What’s Your Path?

You grew up in South Bend, Indiana. You're the oldest of four children. Your parents were both artists. Your mom became ill with Multiple Sclerosis when you were just eight years old. What were your dreams and your goals as a child?

Oh, my gosh, I had so many, so I think my first one, we were heavily influenced by TV as kids growing up, TV was so new. So I used to watch Sea Hunt. And so I wanted to be an oceanographer. So that was my first thing. I wanted to know what was going on under the ocean, and I held that for a long time. I would say that was absolutely my first career job. And then Nancy Drew. Remember her?

Oh, my God. I loved her, Nancy. And I read all the books.

Nancy Drew! Do you remember when she went to California and she was tooling around in the mountains in California? Well, I wanted to be an oceanographer in California because of Nancy Drew.

That would have been like the best of both worlds. Right? Nancy Drew and an oceanographer. And then along the way, you became homecoming queen. You went on to Purdue University, where you initially majored in organic chemistry. How did you go from that? From dreams of oceanography and then organic chemistry to business?

So when I got out of high school, I really thought I wanted to go into drug development, pharmaceuticals, and I think the reason was my mother was ill with an illness that still to this day, there is no cure. So I'm sure that was some heavy override on that. And also creating drugs is very... I found organic chemistry in high school really exciting. You're creating something new. I found the whole thing really creative about the process. So when I get to college and I'm sitting in my three pharmacy classes and I'm thinking, I don't think I can be these people, I don't think I can stay in school for eight years to develop, to get the right education, to do pharmaceutical work. And the other thing was it can be collaborative but also very lonely, and a lot of hours in the lab. And I thought, you know, I've got to figure something else out. And then just as true inspiration does, when you're maybe 19 or 20. My boyfriend was in grad school at the time and I was doing his marketing homework for him because he didn't understand marketing. I kept getting A's and I thought that's it. I'm switching to business. I found my niche.