PARKS CITIES PEOPLE
Biz Group's Founder Has Made Quite a Comeback

January 9, 2009

Darlene Ellison isn't one to sit on her laurels.  After going through what she described as the "to hell and back syndrome" in 2005 following a family trauma, the SMU graduate took stock of her life and decided it was time for a change.

Three years later, she's enjoying the fruits of her labors. Along with a new career as the vice president of business development at Professional Bank, Ellison won accolades in October from the Independent Bankers Association of Texas for her Women in Business groups. Add to that her book coming out in February and her upcoming speaking tour, and Ellison could be the poster child for tuning lemons into lemonade.

She chalks up her successful endeavors to filling a need with common sense.  "It's a blend of the simplest little things", she said. Women entrepreneurs are an under-served market and don't get the help the often need for rudimentary aspects of a business, from applying for loans to doing taxes to general paperwork. 

Plus, she said, a lot of the networking that all business executives do tends to leave women in the dust.

"It's our  19th hole," she said of the monthly gatherings at women-owned businesses.

After going through a  difficult divorce from her first husband, Todd Calvin, Ellison found out the FBI was investigating him for pedophilia. He pled guilty to sex tours in 2006 and was sentenced to two years in prison with 12 years probation.

Later that year Ellison started a Women in Business group for Lakewood, where her bank has a branch.  It was so popular she launched a group for the Park Cities last January.

And though she had her doubters- many people told her there weren't enough businesswomen in the Park Cities to maintain a membership- Ellison kept the faith.

"When you look at Preston Center and Snider Plaza, even in some of the Preston Hollow area you have people affording where they're living because they're in high power executive households with a dual income," she said.

The meetings focus on socializing more than anything else, Ellison said, but they can fill a variety of needs.

Linda Betancourt, who co-owns the home-repair service Call Claudette Head, she said she's been involved in several networking group since starting the business.

"This is probably our favorite group," Betancourt said. "We have time to be social and make wonderful contacts. ...We all want to help each other."

Highland Pak resident Lori Eddleman has been going to the Park Cities chapter since its inception.

"We all live and work in one community, and I think that makes a difference,"  Eddleman said. "We're all able to support each other in an even bigger way because we all live and work in this small community, and we all want to see good things happen."

For Ellison, running the group is more than enough reward.

"It's just an amazing thing when you're in a room with all these entrepreneurial women," she said. "You leave there inspired."