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Patricia "Pat" Poss is a fixture at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
She serves on the board of trustees, is a donor and fund-raiser and received the 2002 Chairman's Cup for her volunteer service.
But philanthropy isn't the only link Poss has to the arts center: Her company trucked away dirt so the center could be built.
In OC social circles, Poss is known as a sweet, soft-spoken woman with a number of charitable causes. By day, she's a matriarch in the rough-and-tumble world of blasting rock and moving earth.
Poss, 74, is president of C.W. Poss Inc., a general engineering company in Fullerton that she and her husband Charles, one year her junior, started in the 1960s.
The company now has annual sales of more than $40 million.
Not bad for a poor farm girl from Sewickley, Pa.
"Nothing should stand in a person's way to reach the top if you make up your mind to do the job right, put your heart and soul into it, work hard and stay focused, Poss said. "Not even health problems."
Poss said she objects when people compliment her for being a breast cancer "survivor." The term has a negative ring and may discourage other cancer sufferers, she said.
"I never considered it a real big deal," she said.