Kauai Woman Magazine Fall 2005

Taking Control

Life is yours for the taking. That’s the lesson of three dynamic Kauai businesswomen, two of whom created businesses from scratch and one who reinvented her business and her life.

By Pamela V. Brown

Whether you grew up in a small Midwest farming town with a population of 3,500, emerged from an emotionally restrictive marriage or moved to the United States from a developing country, with vision, lots of hard work and the willingness to welcome change, you can create the life you envision for yourself. Three successful Kauai businesswomen share their paths to success.

She comes across cool, calm and collected but you'll soon learn that Margaret Sheen has a fire burning inside. Having reinvented herself and her business slightly more than two years ago, Sheen focuses strictly on the present and future and won't be derailed by thoughts of the past.

The owner of Pacific Tile Imports in the new Industrial Park in Lihue, Sheen's hesitancy to declare her age encapsulates how far she's come in her quest. "Life is new for me and I'm going to be as youthful as I want to be."

Though she and her now ex-husband owned Nezbeda Tile for many years, reinventing the business after the divorce with herself as sole owner was a huge undertaking, one that forced her to face doubts and worries head-on, and conquer them. Though difficult, Sheen says it all comes down to your view of life.

"You can view the world as a place to survive or as a place where there are good things waiting to happen to you," she said. "Once I began to shift the way that I saw the world, then developed the faith to believe in it, then came the courage. And I just went for it. It's amazing."

"When you embrace change, you discover all the possibilities that life has to offer." - Margaret Sheen

Margaret Sheen, owner of Pacific Tile Imports

Photo by Ron Kosen / Photo-Spectrum

Her plucky words belie how difficult it may have been to find her inner strength and determination. Ask her about her past, what must be dark years to her, and she grows quiet, bending her head down, thinking quietly. When she emerges from her thoughts, she looks up, as if lifting her face to the warmth of the sun and speaks instead of what's she's learned. Her new-found confidence is true and strong, but a private matter - not one that she's comfortable broadcasting.

Her philosophies ring true theoretically and have helped her create a successful tile import business, offering beautiful and unique products to customers, filling niches that large retailers like Home Depot don't satisfy, and in the team approach she takes with her employees.

When she took over the business solo, she worked with Tsunami Marketing to create a graceful new logo which at once evokes images of tile, creativity, beauty and Hawaii - a sort of parallel to her own personal rebirth. She's enlisted the help of Marilyn Allen, owner of Performance Coaching, who describes her role as business coach as that of a "committed partner, someone who will champion her."

Though Allen describes herself as an accelerator for businesses, she and Sheen both acknowledge that personal transformation is naturally interrelated. Allen is impressed with Sheen's progress.

"Once she was really the owner of the business and realized that she could improve it, change it, lead it, consistent with her own values - honesty and integrity - then the question became how she wanted to operate in business," Allen said. "The biggest change is that she has stepped into her own power which I believe happens for many women once they are out of a situation that is not consistent with what they believe in."

Along with Allen's support and expertise, Sheen says it's been wonderful to feel herself debunking the idea that women are weaker in business, something she says that our culture erroneously teaches us. And learning to let go of total control has been freeing - learning not to fight the universe and to welcome assistance. "It's been interesting to learn how many people in our lives genuinely want to help us. We just have to let it be known that we need help."

With business success feeling more and more natural, Sheen is gradually finding time to return to favorite hobbies. A certified scuba diver since 2003, she'd like to dive in Palau and has recently joined a division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources to help with research and educational programs about monk seals. A classical pianist, she's planning to return to music, maybe branching out into some New Age piano music.

No matter what she does, she's learned to have the confidence to push ahead to her goals and to simultaneously be flexible enough to bend when circumstances require change.

"You can't have doubts about your goals otherwise you won't be successful. You have to have faith in what you're doing and be very open-minded to change," Sheen said.

"You have to embrace change and all the positive things that come with change. Once you've stepped out there and experienced change and abundance, you want more. Keep seeking out the new."

The most powerful catalyst for Kauai's successful businesswomen is an openness to change and that's exactly what brought Vicky Masuoka, owner of Vicky's Fabrics in Kapaa, from the Philippines to the United States at the age of 25, when most other women her age at home were already raising families.

"Everybody said 'You're going to be an old maid.' I was still playing at 25, working my way into everything," she said. "I saw my friends and said, 'I don't want to be like that. I want more.' "

She got what she bargained for, moving to Los Angeles, CA, where her brother already lived, worked, went to school and met her husband, Gary, who was born and raised in Hawaii. "When Gary said 'Let's go home,' I said 'Hey, let's go.' I never thought twice about it." They arrived on Kauai in 1972.

After operating an at-home sewing business for

Vicky Masuoka, owner of 

Vicky's Fabrics in Kapaa

Photo by Ron Kosen / Photo-Spectrum

Coincidentally the landlady was in the store at that same moment and offered to rent directly to her, a fresh start that Masuoka was thrilled to have. "I said 'Wow, I'm just going to jump in there and do my business.' " True to her fearless and determined nature, that's just what she did.

Twenty-three years later, Masuoka is still enthusiastic and enjoying her business - to her, one of the keys to success. "I told my kids, 'You have to enjoy what you do, otherwise you don't even go there.' When you get paid for what you want to do, it's much better."

Over the years she's sewn "a million and one hula skirts," uniforms, prom dresses, terno ball gowns and even sewed costumes for a Kauai hula halau that was attending the Merry Monarch Festival. "I wish I'd taken a picture of everything I ever made," she said.

Some people have asked if large orders requiring her to produce many copies of the same thing become boring. No chance of that with Aunty Vicky, whose mind is always clicking. "When I take a big project like that, with the first one, I experiment and time myself. On the second one, I'm looking for a faster way to do it. By the third one, I've mastered it. By the fourth one, I'm thinking money," she said. "Otherwise you'd get bored doing the same things over and over."

No one who knows the bubbly Masuoka would ever suspect her of becoming bored. Case in point: on a recent morning her husband was spotted in Ace Hardware buying supplies for a new project. "When Vicky gets an idea, I have to get to work," he said with a smile.

Gary's support has been key to Masuoka, who often had to work long hours as do most business owners. "He never did once complain about 'how come you're there all day or night,' " she says. When she's had big projects requiring her to return to the shop after dinner, he'd accompany her to make sure she was safe. "He'd put a matt on the floor and he'd be snoring. He's supportive all the way."

Masuoka wouldn't change a thing about her years in business and still loves what she's doing. "When I don't sew a stitch a day, my day's not a complete day," she says. "It flew so fast. It doesn't seem like I've been here 23 years. People ask me about retiring. Oh, no, I'm going to be here forever."

When Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai in 1992 and Cathy Zadel wasn't called back to work at Pahio Resorts, where she'd worked for several years, she realized how little control she really had over her life - and understood at that moment that her life was an open book.

"The hurricane got me off my butt. I was so tired of working for other people," she said. "There wasn't anything for me to do (on the island) and that was exciting."

She quickly saw a niche - though she didn't fully realize it was a niche at the time - and barely four months after Iniki, began Classic Aloha Vacations, Inc., an inbound Hawaii wholesale firm that holds contracts with 200 hotels and resorts on five Hawaiian islands, selling those rooms, airfare and rental car bookings to travel agencies and people wishing to visit Hawaii. 

Cathy Zadel

photo by Pam Brown

She faced some difficulties early on getting contracts with hotels. "Everybody said a very emphatic 'No.' I just kept after them and after them," she said. Finally one hotel said yes and Zadel proceeded to book as many customers as possible with them, and paid the hotel promptly. Eventually she approached a second hotel, and even though her business was still new, she was able to point to her good track record with the first hotel.

Operating at first from her tiny home office in Haena and now from a more spacious home office in Kilauea, Zadel's income was "a pittance" the first year, but "the second year, I couldn't stuff the money in the bank fast enough. I told my husband 'This is too good to be true.' "

It's remained true and strong for 13 years, as Zadel has seen her company's gross income multiply to more than 20 times what she earned the first year. She's been named to Pacific Business News' Hawaii's Fastest 50 Growing Companies list five times and also five times to a list of the 25 largest women-owned businesses in Hawaii. Not bad for a woman who grew up in a tiny Midwest farming town of only 3,500 population.

Yet as large as Classic Aloha Vacations is financially, it's still a relatively small company. Zadel does most of the work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days per week, though she's beginning to take Sundays off. She's had expert part-time billing help from her friend Shann Hashimoto for eight years, and Zadel's sister handles the retail side of things from her home on the mainland.

Zadel's advice to women wishing to open a business is that "At some point you just have to close your eyes and grab your nose and jump off that diving board. I myself was really hesitant to do it for so many years," she said. "I could have started a business when I was in my 20s but I didn't yet have enough confidence. I had to learn it along the way."

Along the way, among other things, Zadel ran a catering business, taught cooking, taught golf, worked for a personnel agency, played flute, ran music stores and spoke to groups about how to do fund-raising.

Zadel says she sees life as a blank piece of page down the center of which is a line. On one side of the line is Yups and the other side is Nopes. "Everything you do sits on one side of the line or the other," she said. "You're never wasting your time even if you try something and find out it's a nope."

After many years of yups and nopes, Cathy Z, as she's known to friends, is far from resting on her laurels but is happy with what she's accomplished. "This is something I have taken from zero and I have driven this car myself," she said. "If I've gotten dents or gone in different direction, it's been my doing. I wouldn't change a thing about it."

Contact Information:

Pamela V. Brown

(808) 651-3533 cell

(808) 821-1027 fax

pam@writepath.net

"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art."             --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Proverbs in Prose

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