Join Travis Sims and Diane Napper as they talk about designing your life to live up to your dreams. Diane has a background and business in design but a passion for living and helping others. She is running for State Senate and shares her views on faith, family, and education. We touch on the recent death of George Floyd, Civil Unrest , and Covid-19. Diane shares what it's like to be a double minority in business as an African American Woman business owner.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
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About Diane Napper:
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, in a neighborhood much like where I live now in Nokomis East – still in the first (and only) home I ever purchased in 1998. My dad was a supervisor at the United States Postal Service, and my mom was a high school Home Economics teacher. Together, they gave my siblings and I a solid moral foundation through faith in God, love of family, the importance of a strong work ethic and the value of a good education.
I forged lifelong friendships growing up, with kids from a variety of economic, racial and religious backgrounds. Our grade and middle school not only taught us how to read, write and do math, but how to develop relationships, resolve conflicts and work together as a team to solve problems.
I graduated with honors from the Philadelphia High School for Girls – the same high school that my mother graduated from and my grandmother attended.
Thanks to what started from the generosity of a dear friend of my parents, my siblings and I had the amazing opportunity to attend a summer camp on a family farm as children. So when I moved to Minnesota, many people were surprised to learn that I knew how to milk a cow. Growing up in the city, that camp – out in nature – further reinforced my faith in God, and taught me how to take care of animals, grow food, be part of a team, and build a doll house out of wood.
In 1989, I earned my bachelor’s degree in International Business, with a concentration in Marketing from American University in Washington, DC. In my junior year, after spending the summer working to save money for the trip, I was able to study abroad for a semester in Denmark, where I learned to speak Danish. In the middle of the semester, I had the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union and Italy. My brief time abroad in general, and in the Soviet Union in particular, helped me fully understand that I had been born in the greatest country on the planet, no matter what my friends advocating socialism at the time told me.
I started my business, Taurus Moon Graphic Design, LLC in 2002, and married my husband in 2006. We live in South Minneapolis, and enjoy cooking, gardening and spoiling our cat.