The Dynamic 2009 Women as Visionaries honored:

• Mauri Barnes, Co-founder and President, Nurses with a Mission

Mauri Barnes
Co-founder and President, Nurses with a Mission

Mauri Barnes is using an inheritance from her mother to further her dream and change the lives of perhaps thousands. After years of shepherding Nurses with a Mission part-time along with two friends, she left her job as a nurse at All Children’s Hospital last year to manage the international mission group full time. Over a few months last year, Mauri completed four medical missions and a scouting trip to Hanoi, Vietnam where Nurses with a Mission may help set up a children’s heart surgery program with Cardio Start International. Mauri and co-founder, Debra Bebell, have already started collecting equipment and supplies. And, they’re training nurses, lab techs and others about diseases and ailments they’ll be treating in the field.

“There are only nine heart institutes in Vietnam, so they have waiting lists. Poor children don’t get heart surgery. Cardio Start International was invited by children’s humanitarian services in Vietnam to see what we could do,” Barnes said.

Mauri decided to lead Nurses with a Mission full time after a mission to Arequipa, Peru last spring. “I had done a scouting trip in Lima in 2001. As a result, Cardio Start began heart surgeries the next year,” Mauri said. “When I went to Arequipa in 2008, there were boxes in their storage room labeled Nurses with a Mission. Then I knew we were making a difference. I had a mind shift that I would really do this. I wanted to prove that if you believe you can accomplish something, you will find the coaches, the mentors and the financial support.”

Mauri and Debra have a long to-do list for 2009. The first major milestone is permission to grant continuing education credits for nurses learning about tropical medicine and diseases, medical supplies, and mission work. Packing a shipping container full of medical supplies for Vietnam and inspiring other medical providers to join the effort are also high on the list.

Mauri has completed 15 medical missions in 10 years. “When we got started, the fact we didn’t have a non-profit foundation stopped us in our tracks. I saw ‘The Secret’ and learned that life is just like driving on a dark road from Tampa to Detroit. You don’t have to see the whole way–just as far as your headlights go in the dark. I don’t have to know the whole thing about creating a non-profit. I just have to get going.”

Debra Bebell
Co-founder, Nurses with a Mission

Children in Peru changed Debra Bebell. She and Mauri Barnes wanted to foster the unconditional love they saw amond the Peruvian families helped by the medical mission, and Debra wanted to keep the feeling going inside herself.

“We carried everything we needed with us to a foreign country and completed surgeries on children with cleft lips and palates. These children who were hiding behind dirty clothes and stretched sleeves were able to rejoin the ‘regular’ kids and participate in life. They had more options,” she explained.

Debra and Mauri founded Nurses with a Mission when they returned to the states. They began collecting clean, unused medical supplies and reconditioning medical equipment. Since 1999, the group has provided distributions after hurricanes hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Supplies and equipment have also gone to Guatemala through a mission group in Sarasota.

“A hospice team in Guatemala really needed adult diapers and we’d just had a lot of diapers donated by a local group that needed to clear out their storage facility. The same local group had cloth bed pads which went to midwives here in the U.S. We got it all in and sent out within two months,” Bebell said.

Nurses with a Mission stays in contact with mission organizations throughout the region and the United States, forming a conduit for the supplies and equipment they collect.

Now an acupuncture physician, Debra says she’s also the organization’s co-founder, secretary, cheerleader and balloon carrier. “Nurses with a Mission started as a group of hands-on nurses. We are amazing care takers, but we weren’t as educated on the business skills. We educated ourselves and invited business people into our organization to help us move forward. Unless you know exactly what you’re after, you don’t know when you attain it,” she explained.

Last year, Nurses with a Mission passed a major milestone receiving their non-profit status. Today, one person focuses on the organization full time—but that’s Marui’s story.

Rebecca Blanco
Founder, The Bridge

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of the vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

That quote from Audre Lorde, American poet and teacher, inspires the founder of The Bridge to shepherd the fledgling organization. The Bridge offers educational events in Tampa Bay promoting sustainable lifestyles, improved social conditions, personal growth, and creativity. “One of several things that has helped me so far is the belief that there is no other choice but to do what I can to participate, along with many others, in bringing forth a more sustainable way of life,” she wrote. To fulfill The Bridge’s mission, Rebecca is strongly committed to an idealistic vision while continually learning from other local residents as well as from several wise and forward thinking visionaries.

The organizations formal name—The Bridge-Envisioning a Life-Sustaining Future—reveals some of Rebecca’s vision. It includes:
Finding and cultivating ways to act on behalf of the beauty and natural intelligence of the planet and the creative potential of human beings to form vitality-building relationships and life enhancing lifestyles.
Recognizing that there is a state of urgency on the planet due to the widespread destructive/exploitative practices within human society; that the time has come for people to rise beyond denial, insecurities, being small, and feelings of powerlessness to take action locally that fosters mutually enhancing conditions.
Exploring critical questions, dialoguing about important matters to harness the collective wisdom of the community; and having guided experiences that heighten awareness and inspire action.
Rebecca sees The Bridge as a vessel that enhances people’s life-giving values in their personal and communal lives. “My role as the founder is also to be the ‘keeper of the vision’ yet the hope is to do this arm in arm with others,” she said. “We are all in this together.”

Jean Harper
President and CEO, Women Taking Care of Business

Creating Women Taking Care of Business was more of a path than a drive to a specific goal according to Jean Harper.

“I spent over 20 years working in the corporate world. I was very successful; winning every award that was available and making a lot of money, but I wasn’t passionate about my work. I didn’t feel like my work was important–it wasn’t work that would make an impact on the world. I had everything I could possibly want, but I wasn’t happy,” she explained.

Jean retired early. She traveled to Hawaii and Alaska and thought about her next step. About this time her beloved sister died.

“My sister was my idol and taught me what love is. I was the seventh child and my sister took care of me,” she said. “She was extremely beautiful, resembling a young Liz Taylor. That was a detriment to her. As she aged, I watched her become overweight and die at 62 years old. I looked right at her and the gift she gave me was to tell me, ‘don’t let this happen to you.’”

Jean thought about women she knew who felt stuck and unhappy. She realized what she had accomplished was amazing and that there were other amazing women who had made lives for themselves. She decided she could encourage other women by capturing and telling those stories—stories of Moxy Women.

Jean launched her website celebrating, supporting and empowering women in 2007. The site now gets 200,000 hits a month and parallels a newsletter sent to 15,000 subscribers twice each month.

Finding the time and the funds to do everything she wants to do is a challenge for Jean. Jean shows moxy of her own. She works two jobs, updates the website or plans other events until 3 a.m. and gets up at 6 a.m. to do it all over again. “I am very optimistic because it seems that out of nowhere I am connecting with other women who have a similar vision. The universe seems to be unfolding to assist me with my mission,” she added.

In 2009, Jean may expand into the United Kingdom. Women TCB is sponsoring a Moxy Women event with concerts, exhibits and seminars in May that will benefit Community Action Stops Abuse or another organization helping women in transition.

“We’re going to have a parade!” she said gleefully.

Kare Possick
Visionary Artist and Quantum Educator

Color and circles have always drawn Kare Possick. When she needed to heal her own work stress a few years ago, she used her psychology and quantum physics to create healing mandalas for herself. Mandalas are colorful, artful circles that represent qualities like abundance, creativity, and courage. The Dalai Lama calls mandalas machines for enlightenment and bridges into another dimension. “I never thought that my mandalas would help anyone but me. I just knew that I felt better and better as I drew them,” she said. “They healed me and then I put all 150 or so of them under the bed in the guest house.”

A couple of years later, Kare was training a famous doctor in a quantum technology when the woman began channeling ascended Master Kuthumi. Master Kuthumi told her: “There are vortexes under your bed that are being called into service. They number 12 and they will open portals on the body and on the planet.” Kare wondered how she would find the right 12.

She spread all 150 of her mandalas out on the floor and meditated…and chose the 13 that seemed to be glowing! As soon as she hung the chosen 13 mandalas in her guesthouse, people began dropping by to see them and having healing experiences. They then began bringing friends and family to experience them, too.

For Kare, allowing the mandalas to have a life of their own–and to follow that vision has been her deepest challenge.

“Last January I went to Lore’s VisionMapping workshop. My VisionMap showed me what was needed to take my mandalas public.” In one month’s time, Kare’s mandala website was up and her mandalas were available as framed giclees, on glass gateways, and on sterling silver jewelery. She then began being invited to speak about her mandalas. Audience participant had amazing experiences and even healings during her lectures as the mandalas were shown.

Honoring the Vision of the Mandala, Kare spent the entire year teaching the Mandala Experience Workshop. She welcomed people to her sacred land for a day long experience to understand the sacred geometry and quantum physics behind the mandala, and then guided them in drawing out their own Sacred Soul Mandalas. Her mandalas have played a significant role in opening up portals on the body and on the planet.

“2008 has been an absolutely magical year that was focused and fueled by my VisionMap! I have the beginning of an understanding of what 2009 will bring as I take my Mandala Workshops to the next level: I will now guide people in creating new Sacred Soul Art at “Camp Kare” and through live broadcasts on Kare TV. I am so looking forward to creating my VisionMap for 2009 to launch my new year of mandalas and manifestation,” she said.

Sigrid Tidmore
President and CEO, Healthy Together Tampa Bay

Wellness is such an obvious boon to American business and personal productivity but, according to Sigrid Tidmore, we’re so focused on disease we don’t act on the obvious.

When Sigrid began Healthy Together two years ago, Florida ranked 41st in the U.S. in the health. Its ranking has now dropped to 45th.

“I realized that not enough people I knew were taking care of themselves,” she lamented. “Many of us weren’t making good psychological choices for ourselves, and we didn’t get even pleasurable exercise.”

For Sigrid, the root of everything is helping people be more proactive about their health choices. Healthy Together has created education, opportunity and empowerment programs including Prime Time Sister Circles and Do the Local Motion walks.

“People know they should walk. They know that they can think better and be clearer at work if they walk, but they don’t create an opportunity for themselves. By offering vehicles that allow them to make a better choice, you can change their lives.”

Sigrid views her work at Healthy Together as a force multiplier for the work of others in the community who see health issues the same way. She gathers these volunteers and gives them a project to work on together. “We all know at a certain level that wellness is where we want to be –mind body spirit,” she said.

As a non-profit leader, Sigrid’s major challenge is funding. She’s excited that so many business paradigms are changing and clearing the way to help her realize her dream. “The old non-profit model is that you go out and beg for money. We’re changing to a social enterprise model so Healthy Together is providing a product that people want so we can generate an income,” she explained. “We’ll use that income to offer programs for low income people.

“I want to make the healthy choice an easier choice for everyone.”

Jane Toombs
Executive Director, CEO Council of Tampa Bay

Seeking a balance between mind, body and spirit is a challenge for many women. Jane Toombs has made it her personal mission while working for 150 chief executive officers and executing 60 events for them every year. She sets her personal sights high.

The CEO Council grew from the Council of Growing Companies, which was founded by the publisher of Inc. Magazine in 1992. “It’s about making CEOs better and influencing leadership for 20,000 employees with about $4 billion in revenue. It’s helping them remember there are other people who have faced the same challenges and it’s about bringing them together so there is a positive impact on our community and on our CEOs lives,” Jane said.

Before joining the CEO Council, Jane worked with The Florida Aquarium, Prevent Blindness Florida, the Centre for Women and Tampa Electric Company. She and a group of volunteers initiated the Centre for Women’s “Gourmet Festival. For Prevent Blindness Florida, she coordinated a “Persons of Vision” Dinner with 1,000 attendees, honoring Joe and Sue House. She was named an “Up and Comer,” awarded Peak Performer by Sales and Marketing Executives, won Executive Director of the Year from the Council of Growing Companies and, most recently, she was given recognition for Outstanding Contribution from STAR TEC (Technology Enterprise Center). She has a Master’s Certification in Transpersonal Psychology and was ordained as an Associate Minister by the Church of the Creator. Jane is a member, and former Board member, of Tampa Unity Church.

Jane, became executive director of the association nine years ago recognizing this was where she needed to be. “I did not have to be a source in front of people but rather a quiet and diligent influencer, which is more my style. Pulling people together is something I’ve always done, this one felt like it would have a huge impact.” She paused for a few seconds, and then added, “No one will ever know how one speaker or another member might affect a CEO and affect hundreds of people.”

Rev. Zeynep Tufekci
Founder and CEO, Sacred Ceremonies for Women

Cheek-e-boom! At the end of a solemn sacred dance, Rev. Zeynep Tufekci leads women to take their problems, throw their heads back and shout releasing that sense of stress she believes we create when we try to control every situation and problem.

“Sometimes you’ve got to let it go,” she said. “Shouting cheek-e-boom expresses divine passion.”

Born in Istanbul, Turkey and raised within mystical Islam, Zeynep also spent eight years in England as a child. Her vision to become a catalyst for global peace and unity–blending East and West, masculine and feminine–came to her in 1996. She signed a personal pact of love to raise feminine energy.

“Women are the backbone of society. We keep society going and keep the family together,” she said. According to Zeynep, changes in modern society have begun to isolate people from each other. Today, the places or ceremonies that allow wisdom to be passed from generation to generation are harder to find. The dances and ceremonies Zeynep teaches are tailored for modern times, yet some concepts come from the time when men went to hunt and women had to keep the fire going. “It’s as old as humankind. We need to recreate our communities…our tribes,” she said.

Rev. Zeynep’s route to building Sacred Ceremonies for Women went in a new direction in 2004, when she began leading the dance ministry at First Unity Church, St. Petersburg. In 2008, Cheryl Harrison, founder of the Friends of Ministry, helped Zeynep create her new website. She now offers services that empower women of all ages to reach beyond the local community.

Rosie Warburton
Founder and Director, Sound Body Wholistic Health Center

Sound heals. That simple concept led Rosie Warburton to combine healing sounds with her licensed massage therapy business to help heal stress and illness. Achieving that goal meant she had to create a practice built around sound rather than massage. She opened her private sound healing practice in 1994 and became a pioneer in VibroAcoustic Sound Therapy. Rosie graduated from the Bhakti Academe of Intuitive Massage and Healing. She has studied with respected teachers such as Don Campbell, Fabien Maman, John Beaulieu, Roop Verma, Boris Mourashkin, and Layne Redmond. And, Rosie has studied a wide variety of energy healing modalities.

After 2004 hurricane rains ruined her home office, fate and faith presented her dream. Rosie walked into a building for rent one day with no intention of renting it because was too big. “I couldn’t walk away!” she exclaimed. “I could see the whole thing laid out. I cried because I didn’t have the money, but I knew I needed to do this. All these people who do sound healing in Florida were traveling across the county to take classes and I knew we could do this right here.”

While building working capital continues to be a challenge, Rosie is grateful for her heroes and heroines. Her father is her lighthouse because he organized the internationally acclaimed Tall Ships festival during the United States Bicentennial in 1976. His tenacity inspired her to move ahead. Her other angels include her landlords who made changes to the health center building and have believed in her dream. She also overcame a debilitating head injury with help from her sacred sound yoga teacher, Shyam Bhatnagar, Ayurvedic practitioner, Denise O’Dunn, and sound and body practitioner, Henry Steffes. Dr. Karen Mutter, an osteopathic physician, assisted using cranial manipulation. “I’m proof sound heals,” Rosie said.

Rosie’s skill as a musician earned her a spot playing in concert with Cheap Trick and Donovan at Ruth Eckerd Hall in 2008. In 2009 Rosie is playing during Deepak Chopra’s presentation on February 6.

According to Rosie, the body is like a symphony orchestra. If the violin is out of tune, everything is thrown off. Sound therapy is a gentle, noninvasive way to bring the body back into harmony using instruments, crystal bowls, and sound tables with speakers built in so the body is massaged with sound. “Shamans have used sounds for thousands of years,” Rosie said. “On a most simplistic level we use sound to make us feel good already. It’s so built into us that we don’t even think about it. When we put in a CD because there’s a huge traffic jam, we don’t think we’re using sound therapy but we are. We put music on and clean the house for motivation and inspiration.”

Joanne Weiland
Founder and Director of Connections www.LinktoExpert.com

Joanne Weiland spent her days flying all over the world, planning sales and marketing launches for a computer company. “I met so many CEOs and other leaders who had great ideas but only 5 percent of them implemented those great ideas,” Joanne explained. Joanne is an innovator because she didn’t leave her finding there. She followed up to find out why.

“It turned out that the 95 percent who didn’t implement the idea talked to a colleague, significant other, their mother or brother who either laughed at the idea or wasn’t able to give the leader good advice. The 5 percent who succeeded hired the right person to help them. Maybe that was a coach, someone to train the sales and marketing team, an overseas manufacturing expert–whatever. That gave me the idea that introducing busy people to experts and doing it quickly would help more people be successful in their businesses.”

Joanne began linking leaders with experts the old-fashioned way using the telephone, expert profiles, faxes, e-mails and lots of meeting scheduling. It sometimes took months to get the right two people together. It was time consuming and not as speedy as she felt was needed.

The advent of affordable and customized web portal technology broke Link to Expert through into a new paradigm three months ago. Creativity doesn’t begin at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., so Joanne determined a Link to Expert portal would be the best way to help her meet her original vision of linking people as fast as possible.

Experts now apply for membership through the portal. If their credentials are accepted, experts pay a monthly fee for their web page. Linked experts have web pages that contain blogs, tips, downloadable videos or audios and other information business leaders would find useful. Experts can charge fees for portions of their portal information, and leaders can pay through Pay Pal on the site.

Using a membership in Link to Expert, leaders now can search for experts in all types of fields any time of the day or night. They can read more, send an e-mail to the expert or pay for their latest video

Joanne’s biggest challenge is identical to the leaders who were her inspiration for Link to Expert. “I’m one of those people who wake up with ideas every morning,” Joanne said. This innovator sought a business coach who helps her maintain focus. “We determined that I should keep an idea journal. I can record my ideas without having to get them done or implemented right then. That way, I can focus on three major ideas at a time and see them through.”

With most of the expert linking done by the experts and leaders themselves through the portal, Joanne now spends her time marketing her growing e-business. “I promote the portal and its benefits to potential experts and members and I’m implementing new ideas.” Her idea journal is getting some good use these days.

Debbey Wilson
Publisher, Natural Awakenings of Tampa Bay, Inc.

When you meet Debbey Wilson, she’ll probably be smiling. The publisher of Natural Awakenings of Tampa Bay magazine seems surprised that her venture is still growing. Plus, she’s reinventing herself—again.

A decade ago Debbey was living in Naples , Fla. where she launched a successful interior design and feng shui firm. She built her business advertising in the Naples edition of Natural Awakenings and loved the association.

“When I moved over here ( St. Petersburg ) I spent $2,500 in advertising with other publications and only got 2 clients,” she said. Her frustration built, so she talked with the Naples publisher who said she could publish a Tampa edition of Natural Awakenings. “I tried to talk friends into becoming the publisher and I’d be their first major advertiser. They all thought it would be too hard. So, I just took it on in October 2000 along with my design business.”

After 9/11, the magazine eclipsed her interior design business, so she chose to focus on the magazine. Today 34,000 copies of Natural Awakenings Tampa Bay are distributed free throughout Tampa Bay in nearly 1,000 of the area’s top nutrition and health sites every month.

“My biggest challenge is keeping my racks full. I could print more, but they just fly off the racks,” Debbey explained. “My advertisers keep me going. I’ve met 95 percent of them. They’re the coolest people who came from corporate America , but had an illness and now they’re on a path to help others. There’s another way to avoid popping a pill. This whole body, mind spirit thing is real baby!” she said.

Debbey collects stories from readers who write to tell how an article helped them or a family member. “They love the informative articles—the healthy child articles, pet rescue, natural pet information, the calendar and the news briefs. I started the pet articles. Now all Natural Awakenings editions feature pet articles. I’ve learned how to tailor things to help my advertisers get the fastest return on their investments because they are our financials support.”

When Debbey talks about a vision for 2009, she’s focused on re-invention again. “I want to model and do commercials. I’ve got a two year goal for that—I’m taking acting lessons. Really! I’ve learned that the only thing I can do anything about is now. So I pay attention to how I think and how I act and the energy I put out—now.”