When Marti McCormick turned over the “Open” sign in the window of her 30-year-old flower shop for the last time on Christmas Eve, she had a number of emotions.
Excitement, though, mostly prevailed.
“I have mixed feelings, but I’m happy and I’m proud of my career,” she said.
“I believe with all of my heart that this is what I should be doing right now.”
Unlike the many businesses that have gone under since the recession, her choice to close the Yellow Rose was based on the prospect of gain rather than the apprehension of loss.
While the option to browse and buy McCormick’s designs during a leisurely shopping visit won’t be available, her regular clientele won’t have to make any changes to who they call for
valentines flower delivery
McCormick plans to continue her work, though out of an office instead of a retail store.
“I have some clients that I still want to work for. If you’re a true designer, a true flower person, the drive is always in you,” she said. “I’m going to continue doing the custom work, the fun stuff.”
She even kept the Yellow Rose phone number so that all calls will go to her new business phone.
By closing shop, McCormick will be able to focus more on projects like making floral designs for special occassions, writing her book — a comical review of some of her most memorable moments in the floral industry — going back to school to study interior design, traveling, staying involved with the Porterville Breakfast Rotary Club, and enjoying her retirement by honing her golf skills and spending time with her grandchildren.
It is her clients whom she will miss the most.
“My clients are really the people who make me successful,” she said. “I love every one of them. I’ve been there through the births, the deaths, the marriages, the parties, and then the kids grow up and graduate, and then you marry the kids off and they have babies. So I’ve been part of all these events in their lives for 30 years, and they become like family.”
Her customer service philosophy was the influence behind naming the shop after the flower which symbolizes friendship.
McCormick opened her business in 1982, at the building now occupied by Radio Shack, with a bachelor’s degree in horticulture and no prior experience working in a flower shop.
She was the stay-at-home mother of two high school students when she began attending California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo.
“I’ve always wanted to do flowers, but when I made it my decision to open a flower shop, I wanted to do it the right way,” McCormick said. “I wanted to be a professional. You have to know your principles, and mechanics is everything.
Being a female, starting a business in the early 1980’s took a little extra drive, she said.
“I started in the days when women didn’t have careers. My ex-husband and I opened the shop, and he did help me financially to get started, so he was instrumental.”
So at 35, she realized her once distant dream of owning a flower shop, and has since experienced such career heights as being featured in floral magazines, designing
valentines flower delivery for former First Lady Barbara Bush, and flying around the country to be a featured speaker for flower seminars.
But her success did not come without tribulation.
McCormick saw an opportunity to buy property for her shop 11 years ago, when the owner of a pet store then located in that building had abandoned it.
“We had to hold our noses walking in. There were dead animals everywhere. They ate each other,” she said. “When we tore the walls out, there were dead rodents falling out.” But she was determined to clean up the building because she liked its location, a decision she now looks back on happily.
“It took us about five months to get the smell out. I had to hire a company to disinfect the building.”
Other traumatic experiences include being robbed at gunpoint and having two of her delivery trucks stolen, she said.
But perhaps one of the most shaking experiences occurred in 2005, when she stood in the store parking lot and watched as fire devoured the inside of the building.
“Luckily I had insurance. I started back with zero inventory,” McCormick said. She donated the remains — over $65,000 worth of product — to the Sheltered Workshop.
“What got me through that, first of all, was the Lord. I also had someone in my life who helped me tremendously - he passed away - and I had a lot of friends,” she said.
“All those experiences make us who we are in life. Only the tough survive, and you have to do what you’ve got to do to make it work.”
McCormick kept a photograph behind the front desk of her flower shop, which captures herself and then First Lady Barbara Bush standing next to one another against a background of flowers from Yellow Rose, following the dedication ceremony for a newly constructed wing at Sierra View District Hospital.
“I’ve attained what I wanted to attain in this career,” McCormick said.
Yellow Rose closed with two employees — Shelly Mendez and McCormick’s daughter, Stephanie McCormick — both of whom appeared to be excited about the change. Though they will not be able to see each other on a regular basis like they did at the retail shop, they will both continue to help McCormick design for special occasions.
Marti McCormick’s bookkeeper of 25 years, Kay Pacheco will also continue to work for her.
“I think there will not be another shop like this. We just do stuff that you don’t see anywhere around here,” said Mendez.
“[Closing the shop] is bittersweet,” said Stephanie McCormick, who has been working for her mother since the shop was new. “I think that it’s appropriate timing, with the economy the way it is, and with her wanting to retire. It’s going to be weird not coming down here on the holidays.”
