Flora Brown's career as an entrepreneur began at age 10. She sold her handmade potholders to the patrons of her mother's beauty shop while they sat under the dryer or waited their turns. From then on she was hooked on earning money from her creative endeavors.

More than that, Flora was resourceful. She learned new crafts at free classes at the local YWCA or Girl Scout meetings. Each time she learned to embroider towels or make terry cloth slippers she added the new item to her offerings. She invested in supplies from the local Woolworth's and always had a variety of homemade crafts to sell to her "patrons" the next weekend.

From then on, she was hooked on being an entrepreneur. A few years later, while other girls her age were listening to Elvis Presley albums, Flora was always scheming and thinking of ways to be creative--sometimes for pay, other times for the experience. She expanded her creations to include poetry and public speaking. She won oratorical contests, performed in church and school dramas, sang in operettas, and made pocket change writing powerful love letters for her high school classmates.

For the next ten years Flora took what seemed like a detour from entrepreneurship by combining her love of creativity, research, writing into a teaching career. She taught junior high school English and Reading, coauthored two language arts series, trained and supervised teachers. But it wasn't long before her entrepreneur urgings took hold again. This time Flora left her career as a university professor of Secondary Education at Cal State University, Northridge to open her own tutoring program where she could help students master reading, free of the entanglement of bureaucracy.

As a wife and mother of four, Flora wove creative activities throughout their lives. In addition to the typical tasks of motherhood, Flora also wrote lyrics to Bach's Minuets to make it easier for her budding violinists to learn their pieces, wrote articles for education and consumer publications, and completed her Ph.D. at USC.

Today, Flora teaches critical thinking at Fullerton College and helps gift basket designers, florists and retailers capture corporate accounts, find suppliers, improve design techniques, and run successful small businesses.

As a consultant, writer and professional speaker, Flora motivates gift retailers to establish credibility, project a polished image, find a niche, shop wisely for inventory, use affordable marketing strategies, sell more products and attract repeat business.

From her website, Gift Basket Business World, she produces a popular newsletter, that goes to subscribers worldwide and includes sales-generating ideas, marketing tips, design ideas and strategies for starting or growing a gift basket business. She lives in Anaheim, CA where she enjoys spoiling her grandkids

She loves the theater, action films, biographies, murder mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, most types of music, singing, doing crosswords, traveling and hosting small dinner parties.

Her philosophy is that no one becomes someone without the help of someone else.

How Flora can help the media:

* If you are looking for gift basket success stories, I can share sources and contact information.

* If you need articles, columns, tip sheets, or other short items, I can meet your deadlines.

* I can provide articles you can reprint--and adjust the word count to meet your needs to save you time editing.

* I can provide a list of other experts, tradeshows, organizations, publications and contact information on the topic of gifts and gift baskets

How Flora can help meeting planners, trade show organizers, and retailers:

* I can present motivational talks or staff training for small business owners, retail and homebased

* I can present keynote speeches on strategies for planning and succeeding in a small business

* I can conduct hands-on gift basket design demonstrations or workshops for beginners and veterans

Call 714-637-1455 or e-mail flora@giftbasketbusinessworld.com