Entrepreneur Wins a Woodtex Shed After Submitting Story

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - April 5, 2016 - PRLog -- Visit http://www.woodtex.com/blog/the-inspiring-story-of-our-entreleadership-podcast-contest-winner/

Entrepreneur Karen Moore of Stanardsville, Virginia, recently won a Woodtex (Mt. Juliet, TN) building for her small business.

Woodtex CEO, Kent Lapp was a recent guest on the EntreLeadership podcast, and announced a contest to win a Woodtex Workshop. Listeners submitted their small-business stories, and how they might use a 10x16 Woodtex Workshop, and a winner was chosen from those entries. We're pleased to announce Karen Moore of Stanardsville, Virginia, won a building for her small business and here's her amazing story.


In the early 2000s, I was a stay-at-home mom of 2 wonderful kids. I loved being a full-time mom, but I felt a stirring inside me that I did not quite understand. In 2004, after struggling with intense brain fog, I went to the doctor. A sleep study later, I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. The treatment Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) would improve my brain fog and consisted of wearing a mask on my face to blow air into my nose whenever I slept, wherever I slept, for the rest of my life! Unfortunately the mask was uncomfortable, and left marks on my face every morning.  Because I have sewn as long as I can remember, I designed and sewed a pad to cover the straps of the mask headgear. It solved my problem. Fast forward 8 months, I was successfully using my mask every night and my brain function had returned. I began to wonder if there were other people who struggled with the comfort and had marks left from the sleep apnea masks on their faces.  I sewed 25 very unattractive, but functional pairs of pads and took them to our very small town one afternoon and talked with people about sleep apnea. I sold 5 pair that afternoon without trying. I later looked online to see what was already on the market, and lo and behold, there was not a thing being made to make the mask more comfortable. In that moment, I knew I was going to start a business to help people with their sleep apnea treatment. It matched so many of my passions and my talents. The timing could not have been more perfect. With my husband's blessing, I took $1,000 from our checking account and bought high-quality fabric for the product. I started all by myself, and sewed each one I sold. Now, 12 years and 26,000

website orders later, we are ready to move from our humble beginnings over our garage to a new location. We now have 5 employees and 4 ladies who sew most of what we sell.  We are helping people all over the world sleep more comfortably with their masks, and I still love what I do. I have grown so much as a business person and as a leader. And my brain is back, thank God! We have a current need to store our rolls of fabric (we now buy fabric in bulk) and our racks with our cut pieces for production. We make and sell over 60 different products at www. padacheek.com. A Woodtex shed will provide wonderful storage solution to help us keep our fabric safe and dry and easily in reach at our new office. In fact, I decided to pay to upgrade the structure to a Woodtex Garage so we have even more room!Hearing the Woodtex success story on the Entreleadership Podcast was affirming for me that great American companies can thrive on basic principles of business such as customer service, quality products, and integrity. Pad A Cheek was founded on these same values, and I so greatly appreciate this blessing.

Karen Moore, owner

PAD A CHEEK, LLC

Woodtex has been making quality, hand-crafted structures for over thirty years with the same integrity, skill, and passion for customers as founder Sanford Lapp used in 1983. What began as a small family business now employs nearly ninety team members. As Kent Lapp said in the EntreLeadership podcast, the success and growth of Woodtex comes down to a few key values: "Clarity, goal setting, having the right people in key leadership positions, having very clear expectations, and holding people accountable." These are the same values Karen Moore has built her own business on, and we wish her many years of success as she continues to make a difference in the lives of others.