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Good morning, Fearless readers:
I hope you had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day.
On a less pleasant note: Did you know that Iowa has the fastest-growing rate of new cancers and the second-highest rate of new cancers in the country? It’s one of the reasons I talk openly about my own recent screening tests, including a mammogram and a colonoscopy.
Often, the fear related to these procedures prevents women from scheduling them. Talking about the procedures openly and candidly removes the fear. Keep talking, my friends. And schedule those mammograms and colonoscopies!
We have a story today about Grace Breast Imaging and Medical Spa in Clive. Two women radiologists recently opened the business. The doctors hope meeting with women earlier and more often will reduce the number of patients suffering from breast cancer in Iowa.
In this week’s Fearless e-newsletter, you will also find:
- A story about Miavan Feliciano, a chemist from Storm Lake in northwest Iowa who launched her own makeup line.
- In the headlines: Newton Clinic and MercyOne Newton Medical Center are going to pause all labor and delivery services indefinitely, citing a decade of “significant recruitment and physician workforce challenges.” Babies will not be delivered there after Oct. 15.
- In case you missed it: Get to know Katie Lord, the economic development director for the city of Grimes.
- Lots more!
– Nicole Grundmeier, Business Record staff writer
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Pushing for better prevention, two doctors open breast imaging center in Clive
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For many women, waiting until the American Cancer Society’s recommended age of 40 to begin yearly screening mammograms can have terrible consequences.
Especially in Iowa, which has the second-highest rate of cancer in the United States and is the only state where that rate increased in 2023. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Iowa, and the later it’s discovered, the less favorable a patient’s outlook becomes.
Two Central Iowa radiologists, Dr. Andrea Lamphiear and Dr. Rachel Preisser, hope to empower women with the knowledge and tools to change that narrative.
“That’s what we want to bring to our patients: empowerment,” Preisser said. “The more you know about your health, the more choices you have, and the better your outcome is going to be.”
In August, the doctors opened Grace Breast Imaging and Medical Spa in Clive. The breast center offers services to screen, diagnose and monitor breast health conditions, along with medical spa and wellness services.
The doctors hope meeting with women earlier and more often will reduce the number of patients suffering from breast cancer in Iowa. Their proactive approach begins with an early risk assessment program.
“The American College of Radiology recommends that you have your [breast cancer] risk assessed when you are 25,” Lamphiear said. “Most women I know, including myself, did not have that done.”
An early breast cancer risk assessment looks at your family history, genetic makeup, health condition and more to determine your risk of breast cancer. Doctors use this to determine if patients need to be monitored earlier and more often and with what tools.
“You may need to start mammograms earlier, and you may need to come in more often,” Lamphiear said. “You may need more than just a mammogram or we may need to take abnormal tissue out. We just want to get to people to let them know to come in and talk to us. Let’s figure out your risk and go from there.”
Preisser explained that since medical professionals began using screening mammograms in the late 1980s, the death rate from breast cancer has decreased by over 40%.
A typical radiologist spends three months out of their 60 months of residency training specifically in breast imaging. Fellowship-trained breast imagers, like Lamphiear and Preisser, receive five times the amount of training. The uniqueness and difficulties of reading mammograms makes specialized training a key tool in the fight against breast cancer.
“A mammogram is the hardest imaging study to read because it’s like a fingerprint,” Preisser said. “Every single mammogram is completely unique to the breasts that made it, and even from right to left they can be different. There’s this huge range of what normal looks like. That’s not the case in any other part of the body.”
Advocating for access
Both doctors have long been passionate about educating women about the importance of being proactive about their breast health. But even when armed with this knowledge, many women are unable to pursue preventive health care due to high costs.
The Affordable Care Act mandated all insurances to cover screening mammograms at no cost to the patient. But any further testing, which Preisser explained is required whenever a mammogram shows an abnormality, would not necessarily be covered.
“We were telling people, ‘Hey, your mammogram is not good and you’re at higher risk for breast cancer.’ The next step is, what are we going to do about it?” Preisser said. “That means a breast MRI, ultrasound, and a lot of expensive tests. So what we were doing before is telling people, ‘Hey, there’s a problem on your mammogram, but I can’t tell you anything unless you pay me a lot of money.’”
The doctors worked with Iowa Army of Pink, a nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about breast density, to pass House File 2489. The law requires insurers to cover those necessary diagnostic tests.
“We don’t want women to come in with late-stage metastatic breast cancer because they didn’t have the money,” Lamphiear said. “This is going to help so many women to be able to get the imaging they need without having to pay out of pocket. Because it’s hundreds of dollars.”
With cost barriers being removed, the doctors hope more and more Central Iowa women will be able to take charge of their breast health. Improving the health outcomes for these women is central to Grace’s mission.
“There’s this opportunity for us to do better for the women in Central Iowa,” Preisser said.
Macey Shofroth is a writer based in Norwalk. She works as a marketing coordinator for CultureALL, a nonprofit boosting inclusion in Iowa, and produces a Substack Newsletter called “The Midwest Creative.”
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Chemist in Storm Lake creates global makeup brand
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BY CHRISTINA FERNANDEZ-MORROW, FOR JEFAS: LATINAS IN BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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Miavan Feliciano is the creator of the brand MMKL Cosmetics, based out of Storm Lake, Iowa. Photo by Tar Macias / Hola Iowa.
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Editor’s note: Fearless will be sharing one Jefas Magazine story in the first e-newsletter of the month through November. Jefas: Latinas in Business Magazine showcases Latina entrepreneurs. Find the magazine online and at Latina-owned businesses across Iowa, the Quad Cities, Chicago and Nebraska. To order copies for your place of business, contact Erika Macias at holaamerica2000@gmail.com.
During a trip cross-country, a snowstorm left Miavan Feliciano and her family stranded in Iowa. The kids begged her to stay, and that’s how an East Coast-born, Havana-educated chemist made a home in Storm Lake.
With a degree in organic chemistry, and time while her kids were in school, she enrolled in online business courses, hoping to open a boutique. That vision became a reality in 2014, when she opened a small shop that sold various cosmetics brands.
“It was difficult creating a balance between the prestige brands and those found in drug stores,” she said. It was the only place dedicated to cosmetics for miles and drew people from all cultures looking for items that local stores didn’t carry: “People didn’t want to travel so far to get makeup.”
Her vision was to offer full lines of high-quality cosmetics in the middle of a smaller town. Dissatisfied with what was on the market, Feliciano used her chemistry background to experiment in her kitchen. “I wanted to start my own brand that was affordable but had the same quality as the prestige brands,” she said.
After a few years of work and some failed attempts, she created a lip balm, and it sold fairly well in the boutique. Her husband invested in more lab equipment, and she produced a lipstick. “It took three years to make a lipstick I was happy with,” she said. “It was like birthing a baby. It was such a relief because I struggled, but when it came out, I was so happy.”
Feliciano got an assistant, another chemist to help create eyeshadows, and soon had her first palette. “We went viral for one of our palettes called Dura Magaly,” she said. “It’s a Cuban phrase meaning somebody that’s tough.” It refers to someone who defies the odds, which was what Feliciano had done with her boutique, lipsticks and now eyeshadow.
“It was a three-book palette with nudes, colors and glitters, and people went crazy over it because it had 72 shades for $40. That’s when we started selling a whole bunch.”
Her next palette, which launched in 2020, also went viral because it used a glow-in-the-dark formula. When the pandemic forced shops to close, including her boutique, Feliciano focused exclusively on her brand, and MMKL Costmetics was born: “When we moved online, we got way more sales than in the store.”
While growing her business on her website, she set her sights overseas. She used connections from her time as a college student in Havana to learn about the cosmetics needs in Cuba and used that knowledge to grow her business in Iowa in ways that extended to the Caribbean.
The pillars of MMKL Cosmetics are affordability and accessibility. Feliciano believes this comes from how the products are produced and packaged.
“If we can control packaging, the product is going to be affordable,” she said. “Most of the prestige brands are so expensive because you’re paying for the packaging, the name and the label. We don’t want you to pay for the label. We just want you to pay for the quality.”
This mentality allows her to make profit selling lipsticks at less than $10 that clients rave about.
“Having five children and running a business and a brand, it’s a lot. What motivates me is the people. They tell us the products are amazing, they’re so pigmented, and easy to apply,” she said. “Getting good feedback, that’s the best part. That’s what motivates me to keep the brand going and growing.”
Feliciano grew from lipstick and eyeshadow to other products. “Me and my assistant put our heads together and made a full black, waterproof eyeliner that doubles as lash glue. I had black tint everywhere, all over my kitchen, for months,” she said.
That led to purchasing a space to hold inventory and move her lab out of her home.
2023 was a huge year for MMKL Cosmetics’ expansion. Feliciano ran a promotion matching lipstick sales to providing a lipstick for someone in Cuba, creating access in a country where cosmetics are scarce: “We sold about 18,000 lipsticks in two months. It was a really big hit.”
Each lipstick that made it to Cuba included an empowerment message from Feliciano and her team. On a trip to Cuba to deliver lipstick, a program called Las Bellas de Cienfuegos was born. It’s dedicated to making cosmetics accessible in Cuba. Thousands of people were gifted free lipstick, and Feliciano also began selling her cosmetics around Havana. She spent hours hosting workshops for professional makeup artists from all over the island. They were so excited that the artists asked Feliciano to create a makeup competition to showcase all they had learned.
“We took a bunch of our own inventory left over from my store to start GLOW Cuba in Cienfuegos,” she said. “We grouped the makeup artists together to compete. I contacted newspapers, photographers, and they helped get it on television.”
Feliciano chose two other judges who were well-known professional makeup artists in Havana. Another competition is planned for this November. Her goal is to sell the reality TV competition to Netflix so it can be shown throughout the world: “I want everyone to see what makeup artists are doing and how they use makeup in other countries. You can see the creativity they have, especially without the resources we have in the U.S.”
All the while, Feliciano was applying to get MMKL Cosmetics on shelves at Ulta and other major retailers. Finally, in 2023, Walmart called. It began selling her cosmetics online, and there are talks to carry it in 50 stores as part of Walmart’s small-business support program. It will be sold in stores throughout the southern part of the U.S., close to the largest concentrations of Cuban Americans.
“This is the first Cuban brand they carry in the north,” Feliciano said. She manufactures all of her products out of her lab in Storm Lake but hopes to change that as her brand becomes more popular in Cuba. “My goal is to open another factory on the island so we can sell the products more economically,” she said. “For more Cubans to purchase our products over there, we have to fabricate it there.”
Feliciano credits memories of her mom using coconut butter as primer for how her culture influences her dream.
“Your foundation sticks so well, especially a matte foundation, because those can really dry out your skin,” she said. “It really balances the pH in your skin. Those are some of the tricks we use. Latinas are very creative using basic ingredients to enhance our beauty.” With that in mind, Feliciano plans for MMKL Cosmetics to become a trusted beauty brand across cultures and seas.
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“I THINK, WITH NEVER-ENDING GRATITUDE, THAT THE YOUNG WOMEN OF TODAY DO NOT AND CAN NEVER KNOW AT WHAT PRICE THEIR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH AND TO SPEAK AT ALL IN PUBLIC HAS BEEN EARNED.”
LUCY STONE
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Jacquie Easley McGhee. File photo.
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Jacquie Easley McGhee receives 2024 Dr. William Montague Cobb Award
Jacquie Easley McGhee, division director of health equity, diversity and inclusion at MercyOne, received the 2024 Dr. William Montague Cobb Award, one of the NAACP’s most celebrated honors. Cobb served as president of the NAACP at the national level, and in his honor, the award recognizes those who, like him, have dedicated their lives to the cause of health equity, according to a news release. Easley, who was recognized in the state category, received the award at the NAACP National Convention on July 17 in Las Vegas.
Newton Clinic and MercyOne to pause all labor, delivery services after Oct. 15:
Newton Clinic and MercyOne Newton Medical Center are going to pause all labor and delivery services indefinitely, citing a decade of “significant recruitment and physician workforce challenges” that have forced the care centers to investigate other options to provide these types of services to rural areas. In a joint statement released on Friday by Newton Clinic Administrator Mark Thayer and MercyOne Newton Chief Operating Officer Chad Kelley, the clinic announced it will cease its search for physicians dedicated to obstetrics. The hospital, in turn, must stop all newborn deliveries after Oct. 15, according to this story by the Newton Daily News.
Online clinics defy Iowa’s ‘fetal heartbeat’ law by mailing abortion pills after 6 weeks: Despite Iowa’s new abortion ban, telehealth providers say they will continue to mail abortion pills to women in Iowa seeking to end unwanted pregnancies ― even if it's after the six-week limit that is now law. Patients receive the pills through the mail within days of requesting them on a provider’s website, often at little or no cost, according to this story by the Des Moines Register.
Onawa woman donates to erase West Monona School District’s lunch debt: After being asked to be in the local Harvest Festival’s dunk tank, Ashley Ramm wanted to raise funds before school started to wipe out all student lunch debt in her western Iowa community. “After asking our school board president to find out how much it was, I knew I couldn’t do $5,000 in an hour, so I just started posting on Facebook and social media, tagging people, sharing and begging for donations to help get rid of the debt,” Ramm said. In a month, she collected enough donations to wipe out the West Monona School District’s lunch debt, according to this story by KTIV Channel 4 in Sioux City.
Book by Ruth Harkin publishes in September: Many Iowans may not know that Ruth Harkin was first elected to public office before her husband, former Sen. Tom Harkin. Ruth Harkin was the first woman to become the Story County attorney, and she worked to bring more women into the profession. Her new book, "When My Husband Ran for President and Other Short Stories," will be published in September. In it, Ruth Harkin explores her early life, children, the women’s movement and careers, culminating in her and her husband founding the Harkin Institute and the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center at Drake University. The book launch event is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 5 and will include remarks from Ruth Harkin and former Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus in the auditorium at the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center, 2800 University Ave. in Des Moines.
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Women running for office are talking about their reproductive history, once seen as a liability (Washington Post). Teachers still spend their own money on school supplies, despite efforts to help stock classrooms (NPR/Midwest Newsroom). Women lead the surge in mental health leaves in the workplace, study finds (Benefits Pro). Blue and red states were putting period products in schools — then came the anti-trans backlash (the 19th News). This state calls itself the ‘most pro-life.’ But moms there keep dying. (Washington Post) Latina mothers in Nebraska join local police to make life safer for children with disabilities (NPR).
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Get to know Katie Lord, economic development director for the city of Grimes
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BY MICHAEL CRUMB, BUSINESS RECORD SENIOR STAFF WRITER
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After spending several years serving as business and community development manager with MidAmerican Energy Co., Katie Lord joined the city of Grimes as its first economic development director on May 1.
Prior to her position with MidAmerican, Lord served as an economic development specialist with the city of Urbandale. Lord grew up in Hillsboro, Ore., where her dad was a city building official. She recalls going to the office with him on the weekends and watching him roll out plans and drawings. That’s where her passion for local government began, Lord said.
Not only has Lord followed in her father’s footsteps by working in local government, she’s married to Derek Lord, the economic development director in Ankeny, with whom she shares her excitement and passion for helping communities grow.
The Business Record sat down with Katie Lord recently to learn more about her new role and the goals she has for the fast-growing city of Grimes.
This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
What is it about economic development that drives you?
I think each position you hold before the next teaches you something. There’s technical skills and knowledge you gain, but you really learn, what do I want to do longer term? You really have to do some self-reflection on what do I love about this work? For me, it’s the community aspect. I am happiest when I am with people. I’m happiest when I’m sharing something and when I’m either learning or teaching someone else something. I think all that comes together to have this focus on building spaces where people can live, where they can invest their dollars, where they can vacation, where they can come to sporting events. I love to think about how do we bring all these different perspectives together, partners together, people tougher to create something where people want to spend their time? And community is at the core of what economic development is.
What goals do you have for Grimes in your new role?
The city of Grimes invested heavily in the GrimesPlex and around that is 100 or 200 acres of land for commercial, residential and retail development. From the city’s perspective, they really have an interest in how that area develops to support their capital investment [in the GrimesPlex]. It’s not only to attract visitors or meet the needs of those visitors that come for the GrimesPlex but it’s important that everything there works for the residents. Because when the teams pack up and go away and the ball fields are quiet, it’s the residents and the region that will support those businesses. So one goal is thinking through how to strategically develop that area and how to do that really well. Another goal is identifying ways to elevate the profile of our community. Grimes has a great story to tell. What are stories that resonate with people, whether it be residents, community leaders, regional leaders or developers? What makes sense for them for how we can bring new investment into the community?
READ THE REST OF THE STORY ONLINE
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At its core, Fearless exists to help empower Iowa women to succeed in work and life. We believe that everyone has a story to share and that we cannot progress as a society unless we know about one another. We share stories through featuring women in our reporting, featuring guest contributions and speakers at our events.
We are always looking for new stories to share and people to feature. Get in touch with us!
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