Photo by Nate Vogel Posted By Petaluma Market
Yesterday was the Petaluma Craft Brew Festival. It was sold out the day before the event. There were visitors from all over, we met one couple from Canada. Immediately following the craft brew fest the Riverfront Art Gallery opened up for their 7th Anniversary and opening of Circle and Lines and A Walk In The Park showings. The downtown was bustling with people. Here are some photos of the crowd.
The word entrepreneur means a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so. Kelly O’Grady was an entrepreneur way before she cooked up the idea of Bellyfull Dinners. This young self-starter learned the art of feeding many mouths in her youth when her parents would entertain guests. The food however was not her mainstay it was watching her father start new ventures and grow businesses. She credits her father with teaching her business and while growing up Kelly learned how to create a business instead of work for one. She started working at the age of 14 and as a young adult eventually evolved her career into sales. So she not only learned how to get around in the kitchen, but she developed serious business skills.
Bellyfull Dinners was created in October last year and they launched their website in February 2014. Last month Bellyfull delivered their 1000th meal to customers. In this interview you will learn more about this rising star in our community.
Wayne: It seems entrepreneurship is in your fabric. How early did you know that you were an entrepreneur?
Kelly: I think I always knew that’s what I was meant to be. I started young. When I was 5, at Christmas time I’d go and pick Mistletoe from my uncle’s farm and sell it out in front of Safeway. As I got more creative I started making up fake catalogs for my mom that had choices like different purses and shirts she could buy. She would order them and then I would actually sew them for her. I got my first real job when I was 14 at Cardoza’s pumpkin patch as the chainsaw man in the haunted house and I haven’t stopped working since. Even in high school as a senior I worked 30 or more hours a week at Petaluma Coffee and Tea Co. and went to school graduating in the top 10% of my class. Although I was more than qualified, I didn’t go to college mainly because I wanted to pay for it on my own (without my parents, or debt) and eventually I got so good at my sales career it just didn’t make sense. I know everything I’ve done has given me the skills and abilities I need to bring this business to life. I’m very driven and learn quickly. I started my career in sales when I was 17 at Petaluma Wireless selling cell phones. I loved sales. From there I went on to be a new business specialist and sales account managers for a few different companies in Sonoma County.
It’s a party as only Rancho Obi-Wan can throw one, in the midst of the world’s largest collection of Star Wars memorabilia and hosted by master-collector Steve Sansweet. There will be dinner, drinks and dessert all night, a trading-card bounty hunt and other games, door prizes, a special gala T-shirt and a super swag bag filled with exclusive goodies. Get ready for surprises galore, VIPs to mix and mingle with, Rancho’s incredible live and silent auctions, entertainment, special exhibits…and much, much more.
Here is a video that KTVU anchor Ken Wayne did in a recent past, PETALUMA: Largest private Star Wars Collection
NBC News this morning released an article Hollis Wong-Wear Slams Her Way into Mainstream Music by Ruby Veridiano about the Petaluma native . She made her way from Petaluma to Seattle on an academic scholarship. There she has become part of the local poetry slam scene as a performer-to-watch and youth poet mentor through YouthSpeaks Seattle.
Here is the NBC Interview
The article goes on to say…The eldest daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and an American father, Wong-Wear credits her mother — an entrepreneur who moved alone from Hong Kong to the U.S. — for her vision and drive. “I inherited my hustle from her,” she said.
She has worked as a tour manager in the hip-hop scene and appeared in videos like “White Walls” that has had over a million views and appeared in national morning and late night talk shows. She is now touring the U.S. with The Flavr Blue. Click here to get more information about Hollis on her website.
Update October 6, 2014 – Video Excerpts from Fog Valley Crush by Frances Rivetti and Southern Sonoma Country Life post Two Days to Go on My Fog Valley Crush Pre-Order Kickstarter Campaign — And a NEW, Self-Narrated Video to Share!
UPDATE: September 10, 2014. Kickstarter Fog Valley Crush – Limited “First Vintage” Edition – Get and early copy on Kickstarter.
One of Positively Petaluma’s favorite blogs is Frances Rivetti‘s Southern Sonoma Country Life. She always has good news to share not only for #Petaluma but also our great Sonoma County. Yesterday she announced on her blog that she will be soon releasing her book “Fog Valley Crush”.
In her blog she states that her book is her “love-letter to this micro-region of farmers, food innovators, artists and dreamers in which I live and work.” She also indicates that her book will be a celebration and a sharing of Petaluma and surrounding countryside, an extraordinary place that is the last secret-corner of wine country. She credits her design team of Petalumans Elaine Silver (Petaluma Readers Theater), Nicky Ovitt and Lorna Johnson‘s as awesome, amazing and meticulous talents.
Here is her teaser video for the book that was shot by camera man Gilles O’Kane and produced by her son, Rocco Rivetti (Red 14 Films).
There is a great article by Jamie Hansen in the Press Democrat this morning covering this exciting project called Petaluma High aims to send science project to space, following Mark West Charter.
For more information on this program you can go to Student Spaceflight Experiments Progam website.
Click here to help them raise the money they need to get their experiment into space. They need to raise $8,500 by Monday next week, according to the PD article.
Here is the Kids In Space, Petaluma High SSEP IndieGOGO video
Gary Pihl a native of Petaluma is a guitarist for the legendary band Boston and formerly played with Sammy Hagar and Night Ranger. Recently he completed an interview with Rustyn Rose of Axs Entertainment in Examiner article “Boston brings Life, Love and Hope to Boise: Guitarist Gary Pihl sounds off”.
In this article Gary vividly recalls the first time he heard Boston’s music, and hails that 1976 debut album as life-changing: “I remember where I was when I first heard it. I was driving down the street in my home town at the time of Petaluma, California—pulled up to a stop-light and there was a car in front of me, and the guy in the car jumps out of the car, runs back to me, and I realize its someone I know, and he goes, ‘Quick, turn on the radio. You gotta hear this. This is Boston! This is the most amazing stuff ever.’ So I flipped on the station and there was ‘More Than a Feeling’, and I was like ‘Wow, what is that sound?’ It was just so unique at that time, and obviously it just caught fire. That is something really special.”
Here is the interview and other recent videos posted by Gary.
