Designs by Lolita

Designs by Lolita

Lolita Healy, CEO of the $2 million, seven-employee Providence company, which designs and licenses painted glassware and other gifts:

I've always been an artist and also have always had an entrepreneurial bent. I worked for a Donna Karan licensee, and then I worked in advertising. I left my job in 1995 to stay home with my kids. In 2000, I was out with some friends for a girls' night out at a historic Memphis hotel. It was the first time I saw a martini menu, and I was blown away by how many choices there were. A lightbulb went off in my head, and I thought, this glass needs a design on it—and it needs the recipe for the drink on the bottom. Later that year my husband took the kids away for the weekend and I painted my first martini glasses. I started selling to friends, and I knew I had something special because I couldn't make them fast enough.