Gina Robison-Billups, is the founder and president of Moms In Business Network™ and founder of the International Association of Working Mothers™. Before founding the only two organizations in the world representing working mothers, Gina held positions as the Director of Marketing for TriPoint Records, and as Vice President of The Marketing & Business Development Center which specialized in the marketing and business strategies for small and home based businesses. She is also the developer of No Money Marketing© seminars and has authored 10 No Money Marketing© Tips. Her work with home based business owners and mom business owners has earned her the title of the "Home Based Business Advocate" for the state of Nevada.
A Letter from the Founder:
As the mother of two amazing young women, I find myself every day compelled to reach out to the community in order to help women achieve their dreams. I am absolutely fascinated by the resiliency and courage of all women, especially women with children.
My mother and grandmother were my earliest examples of women of courage, and are to this day my greatest inspiration.
My grandmother was a survivor of World War II in Czechoslovakia, escaping Nazi concentration camps, immigrating from Germany with her five year old daughter, and making a new life in the United States without her husband by her side. He had to stay in Europe due to illness.
My mother, was widowed at the age of nineteen, and was my family's sole caregiver and support. In an effort to spend more time with her children, my mother started a small business at which I helped at the young at of six. It was that experience that started opening my awareness as to why entrepreneurs seek the freedom of their own business. I credit my mother for inspiring my entrepreneurial spirit and my dedication to the issues of working mothers.
After obtaining my degree from Loyola Marymount University, my entrepreneurial spirit finally had a chance for growth and with a partner, I started developing a monthly visitors’ magazine for Northern Nevada. Unfortunately, all this was cut short when I had to make a life changing decision. My stepfather was diagnosed with liver cancer and needed someone to run his business. Rather than keeping the magazine, which had just received interest from a funding source, I chose to save the family business. My parents owned an entertainment agency, and literally within one day, I was thrust into one of the most cut-throat industries there is.
This experience helped me understand what fellow home-based business clients experience in going to work every day—with no support of co-workers or a company “safety net". A few years later, I found out how much more complicated it is for business owners. After taking some time away from the family business to have my first daughter, I came back to work for the entertainment agency which was based in my mother's house.
I was quite a sight for the neighbors' eyes every morning when I came to work, juggling a walker, diaper bag, toys, purse, paperwork and, of course, a baby. I looked like one of the circus jugglers my company represented. Before I even got to work, I was exhausted from taking care of the baby through the night.
At the same time, my mother was caring for my bed-ridden grandmother. With baby in the playpen and grandmother in the wheelchair, together we somehow managed to build one of the most successful entertainment agencies in Nevada that represented several casinos in the state, and was, at that time, the only female owned entertainment agency in Northern Nevada.
I realized what women go through balancing work and family especially when work is at home. At least 100 times a day I had to ask myself, "How do other women do all this?"
The talents of working mothers quickly awed me.
In my research I found that many small business owners were women, and I wanted to work with other working mothers like me.
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