Published: July 23, 2008 10:38 am         

Professional excellence

Six women in business to be honored at banquet & style show

Six San Marcos women entrepreneurs will be honored at a special event on Saturday for being the most dynamic and inspiring business leaders in the city for 2008.

The Honoring Women Entrepreneurs Awards, sponsored by the San Marcos Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Sigma Delta Lambda Sorority at Texas State University, will recognize women whose vision and work ethic have grown their businesses and who have displayed professional excellence in their endeavors.

This year’s honorees include: Sarah Ramirez Lesak, New Business Award; Karlin Clark, Established Business Award: Melesa Yager, Entrepreneurship Award; Judy Aswell, Community Spirit and Volunteer Award; Carol Peters, Public Service Excellence Award and Sylvia Nevares Garza, Latina Pioneer Award.

Also taking the stage during Saturday’s 6 p.m. gala gathering at Texas State’s LBJ Student Center will be the Business Women Every Wear Style Show, featuring clothes, shoes and accessories from a number of local stores, many from Prime Outlets.

Tickets and tables are still available. See the SMHCC’s Web site at www.sanmarcoshcc.com or call 353-1103 or 353-4150 for information or tickets.

There will also be a silent auction featuring a a number of interesting and valuable items.

Keynote speaker for the event is Dr. Nina Vaca, chief executive officer of Pinnacle Technical Resources, Inc.

Vaca founded Pinnacle in 1996 as an information technology services provider to Fortune 500 companies. Today, the Pinnacle’s client base includes industry leaders in the telecommunications, financial services, health care, technology, consumer products and business process outsourcing sectors.

As the first two-time winner of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Business Woman of the Year Award, Vaca appeared in Fast Company Magazine as one of the Top 25 Women Business Builders in the country.

She was also selected as one of the 50 Most Important Hispanics in Business & Technology by Hispanic Engineering & Technology Magazine and most recently in 2007 one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in America by Latino Leaders Magazine. In 2005, Vaca received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Technology and Communications for the Southwest Region.

She is a graduate of Texas State University with a B.A. in Speech Communications and Business Administration where she was honored as the youngest Distinguished Alumna in university history. Vaca also holds a Doctor of Laws “Honoris Causa” from Northwood University.



Melesa Yager

Entrepreneurship Award



Melesa Yager is the co-owner of Physical Therapy and Rehab Concepts, P.C. in San Marcos.

Yager was a member of the San Marcos Business & Professional Women 1984-88; San Marcos Bluebonnet Lions Club charter member 1988-present and president 1998-99; and Women's Sport Foundation 1995-98.

She won the 2002 Hays County Women Entrepreneur Award in 2002, and was named the 2004 San Marcos Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Quarter.

Yager graduated magna cum laude from Texas A&M University with a BS in Community Health Education, and also earned a BS in physical therapy from UTMB Galveston.

In 1988, Yager won the Southwest Texas State University outstanding physical therapy clinical faculty award, and in 1987 the Business and Professional Women State District VI Young Careerist Award.

Yager has worked at the Corpus Christi Medical Center 1982-83, the San Marcos Hays Memorial Hospital and the San Marcos Sports Medicine Clinic.



Sarah Ramirez Lesak

New Business Award



Sarah Ramirez Lesak manages the Escuela S.O.L. Spanish Oral Language School, 1027 Stagecoach Trail in San Marcos.

A 30-year San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District employee, Lesak was a long-time school district bilingual program coordinator and the principal at Bowie Elementary. She was the founder of the PRIDE Academic Center, a dropout prevention and recovery program for high school students. She was later asked by several high school districts to help create other alternative schools around the state like PRIDE.

Lesak was born and raised in Laredo. She graduated from J.W. Nixon High School in 1967 and earned a BS degree at Southwest Texas State University. In 1971, she earned her masters in Administration.

She was one of the founders of the L'Avenir Social Club in the late 1970s and mid-1980s. She served on the St. John's Parish Advisory Council in the mid 1970s for five years and on the board of directors for the Youth Service Bureau during the early 1980s.

After retirement, Lesak operated BEST Consultation Services. Through that business she was able to provide the assistance needed in whatever area of leadership she was asked to address.

Lesak and her husband have two children, Joseph Brent and Jaclyn Nicole Lesak, both of whom graduated from San Marcos High School. They also have four grandchildren: Alexis, Jordan, Ryleigh and Luke. The Lesaks are members at Hill Country Christian Church



Karlin Clark

Established

Business Award



Karlin Clark is the owner of Second to None in San Marcos, a clothing, furniture and accessory store.

Clark came to Texas in 1978 where she studied special education and animal science. She worked for Dr. Glenn Pape from 1983-2003, and also provided animal care and ranch management at a race horce facility called Running Horses from 1978-1982.

Clark was director of volunteer services for the Women's Pregnancy Center from 1992 to 2004, now known as Central Texas Lifecare.

Clark also remembers taking Bob the Bobcat to the many Southwest Texas State football games.

She opened Second to None in 1999 with her mother Mev Allen and daughter Terrell. What began as an 1,800 sq. foot shop has now expanded to 4,000 sq. feet.

Clark is a 1999 graduate and past president (2001-2002) of Leadership San Marcos. She currently serves on the Advisory Council for Women's Job Corp and has served on the Gary Job Corps Community Relations Council.



Judy Aswell

Community Spirit

and Volunteer Award



Judy Aswell is the owner of Americruit, an executive recruiting firm. But she also has another full-time job, too – volunteering.

As a current volunteer for the Christian Women's Job Corp, she serves as a faculty member instructing underprivileged women on how to enter or return to the workforce. Aswell is also the current coordinator of the San Marcos Chapter of the Texas Outdoors Woman Network, sponsored by Texas Parks and Wildlife. This all-woman organization encourages camping, kayaking, biking, fishing and other outdoor activities.

Aswell has been a Top 10 sales person in Southwest Region of the United States for five consecutive years. She is a past member of San Marcos Chamber of Commerce and has served on the city of San Marcos Fine Arts Commission

She has been a member of the San Marcos Bluebonnet Lions Club since 1986, where she’s won a perfect attendance award each year. She was also the club’s Lion of the Year Award 1992. In 2001 she was awarded the Lions International Melvin Jones Fellowship.

She’s also volunteered for Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity and Salvation Army.



Carol Peters

Public Service

Excellence Award



Carol Peters is the corporate secretary for Southern Pecan Plantation Mobile Home Park, Inc. in Maxwell and a full-time employee in the housing industry in the greater San Marcos area for seven years.

Peters has served as the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce Education Committee Vice Chair, a 10-year member of the San Marcos Bluebonnet Lions, with which she’s been awarded Lion Tamer Award, and a CASA of Central Texas volunteer advocate for 10 years.

Peters was born in Ashabula, Ohio in 1946, graduating from Kent State University in 1968 with a BS in Education. She was a French teacher in Ohio for three years, and eventually moving to Houston.

There she was an English as a Second Language teacher in he Spring Branch School District for three years. She has also served as a substitute teacher in the San Marcos and Hays school districts.

Peters has also served as a San Marcos League of Women Voters Affordable Houston study member and co-author, and Education Industry Association member for six years and has been the American Rosie The Riveter Association national vice president.



Sylvia N. Garza

Latina Pioneer Award



Sylvia N. Garza is the owner and manager of Freddie’s Auto Repair and TexMex Bar and Rental Property.

A migrant worker at an early age, Garza quickly learned the value of working hard for everything she had.

In the late 1950s, Garza began playing softball with a team called the Pioneers. This was the first ladies’ league in San Marcos and she inspired others on the team to do their best.

She eventually took business classes at night throughout the 1960s, learning about advertising and promoting her business and building clientele.

In 1960 Garza began doing paperwork for the family business, Freddie’s Gas Station. In 1965, she opened a food establishment on Martin Luther King Dr. called Sylvia’s Food to Go. She opened La Cabana Restaurant in 1973, and enjoyed running the business, from hostess to cook to bookkeeper.

Garza later went on to work for the American National Insurance Company, where she received top sales President’s Club honors from 1982-1986 and the Silver Eagle Club in 1987. She retired from the company in 2000.

In 2004, Garza was named to the Women’s Hall of Fame for professional business and volunteer work.

Garza presently holds the position of Regional State Chair for the American Government Issues of the United States for Region 9. She’s also the chairperson for a new chapter started this year by her, which gave out six student scholarships in 2008.

Garza volunteers at the Tourist Information Center, the Convention and Visitor Bureau and The Chamber of Commerce.

     

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