By Michele Hardman
Supposedly, when people meet us for the first time, they form an opinion within the first eight seconds. The first time I met Katrina Wiggins, I was immediately impressed. She’s one of those women who just exudes class — good posture, a calm demeanor, soft-spoken, warm, and friendly. And she’s done so many cool things throughout her life that I won’t be able to do them all justice in this short column, but read on.
Katrina was born and raised in Detroit and says it was a wonderful place to grow up in the ’70s. After graduating from college in Michigan, she landed a job with Ford Motor Company and worked at their facility in Pittsburgh for a year and a half. Then life took her to Philadelphia, with stops after that in Bear, Delaware; York, Pennsylvania; and Raleigh, North Carolina. She worked for the Avon Corporation for a while and loved her time there — as District Sales Manager, she got to travel and work out in the field, interacting with sales reps and helping them grow their independent businesses.
Eventually, Katrina and her husband both felt Dallas calling them, so she transferred there through Avon. Her husband, a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, was serving on the advisory board for the school’s Center of Entrepreneurship & Innovation. He agreed to step off the board temporarily to help run the organization while they searched for their next director. Katrina began tagging along and getting involved, and soon realized that this was one of the things she was put on this earth to do — to help others by sharing her own knowledge and experience.
That realization led Katrina and her husband to establish Launched for Life, a program to help young adults handle adult life more confidently. Katrina had been a latchkey kid herself, which taught her at a young age how to cook, properly answer the phone, and talk with adults — lessons she now passes on. She and her husband also ran a summer camp called Camp Biz Life for three years, focused on the basics of starting and running a business, and for a time ran another organization called WIELD (the Wiggins Institute of Entrepreneurship & Life Development), designed for men 18 and up who would live at one of the Wiggins’ apartments while going through the program. On top of all that, they’ve also owned a few auto dealerships along the way.
Another of Katrina’s passions is travel, and she’s found a way to build a career around it while helping others experience new places and cultures too. She’s a travel consultant with her company, Live Beautifully — visit her website at tolivebeautifully.com to see her upcoming trips or have her plan your own personal itinerary. Her latest venture is serving as Market Director for HUM Concierge (humconcierge.com), a private home and life management firm that also offers move and relocation management, and is a certified woman-owned small business. And if all of that isn’t enough to keep her busy, she’s also working on her first book, set to debut within the next few months — all about hospitality and living beautifully, filled with her own personal experiences and tips for living life to the fullest.
After living in six different states, Katrina now calls the PCB area home. She and her husband first came here from Charlotte, North Carolina, planning to be snowbirds for a month. They decided to extend that to three months, then realized they loved the beach life so much that they wanted to relocate here for good.
Cross paths with this extraordinary woman if you get the chance. She’ll inspire you.
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