LZX founder and CEO, Melanie Nelson begins her first classes at Harvard today. For the next three weeks, she will be a student at Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Manager Program. That said, we wanted to give her a proper send-off. We threw a little party for her on Friday just as parents do when they send their child off to college.
We wanted to make sure she was ready and well prepared! The following are some of the items included in our send-off.
Learning ZoneXpress CEO and founder, Melanie Nelson, has been announced as a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award in the Upper Midwest.
The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. These business leaders were selected from a strong pool of nominations by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala on June 14, 2012, at the Marriott City Center in Minneapolis.
The Upper Midwest region includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. We were excited to hear that 17 of the 26 finalists are from Minnesota. Our winters may be rough, but we sure do have a lot of talent!
We’d like to extend a big Congratulations to all of the finalists! The full list can be seen here.
To celebrate Entrepreneur Week we have invited friends and customers to email questions to Learning ZoneXpress founder Melanie Nelson. Melanie is happy to share her take and tips on how to become (and remain) a successful entrepreneur. The fourth question is: What motivates you?
To celebrate Entrepreneur Week we have invited friends and customers to email questions to Learning ZoneXpress founder Melanie Nelson. Melanie is happy to share her take and tips on how to become (and remain) a successful entrepreneur. The fourth question is: What advice do you have for someone looking to start their own business?
To celebrate Entrepreneur Week we have invited friends and customers to email questions to Learning ZoneXpress founder Melanie Nelson. Melanie is happy to share her take and tips on how to become (and remain) a successful entrepreneur. The third question is: How do you find the talented staff that works with you?
To celebrate Entrepreneur Week we have invited friends and customers to email questions to Learning ZoneXpressfounder Melanie Nelson. Melanie is happy to share her take and tips on how to become (and remain) a successful entrepreneur. The second question is: Did you have a mentor or role model who was helpful to you as you built your business?
To celebrate Entrepreneur Week, we have invited friends and customers to email questions to Learning ZoneXpress founder Melanie Nelson. Melanie is happy to share her take and tips on how to become (and remain) a successful entrepreneur. The first question is: How do you continue to remain creative?
Melanie Nelson leads the team at Learning ZoneXpress. As owner and CEO, her Family and Consumer Science (FACS) background and her passion for nutrition education are the driving forces behind this company. She was a junior high school FACS teacher for 13 years before becoming a serial entrepreneur, now guiding and planning the production of award-winning educational tools. Under her guidance, LZX has become an acknowledged “thought leader” in nutrition and resource development for FACS education.
Although the company is doing great things, she has certainly had her share of challenges. She was cut from her FACS teaching position along with many other teachers due to budget cuts in the mid 1980s. This cut is what led to the beginning of Learning ZoneXpress. The challenges didn’t end there though. She makes it look easy, but it has been anything but. She’s experienced hardships in the forms of a warehouse flood, technology melt down, fire and explosion of her office building, and a divorce. But she prevailed. As she always does. Her optimism is unmatched and her ability to lead a team and resource quality experts has made her transition from teacher to business owner successful. With the talents of a small and mighty staff, she has been able to build LZX from the ground up. Literally, and twice!
“She has an incredible story,” says LZX member Toni Gnasdoskey about Melanie. “She’s endured so many challenges, and not once has she even considered the thought of giving up. Never have I met anyone with so much drive and so much passion for what they do.”
Passion is what sets Learning ZoneXpress apart from its competitors. Melanie believes in the greater good. She believes we can make an incredible difference, and she has instilled that in all of her employees. With the strong loyalty and appreciation of our customers, we are able to do great things.
Melanie has been a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, a recipient of Owatonna Business Women’s “Women of Achievement” award, and a national business in Family and Consumer Science honoree.
Learning ZoneXpress would not be the success it is today without Melanie. Challenge after challenge, she has prevailed. Starting out as a one-person business, she wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. Look at her now. She owns a business that has tripled in sales since 2005 and offers over 1,500 products. She loves coming to work every day, and she could not be happier. I think it’s safe to say she’s earned every bit of that.
If you have any questions you’d like to ask Melanie, please submit them via the comment space below or our Facebook page. We’ll be recording video interviews next week, and if your question is selected for the interviews, we’ll send you a great ‘Business & Entrepreneurship’ prize!
How is that New Year’s Resolution going? If your resolution related to nutrition or helping kids love nutrition we might be able to help!
We have been busy here at Learning ZoneXpress developing all new nutrition education tools and resources to help teach and promote healthy choices. We invite you to check out all of the brand new and best-selling products in our flyer to gear up for National Nutrition Month in March.
We have a reward to help incent folks to stay healthy – receive a FREE 2012 Foodscapes Calendar with any purchase! Use code 1003 to redeem. While Supplies Last!
Nutrition team after unpacking MiPlato and other Spanish products from LZX
LZX Project Manager, Linnea Duffus and I recently traveled to Chile to visit EPES. EPES is an acronym for Educacion Popular en Salud which can be translated into Popular Education for Health. It is a program that focuses on empowering shantytown women to make changes in domestic violence, tobacco control, breast cancer, HIV awareness, and more recently, nutrition education.
A good friend of mine from Owatonna, Karen Anderson, founded this program 29 years ago and is the driving force behind its success. Her passion and resilience are unmatched, and her ability to address the root of the problem and work from the bottom up is what makes EPES unlike any other organization. A great example I can share is when families in the shantytowns were experiencing a high volume of rat bites in their homes. Karen and her team didn’t just treat the rat bites. They found out exactly whythe rats were present and eliminated them all together. This is the business model for EPES: Get to the root of the problem and take action from there.
Myself and Linnea in front of a MyPlate (MiPlato) mural in Chile.
Another example is the work they completed leading up to our trip to Chile in November. The program spent 6 months evaluating eating habits in a shantytown of Santiago, Chile. The long term plan is to develop a training model for people in the community to be nutrition promoters. LZX was able to donate and bring a number of items in our Spanish product line to be used to train these nutrition promoters in Santiago.
I have never seen a program moresuccessful. EPES training impacts future generations. EPES recruits, trains, and teaches poor women to be leaders. I have had the honor of being part of this incredible organization for 15 years now, and I am thrilled to announce that EPES is now our official South American distributor for Spanish LZX materials.
Chilean First Lady, Cecilia Morel, admires our poster of her U.S. counterpart, Michelle Obama
As Karen put it, “In poor communities, women are shakers and movers. They take care of everyone. Over the past 30 years hundreds of women have been empowered to find their leadership skills thanks to EPES encouragement, training and challenge. These women have role modeled for their daughters and granddaughters a new generation of leaders for advocacy for the marginalized and poor.”
What an incredible vision and mission! We are so thrilled to support EPES as it continues to change the lives of Chilean women. We take away so many great memories and empowering stories from our trip this year. We forged bonds that will help us communicate, collaborate, and go forward. Our discussions for fundraising and exciting ideas for celebrating EPES’ 30th anniversary next year have us energized for 2012.
In March of next year, there will be eventful concerts here in the U.S., and in November of 2012, we will celebrate with a week-long event in Chile. Come join us!
Business owner and former FACS teacher, Melanie has been creating life skills products for 27 years. Visit Melanie’s Corner often to get the insider news on Learning ZoneXpress, life skills tips and the occasional bargain.
© 2012 Melanie's Corner. All Rights Reserved.
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