It would be appropriate for Ollie Dowell to celebrate with a spa treatment or two.
Yesterday her company, Ollie Dowell Communications, LLC, was awarded as the 2008 Women Business Enterprise of the Year by the airport’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program.
That’s something to celebrate.
Dowell recently celebrated her 51st birthday – and she did so in Detroit, with a spa party thrown by her sister, Beverly Thacker.
“I don’t even want tell you how much money I spend on spas,” Dowell said.
“Right now I have two spa treatments booked, a $95 full-body massage and a $75 facial.”
In fact, a partnership in a local spa project is one of the contracts with the airport that earned her the WBE award. Her company will provide public relations and marketing for Xpress Spa, which is building two full-service spas at Lambert, one in the main terminal and one in the east terminal.
“On a day like today, when hundreds of people are stuck in the airport, they are going to need a massage, a pedicure, a manicure,” Dowell told the American last Thursday.
She said the spas are scheduled to open in the fall.
“Xpress Spas are popping up like Starbucks,” she said. There are 14 in operation and 16 in the works, including the project at Lambert. Her firm only has a contract on the St. Louis project.
Her first contract at the airport evolved from the interview process for a staff job she didn’t get. Through the process of applying as public relations director for the airport, she learned of a request for proposals for a vendor to manage personal services. Dowell landed that $1.1 million contract.
She said Ollie Dowell Communications manages “all the training for customer service and the service at the Lambert Airport information and paging booth” and its 12 employees.
Her company also is the PR agency for the Airport Minority Advisory Council, a trade association based in Washington, D.C. Jack Thomas, assistant airport director at Lambert and head of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program for the airport and the City of St. Louis, is the council’s regional director.
“I was just in Washington to lobby at the Capitol for more airport funding,” Dowell said.
“I’ve just sort of carved out a niche in airport contracting.”
Dowell credits Comptroller Darlene Green for helping her manage her airport contracts. Green recently presented a seminar on the subject.
“The comptroller is helping us understand the legal and accounting terms we need to know to help prevent any kind of mishaps,” Dowell said.
Dowell’s previous experience was in journalism. A St. Louis native, she studied journalism at the University of Missouri. After working as a TV reporter in Toldeo, she returned to St. Louis as a reporter and anchor for Channel 30 in the mid-1990s “until they got rid of the News Department,” she said.
She was then a KMOX reporter from 1997 until she left the station to accept a position as PR director for the Metropolitan Sewer District in 2002. She has worked in PR ever since and started her now award-winning business in 2004.
Also honored yesterday by the airport authority were Kathleen Brady of Saint Louis University and Adriene Bruce of Ameren (Co-Owners of the Year); Janet Kolb of Dave Kolb Grading (Spirit of St. Louis Diversity Award); and Christine Bierman, Shiela Hudson, Christina Bennett and Sundy Whiteside (WBE Advocates of the Year).
Asked if she missed working in broadcast journalism, Dowell said, “Absolutely, positively not. When there are all these storms and flooding, I do not want be out on an overpass telling people to wear raincoats.”
Dowell lives alone in St. Louis County. She is single and has never married.
“But,” she said, “now I am rising up to the level of the man that I want to attract.”
