My entrepreneurial and creative spirit didn’t begin with me — it runs in my family. My grandmother was an educator and a nurse, a florist, and the owner of Pretty Dolls & Things, where she sold the porcelain dolls she made by hand. She was also a fierce advocate, ensuring my uncle received an education decades before ADA and IDEA.

She grew up in Imperial Valley, the daughter of an immigrant from the Philippines (whose mother died when she was very young), working summers in the fields, often sprayed with pesticides. She carried a heavy load, worked tirelessly, and yet still made beauty, still taught, still created. My mother often tells me I am just like her — carrying her drive, her passion, and her creativity forward.

That spirit has guided me from my first experiments with puffy paint shirts and duct-taped skirts in high school, through my early handmade business Bee Bambino, to the work I do now as a consultant, artist, and storyteller.

My promise to her — and to my children — is to make living pono one of my highest priorities, and to root all of my work in creativity, connection, and compassion.