Renata Kowalczyk

Editor’s note: The following post comes from Jennifer Shelton, director of the Western Washington University’s Small Business Development Center (SBCD). The SBDC and Whatcom Community College are hosting the ThinkBiz 2010 conference Sept. 9 & 10.

I first met Renata Kowalczyk at a Whatcom Community College instructor event for ThinkBiz 2010. She was lively and intelligent. We connected because she was born in Poland as was my mother.

A few months later, we reconnected at the Temple Bar to discuss her co-working space project. I was so inspired by her story that I wanted to share it.

Living her American dream

Renata came to New York City from Europe to pursue the American dream. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in economics from Baruch College – City University of New York and her master’s degree from Columbia University.

She spent 11 years working for major corporations such as JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch doing process design and re-design as a Six Sigma Black Belt, product and business development, and eCommerce project management and consulting. She was living the dream in a penthouse in Manhattan, engaged in business and volunteer activities, yet she felt empty.

Renata says her “Eat, Pray, Love” moment came at 6:32 a.m. in Penn Station on a cold New York November.

She had missed her train to an important client meeting by one minute and looked anxiously at the big Penn Station train time schedule as it changed rapidly to show status of departing trains.

A vision for her life hit her strongly like a metaphor. Day after day was disappearing at a rapid pace, just like the Penn Station timetable showing the departing trains. “Is this really the life that I want for myself?” she asked.

Then and there she started to write a list of what she really wanted in life:

“I want to live in a small college town, surrounded by mountains and the ocean. I want to live in a community that cares about sustainability and works together to build a strong local economy. I want to live where people know and care about each other.”

She realized her current life did not contain anything on the list. She didn’t know if the place she imagined even existed. Within a week, two random people told her it did, and it was called Bellingham, Washington.

She decided that her path to get there would be through academia, so she left her career and started a doctoral program in human and organizational learning at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. It was during the 2008 elections and Washington, D.C. was alive with possibility of change. The energy was riveting. Once again she was moved to reconsider her path.

She asked herself, “Am I willing to spend the next five to seven years reading and writing about life, or am I ready to step into life now and make an immediate contribution?” After her second semester she left D.C. and came to Bellingham.

Her purpose was clear. She was to take her experience and knowledge from living in a communist country and then living the American dream and put it into making a difference within the Bellingham community and the surrounding areas.

Renata, who expects to return to her doctorate in the future, now teaches classes at Whatcom Community College on how to be a consultant, building community and connection, and customized project management for organizations.

Her recent client, SPIE has this to say about their experience with her, “Thank you again for the great class – I only wish the whole building could have sat in on it!”

She’s also paying it forward, and was recently appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Kulshan Community Land Trust (KCLT). This 11-year-old organization is dedicated to creating healthy communities through permanently affordable homeownership with 94 properties currently in the trust.

Creating co-work spaces

The other gift Renata brings to our community is the creation of co-working spaces. The co-working spaces came out of her need to find people to collaborate with while she worked out of her home and coffee shops as a solo entrepreneur.  “In my corporate life, I took for granted the ability to share ideas with others in the office or ask for assistance.” She started searching for solutions and found out there is an entire industry dedicated to co-working spaces.

Her vision for Bellingham is to take co-working space to the next level. At the highest level, every neighborhood will have a co-working space within a 30-minute walk. With a potential for walkable access to a collaborative office with resources and meeting rooms, people won’t have to drive as much. They would exchange the time spent on the road for an experience of connection, community building and quality of life.

The Bellingham Co-working Community was launched on Meetup and Facebook in late June as a seed for the first co-working space. Renata anticipates the first space to be up and running by the end of this year. Her commitment is that by 2020, all people are connected creating thriving communities.

The work she is doing fits exactly with the list she wrote that fateful day in Penn Station.

Within one week of meeting Renata I have already been motivated to revisit my purpose and set intentions in my life’s work for our community.

I encourage you to meet her at the upcoming ThinkBiz 2010 event where she will be leading a workshop on consulting. It is ideal content for any business service professional, account manager or solo entrepreneur. www.thinkbiznw.com