Beschreibung:
In this fascinating biography of the woman behind the wildly successful line of natural skin care products known as Burt's Bees, veteran journalist Phyllis Austin provides insight into Roxanne Quimby s background, her determination, and her desire to protect Maine s wilderness by establishing a national park in the north woods. Born in Massachusetts, Roxanne Quimby made herself a success. She changed a roadside honey stand into a juggernaut company worth hundreds of millions of dollars before selling it to Clorox in 2007. She then turned her attention to her longstanding interest: conservation. Quimby has purchased more than 120,000 acres of Maine forest to preserve it. Not everyone in the Katahdin region welcomed Quimby s efforts with open arms, and this well-researched book chronicles the ups and downs of Roxanne s quest for a national park in a way no other book has.
How did she navigate the world of venture capitalists and investment bankers to engineer the sale of her company and reap a personal fortune? And what does her subsequent odyssey to buy and donate a new national park in Maine's north woods—thus repaying what she regards as the “harmonic debt to the planet” she incurred by manufacturing beauty products—tell us about America and the American dream? Queen Bee is a fascinating biography of a fascinating woman, her game-changing skin-care company, and the quest to create a national park in the north woods. A richly textured portrait of the woman who built Burt's Bees from nothing and altered the global business of skin care. A tightly woven story of the paper-industry exodus, the giant clearance sale of the north woods, the downward spiral of paper-company towns, and the battle for a new national park. A tale of the American Dream in action— what it can do for the fortunate few who are in the right place at the right time with wits and determination, and what it can do to the unfortunate many who find themselves on the wrong side of “creative destruction.”