Cara Rickey Email & Phone Number

I have grown up surrounded by creativity and entrepreneurship. I have been, and still am, surrounded by endless opportunities to find creative outlets. For as long as I can remember, my mother let my siblings and I explore our creativity through art, whether that be using clay to shape figures, painting a landscape with water colors, or practicing our fancy signatures for when we are older. I knew I wanted to become an entrepreneur one day, as my siblings and parents have inspired me to continue finding new ways to explore our creativity. I began perfecting the creation of home-made caramel apples (which is actually harder than it looks) in middle school and started selling them to my friends. Once I got tired of the taste of caramel, I leaned into selling friendship bracelets and those became quite popular. I even made wallets out of duct tape and sold those too.When I got to high school, I was old enough to get a "real" job. At this time, I was exploring my own style and identity and thought working in the retail industry would help. Throughout these years, I (thankfully) gained a better sense of fashion than I had in middle school. I also gained several years of experience working with people of different ages and backgrounds which broadened my overall perspective of the working world. This perspective initiated my decision to take bits and pieces from what I had learned and start my own business. In April of 2021, I launched Heavenly West, a women's clothing brand that promotes beauty in every body. This business enabled me in reaching my goal of becoming an entrepreneur, but it doesn't stop there. Once I completed two years at community college, I wanted to gain a different perspective, in a separate industry, living in a different place, in hopes that experience elsewhere would assist me in finding patterns among successful businesses. I began managing an ocean-front seafood restaurant once I settled into my education at UCSB (which is beautiful by the way). It was here that I found the common pattern - businesses that are the most successful are those who establish environments that give their employees opportunity for creativity. When I discovered this, I felt that it should have been so obvious, given the joy I felt from creativity at such a young age. However, it was the years of applying myself into these industries that took making this discovery that I now apply to Heavenly West.Let's talk more about fashion, management, and entrepreneurship, or honestly, anything that sparks creativity in our ever-changing world.