STARTUP SUCCESS
T HE A R T T E AC H E R For landscape painter Kay Hurley ’74, the inspiration to become an entrepreneur came in the late 1970s when she was working at what was then Frame and Save in Hyde Park (now The Framery). Hurley was serving as the artist-inresidence at the store when she received an overwhelmingly positive response to her first show. “That started it for me,” Hurley says. “From then on, I always wanted to have my own gallery.” Now, Hurley likes to bring aspiring artists to her 900-square-foot studio on the seventh floor of the Pendleton Art Center overlooking Over-the-Rhine to spark in them the same passion that was sparked in her when she was 18 and visited the home of Lela Cooney, a multitalented local artist in the 1950s who created oil paintings and sketches. “It wasn’t that the visit sparked a passion for art as much as it was the artist herself that inspired me,” she says. “Lela became a role model for me, devoted in every way to her art. She had so much energy and enthusiasm, and was so different than any woman I had met. That was transforming to me, and it’s now part of my mission statement to pass on that type of inspiration to younger artists.”
Q: What does it take to be an entrepreneur in this day and age? Hurley: You have to have people skills, computer and social media skills and time management skills. You wear so many hats, and it’s important to know how many you can wear because you can’t do everything and do it well. If you want to have a family life and a life in general, you can’t do it all yourself. Something has to give. Everything gets sacrificed to some degree if you try to do it all. Q: What else inspires you? Hurley: I paint landscapes exclusively because that’s what inspires me. It gives me a sense of awe. As a landscape painter, I’m not necessarily trying to copy the landscape but to capture its essence, its spirit. My children also inspire me. I have three children who are very, very creative people. My daughter is a writer and the director of a cancer foundation in Chicago. My son is a musician in Portland, Ore., and my youngest son is an entrepreneur at a small startup in San Francisco. In addition, my husband, Jens Rosenkrantz, is a photographer and motivates me. We love to collaborate on shows inspired by our travels and the people we meet along the way. mkatherinehurley.com
16 • MOUNT ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY
THE SCA LI John Herman ’99, founder and president of Worthy Endeavors, made the decision to become an entrepreneur when he started thinking of his life as a story. “I thought, if I were to read a book about myself 30 years from now, what kind of story would it be?” he says. “Would it be engaging? Would it be a good story?” In 2010, Herman made the leap to entrepreneurism and joined the ranks of Epipheo, which works with clients to tell their stories through digital video. Herman became a fifth partner at Epipheo, and was brought on as CEO/ COO to scale the business. From the five people working for Epipheo in 2010, Epipheo today has grown to 55 people. It’s produced more than 6,000 videos for 2,500 clients, including Google, Procter & Gamble and Microsoft. In May 2016, Herman made another leap, this time to launch a venture on his own. His new company, Worthy Endeavors, is a leadership and management consulting firm that helps small to midsize businesses grow by leveraging his passion for marrying purpose, process and people.