t going to make any money the first few years," she said.

After three years, it was obvious that "building fence was a young man’s game." Something less physical was required, so she talked the owners of Alexander Construction in Nampa into carrying the loan paper on the sale of their equipment to her. Marcon was born.

With one of the company’s former owners, Jeff Alexander, as a partner, she turned a profit the first year.

Along the way, Martin has been named the 1999 Woman Entrepreneur of The Year by the Women’s Business Center and the 2002 Idaho Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Today, Marcon, which she founded with just one non-family worker, has 20 full-time employees and 20 summer part-time workers. Many have been with her for years.

"When your company is a success, your people are a success," she said.

Martin was not surprised when told Idaho was fourth in the nation in growth of women-owned businesses.

"I think Idaho, being one of the younger states, we’re closer to that pioneer spirit that our grandmothers brought here with them," she said. "They were strong-willed partners (with their husbands). And we’re close to that pioneer team spirit."

Her advice to women interested in starting their own businesses?

"You have to be able to withstand the hours and the drudgery. I probably averaged 80 hours a week for the first 10 years. If you’re not a high-energy person, you should go work for somebody else."

Layne Simmons: working ‘on my own terms’

Layne Simmons had decided it was time to work "on my own terms."

She had spent years with Booze Allen Hamilton, a Maryland-based management and engineering consulting firm, living in locations she found unappealing like Houston and Washington, D.C. It also left little time for her husband, Dave, and their children, Tyler, 12, and Justin, 10.

So, Simmons teamed up with Frank Riskey, a former colleague from her days with Hewlett-Packard, and his wife, Lynn, in February 2002 to form TenXsys Inc., an Idaho-based engineering firm that uses technology to resolve problems.

"This way I get to stay in Idaho and do the work I like to do," said Simmons, who holds a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Arizona and an MBA in business from the University of Washington.

Success wasn’t long in coming. The company is currently developing a telemetry device that can perform an environmental impact analysis on wildlife and their habitats.

It’s also developing software for NASA’s Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center that will allow the transfer of information from any spacecraft to handheld devices, including a cell phone.

Simmons said being based in Idaho has its drawbacks, especially when dealing with government officials in Washington who aren’t aware that the state’s technology sector includes Micron and Hewlett-Packard.

"Idaho was very difficult for what we wanted to do," Simmons said. "It’s difficult to be viewed as a viable competitor. If I’m at the Pentagon, for example, there’s a certain perception. It (Idaho) is not seen as science and technology based."

Despite having to deal with such perception problems, Simmons said she has no plans to move from the 60-acre ranch near Middleton that she shares with her family.

"I won’t move," she said. "We’ll figure out how to make it work in Idaho. You want a reason? I’m getting ready to go for a horseback ride — in the middle of the afternoon. That’s what I love about this."

Working for herself also gives her the time to spend one morning a week tutoring her son Tyler’s fourth-grade class, then joining her husband to teach science to her son Justin’s sixth-grade classmates.

During one recent trip to school, Simmons took along an underwater, remote-controlled robotic dolphin TenXsys developed with Boise State University.

The robot can be used for port security, underwater sensing, ship security and dam inspections.

Afterwards, one of the students told her that learning how the dolphin worked made him want to be an engineer.

"That’s all I needed to hear," Simmons said. "That makes living in Idaho worthwhile."