I am a longtime retailer getting my start at the May Dept Stores where I moved up to ultimately be the president of Payless ShoeSource. In 1996, I left to start my own business but had no idea what that was at the time. I knew it had to bring back the fun to retail especially for kids. In 1997 I opened the first Build-A-Bear Workshop store in St. Louis, MO. Today, 25 years later we have almost 500 stores worldwide and over 225 million stuffed animals have been sold! I retired from Build-A-Bear and passed the reigns to a new CEO in 2013 and have since been working with minority and women entrepreneurs as well as community development. My latest project is the reimagination of the former St. Luke's Hospital on Delmar Boulevard in St. Louis, MO into a mixed used nonprofit office/ mixed income apts and retail space. The entire campus is about 475,000 sq ft and Phase 1 is 310,000 is now complete. Check out www.DelmarDivIne.com. It is an amazing transformation of a neighborhood eyesore into a bdridge to a beautiful future for this long neglected neighborhood.