Queen Bee: Roxanne Quimby, Burt's Bees, and Her Quest for a New National Park

by Phyllis Austin

Overview

How did she navigate the world of venture capitalists and investment bankers to engineer the sale of her company and reap a personal fortune? And what does her subsequent odyssey to buy and donate a new national park in Maine’s north woods—thus repaying what she regards as the “harmonic debt to the planet” she incurred by manufacturing beauty products—tell us about America and the American dream?

 Queen Bee is a fascinating biography of a fascinating woman, her game-changing skin-care company, and the quest to create a national park in the north woods.  

• A richly textured portrait of the woman who built Burt’s Bees from nothing and altered the global business of skin care.
• A tightly woven story of the paper-industry exodus, the giant clearance sale of the north woods, the downward spiral of paper-company towns, and the battle for a new national park.
• A tale of the American Dream in action— what it can do for the fortunate few who are in the right place at the right time with wits and determination, and what it can do to the unfortunate many who find themselves on the wrong side of “creative destruction.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780884483809
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/15/2015
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Journalist Phyllis Austin (Brunswick, Maine) has covered environmental and forestland issues in Maine for more than 30 years, including many years at the Maine Times. Her books include Queen Bee: Roxanne Quimby, Burt's Bees and her Quest for a New National Park, On Wilderness and Wilderness Partners.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 The Maine Woods 7

2 Origins 22

3 Heading West: San Francisco, 1970 44

4 Back to the Land: Maine, 1975 53

5 Burt and the Bees: 1984 78

6 Backwoods Entrepreneur 98

7 Burt's Bees Moves to Main Street 114

8 Goodbye Maine, Hello North Carolina: 1994 143

9 Burt's Bees Reincarnated 166

10 The Tiger Roars 186

11 Leaving Burt's Bees 212

12 Family Matters 231

13 Imagining a New National Park: 2000 244

14 A New Vision: 2004 271

15 End of an Era: 2011 310

Epilogue 335

Sources 345

Acknowledgments 361

Maps 365

Index 369

About the Author 376