Be inspired by a woman leading her hugely successful company’s growth and our environmental infrastructure

Cherie Koester’s awe-inspiring journey will encourage anyone who has searched long and hard for his or her true calling.

BY SANDRA GUY

It’s a long way from living in a trailer home in rural Wisconsin to founding and leading America’s second-largest, multi-million-dollar stormwater management company.

It’s Cherie Koester’s awe-inspiring journey. It’s especially uplifting for anyone who has searched long and hard for his or her true calling.

“I was born a triple negative — a girl, a Native American and I had a single mom,” said Koester, who herself was divorced at age 24 with three children. “[My mother] raised me and my sister while she made $2.33 an hour as a bank teller.”

Yet Koester’s admittedly rebellious nature led her to find her own path. Nearly seven years ago, she founded and leads, as CEO, stormwater management consultancy Earthworks Environmental. The company boasts clients in 16 states and a proprietary technology aimed at helping home- and business builders better organize, expedite and manage their construction projects.

But it didn’t come easily.

She first put herself through school, searching all the way for her calling. She earned an associate degree in respiratory therapy, where she grew drained from the inevitable reality of patients’ deaths, and then got an associate degree in business, but she grew bored of those studies.

Koester found her calling in her favorite classes — in environmental law. From 2008 to 2011, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degree in environmental technology management and sustainability from Arizona State University.

“I appreciated that my kids, who were going to school at the time, watched me finish school and work full time, raising them myself,” Koester said.

After working as a compliance inspector, an environmental regulator and then as director of environmental compliance, she took the leap to start her own company about seven years ago — and started a new stage in her personal life, too, when she remarried at about the same time.

Koester has grown the company to multi-millions in yearly revenue and 49 employees, from a humble start of $500 her first year and two employees.

Once again, she overcame the odds.

“Being a woman in this industry is not easy, since I work with 99.9 percent men,” she said. “I have to prove myself over and over and over to the same gentlemen.”

Her latest innovation needs no second-guessing. It’s a subscription-based records retention software program called ERX that automatically saves and categorizes data and written work that construction firms need to comply with government and other rules. That includes maps, photos, live weather data, inspection reports, and each day’s site progress.

A recent addition lets her team use drones to look at site perimeters, as well as any sensitive stream, tree or animal species that needs monitoring.

Automated drone work “saves a ton of time and vehicle use” since it quickly scours terrain that a worker would spend hours driving around to figure out.

So what’s next? Koester aims to steer Earthworks to #1 and to help others searching to overcome the odds.

She just hired a single mom.

And she’s just gotten started paying it forward.