Deborah is the business brain of the partnership, having owned & operated four other successful businesses before she and Cat started Heart, Body, & Soul. An MU alum with an abiding grudge against the Jayhawks (that has not lessened at ALL with MU’s move to the SEC), Deb is also an excellent cook, a certified master gardener, a connoisseur of good Irish whiskey, and active in animal rescue. As a result, she shares her small acreage outside Columbia with a tribe of dogs, cats, and occasionally the neighbor’s chickens. She adores hardware stores and power tools, and stops at every thrift shop, garage sale, or junking opportunity within 50 miles of wherever she happens to be — collecting all kinds of strange stuff and turning it into treasure. (Hint: See if you can spot her handiwork throughout much of Heart, Body, & Soul!) Deb’s undergrad degree was in Recreation and her graduate degree is in Counseling. Can you think of a better combo for running of HBS??
A retired attorney and Starbucks addict with a passion for coffee, books, teaching, and the study of spirituality, Heart, Body, & Soul was natural second act for Cat. Unlike Deb, Cat is very good at NOT cooking, kills every plant she touches, and is a danger to herself and others if handed power tools. (She often notes that if stranded on a desert island, she’d be the first choice to kill and eat since her skillset is entirely academic and utterly impractical). An alum of Washington University School of Law, Cat’s energies for over 31 years were directed to her legal career, which spanned courtroom trial lawyer to leadership of a statewide legal organization of over 360 attorneys. Along the way, she taught as adjunct faculty at both Washington University and St. Louis University Schools of Law, spent 14 years coordinating training conferences and events within the legal profession, and became a nationally-known and requested speaker in her own right. Now she is turning her teaching and organizational skills to coordinating events and teaching classes & workshops at Heart, Body, & Soul!
Michelle has the most varied resume on our staff: studying improv at i.O. Theater and Second City, teaching English as a second-language in Japan, virtual and in-person executive assistant, and of course, continually sought-after and way overbooked pet-sitter extraordinaire. (It’s surprising just how much that skillset fits the need here, including the pet-wrangling. Go figure.) Michelle is another one who helped us out parttime when she wasn’t working her day job … until we piled so much on her that the day job had to bite the dust. She is now our full-time store manager, as well as photographer and ad creator, and website and social media overseer (so if you find a screw-up there, blame Michelle, rather than Cat, who probably caused it). And of course, she is and shall forever remain the personal agent and assistant to Merlin, who used to be the shop cat until he decided to just move in with her and put her to work maintaining his instagram page. (You can follow along at merlin_theshopcat .)
ana, our Inventory Specialist, is a transplant from the lovely state of Ohio and a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan (who does NOT want your pity, thank you very much!), Philana hails from a long line of military folk and is an Air Force veteran herself. When Deb & Cat learned she had worked at the House of Ravenswood, (a delightful metaphysical shop in Yellow Springs, OH they’d discovered on their travels east just a month or so before Philana discovered HBS), it was too synchronous to ignore so they snagged her into the HBS family before she had time to have second thoughts. Of course, Philana slipped in as if she’d always been here. Philana’s a natural teacher and insatiable learner — as customers are quick to find out! Pro Tip: Philana loves dark chocolate haystacks, but then don’t we all?
You pick the price and we pick the surprise! and every one is hand-picked by HBS staff just for you….
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