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Dawn Kearney doesn't want you to read this story. Not because she's concerned that it will reflect badly on her or her interior design company. On the contrary, she's worried that it will seem too positive and hurt the feelings of those in her industry who aren't doing as well.
Indeed, the stagnant real estate market has hurt interior designers, just as it has hurt builders, architects, real estate agents, contractors, property owners, and anyone else even remotely related to real estate.
But Kearney's company, Design Line Interiors, is thriving in its niche--model home interior design. Kearney's job is to make the living spaces of model homes so enticing with the right mix of fabric, furniture and lighting that people walking through them will want to buy one.
Her team of 25 employees is working on some 40 projects in four states for an impressive list of clients, including most of the home builders left standing among the ruins of California's real estate market. Among them: Kaufman & Broad, Brehm Communities, Sunland Communities, California Pacific Homes, UDC Homes, the Baldwin Co. and National Properties.
This has her hopping flights each week between such cities as San Diego, Phoenix, Redding, Las Vegas and Sacramento. In addition to her busy work schedule, add two small children, a husband and an exercise regimen, and you have the perfect picture of a 1990s dynamo--a clean-cut Meg Ryan look-alike wearing Superwoman's tights.
But Kearney, heart firmly stitched to her sleeve, modestly refuses to take credit for her success.
"I don't want to boast about my company because we're not so special, we're lucky," she says. "I'm just the kind of person who looks up at the sky and expects it to be blue."
Whether it's luck or hard work, something has transformed Kearney from the 25-year-old college graduate who borrowed $17.000 from a loan shark to start her business, into a 34-year-old president of a well-known interior design firm.
About 85 percent of her business comes through referrals, so her reputation is her most prized possession in the business world. That makes her afraid a personal profile could make her seem cocky and scare away business. Kearney blushes when asked about her annual billings and again when asked how...