Page 28 - 2018 December

LEANNA LISTENS

Mary Chisholm
35 Years a Toastmaster —

Still Learning and Having Fun

Leanna Lindquist, DTM

What’s your backstory?

I was born and raised in Kellogg, Idaho when
it was a silver mining town of 5,000 people.

After high school I attended Links Business
School in Boise, Idaho. While working at Boise
Cascade headquarters I earned a BS in Business
Administration by attending night classes

for over 9 years. I stayed in the secretarial
profession for 20 years earning my CPS (Certified
Professional Secretary) award. I met my husband
John at Weyerhaeuser. We were married in 1983

and launched our current company MicroRidge
Systems. In 1986 I earned a Masters in Applied
Behavioral Science. We relocated ourselves and named for the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone and
our company to Sunriver, Oregon in 1988. Luci is named for Lucille Ball. We both had a

We design and build electronic interfaces for fondness for Basset Hounds. The business kept
connecting gauges and measuring devices to us too busy to own a dog. We bought a big stuffed
computers for use in process monitoring and Basset as a precursor to owning a dog in 1993.
quality control on the factory floor. (Say that We are now on our 3rd set of siblings. They are

three times really fast!) It’s been a wild and great dogs and known as the “clowns of the dog
sometimes rocky ride—but here we are! Over world.”
time our company has become successful with
a great team. We will celebrate our 36th year in Tell us about your alter ego Chizzy the

business in January 2019. Clown
I am not sure where the desire to be a clown came
Who are Lamar and Luci? from. I think I just liked the idea of them and
They are our female basset hounds. Lamar is their colorful, funny ways. I figured it might help

28 ONE COMMUNITY