Asante named Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year

Published 9:37 am Friday, October 23, 2015

When Liza Van Valkenburg first got her stylist’s license, it was just something that made sense at the time.

She just fell into the profession as her husband at the time was also a stylist. Prior to going into the profession, she had been a preschool teacher but was getting burnt out on it. It turned out that Van Valkenburg enjoyed the work and was really good at styling hair, so she turned it into a career.

In May 2007, she opened her own salon — Asante Salon — at 16528 Cleveland St., Suite D in downtown Redmond. The Duvall resident said at the time, she was a single mother with two kids (who were 3 and 5 years old at the time) and wanted to be able to provide them with a decent living, help them pay for college and offer them other opportunities. She felt if she were to open her own business and make it successful, she would be able to do that.

Almost a decade later, Van Valkenburg has achieved just that and others are taking notice.

Earlier this month, Asante was named the Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year at the King County Executive’s Small Business Awards.

“I was really surprised,” Van Valkenburg said about receiving the award.

She first learned about the award after receiving an email from the City of Redmond, encouraging small businesses in town to apply as they wanted to see the city represented.

“I thought, why not?” Van Valkenburg said about nominating Asante.

And she wasn’t the only one to think this. In addition to Asante, two other Redmond businesses were recognized at this year’s awards ceremony. Magellan Architects was named a finalist for Minority Small Business of the Year and Keep It Simple (KIS) Farm was a finalist in the Rural Small Business of the Year category.

Both businesses were honored by the county’s recognition and emphasized their connections within the local community.

“Our business strives to help its local and national clients such as Costco, Bank of America and Bartell Drugs,” said Pedro Castro, owner of Magellan Architects. “These companies allow an MBE- and DBE-certified firm such as Magellan to be successful because of trust and the value they place on high-quality service. We are grateful and honored to work alongside our clients to help them achieve their project goals.”

Tad Hussey with KIS Farm added that they are happy to be in Redmond and are working to serve the community better.

“We are hoping to continue to improve KIS Farm with an even better selection of organic veggie starts and vegetables, as well as fruit trees and berries for next season,” he said.

Van Valkenburg said from the time she turned in her application — which included her providing a written response to a writing prompt — to when she learned she was a finalist, it was about two months. Once she was notified, there was a bit more writing to do as she was asked a few followup questions about her business. Van Valkenburg did not find out that she had received the top honor in her category until about a month later at the award ceremony on Oct. 13.

As a business owner and employer, Van Valkenburg said she focuses on providing a supportive work environment for everyone.

“I really wanted to create an atmosphere where the staff are valued,” she said.

Van Valkenburg said she wanted to provide a good work balance for her staff and respect their time outside of the salon, working around their schedules when it came to their work hours, maternity leave and more.

In addition, she said Asante works with local community groups, supporting various causes such as contributing to local charity auctions and contributing a portion of their retail revenue to support Lifewire, an Eastside organization that supports domestic-violence survivors.

“We do value the community,” Van Valkenburg said.