 I grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which was a wonderful upbringing, but I always dreamt of the big time. And my parents had both gone to the University of Alabama, so I was an Alabama fan, roll tied at a young age. And when it was time for me to go to school, I wanted to leave Mississippi, not go too far, and I went to Alabama. Well, my original plan was just to have a really good time. And so in my first semester, I majored in political science and I did not do well. And so I had to rethink. And so I got an elementary education because I thought it would be easy, and they gave us a test to see if we had similar likes and dislikes to elementary school teachers. And I did very poorly. So they called me in and used me as a project for a graduate student to help me find what I would really like. And it turned out I loved business and I loved fashion, and I changed my major, and it's been the right road ever since. A lot of people meet me and think I have an MBA from, you know, maybe an Ivy League school, and I very proudly say I went to the University of Alabama, and I think it all shaped me. I just had the right teachers and I had the right experience as a student leader. When I was a junior, I ran for president of my school. It was called Home Economics, which is so ironic because I can't cook or so, but it is really, it was fashion, and I won, and it was a great experience. And then again, they had something that I'm sure doesn't exist called Associated Women Students, AWS. And that was sort of a game change. And it's through that group that I really learned how to negotiate. We went and negotiated with Bear Bryant, actually, because he was not just the coach, but he was the athletic director to up the amount of money that was allocated for female athletic scholarships. But I also had an amazing professor who has impacted my entire career, and that is Wilma Green. She took us to a billblast fashion show. She took us to the Metropolitan Museum, and I just thought I want a bigger life. I want to be part of this. And she helped me from my resume to identifying where I should interview. And so I applied to Foley's department store, which is now under by Macy's. And they wrote me a letter, which I have framed in my office to this day. And it's on a typewriter, and it says, Dear Ms. Gerwitch, we at Foley's interview on eight select college campuses, and the University of Alabama is not among them. We wish you best of luck in your future career, sincerely, Jake Lewis, May 8, 1974. And my father said, toss the letter, fly to Houston, and try to get that job in person. And I did just that. I got the job and became one of two women on Foley's executive board and one of the youngest senior vice presidents. My career has had multi facets. I started in retail and stayed at Foley's for 15 years, and then I got a wonderful offer to be the executive vice president of Neiman Marcus. So I went from being in a regional department store to a store that's all over the United States. I saw there was an opportunity in the beauty industry for some young new brands. My husband at the time asked me, do you think there's a shortage of mascara? So there's no shortage of mascara. So you had to ask, what was going to be our point of difference? And our focus was to build it around the living makeup artist who had a real concept, and it was so authentic. So that's what we built our products around. That's what we built our branding around, and around Laura Mercier herself. We built a company from zero to a hundred million, and we were in 27 countries, and I had 400 employees. And presently Laura Mercier is owned by Shiseido, a Japanese beauty giant.