As a woman whose business celebrates the honors and achievements of others, Lisa Higginbotham certainly deserves some of the glory herself.
Higginbotham, an avid basketball fan and Duke University class of 1982 graduate, co-owns Five Star Awards & Engraving in Cary, where she, her husband Jeff and their staff create everything from glass awards and paperweights to customizable plaques and drinkware.
Since its start in June 1999, Five Star has served clients locally and internationally. As a successful business owner and operator, Higginbotham is also the awards industry association president-elect for 2021-22.
And, as a charter member and past president of the Apex Sunrise Rotary Club, she has helped give back over $300,000 to the local community in the past 10 years.
Even with her impressive resume and service record, Higginbotham says investing in the community is something she has to do. It is simply a part of her.
“I’m very much a believer that as a business-owner, you can have a business, but you also have to contribute to your community,” she said. “That’s a big deal for me.”
When the spread of coronavirus threatened her business, her community and the events industry as a whole, Higginbotham refused to let the pandemic change her personal impact and her company’s reach.
“Most of our awards and clients and the things that we do revolve around events, and events were getting canceled,” she said. “I was definitely in a state of panic.”
So, Higginbotham decided to trade awards for spell out: Personal Protective Equipment and transform her business model to create materials for frontline workers.
“Because we do all of our products in house, we have great tools. Certainly, I can use these tools to help in some way,” she said.
“I was just so discouraged at the availability, and looking at the doctors and the nurses and people that were going into the hospital to take care of sick patients and couldn’t protect themselves and their families.”
But, as with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, the materials to make face shields and masks were scarce.
Lisa Higginbotham, stands with the Five Star team, from left, Jeff Higginbotham, Stephanie Brooks and Jackie Sanders. (Submitted photo via Facebook)
This led Higginbotham to reach out to her local Rotary chapter, her women’s group at Hope Community Church, and C-12, a Christian CEO peer-advisory group, to get advice on how to move forward and help the community.
“Literally within 15 minutes of me reaching out to my board group, they had a grant rough draft in my Dropbox,” Higginbotham said.
And Venmo payment notifications from her church group began blowing up her phone.
“It was great; it was overwhelming but just humbling at the same time,” she said. “It wasn’t easy for me to say, ‘OK, I don’t have the money for this,’ but it was something I could contribute.”
Soon, Higginbotham was able to order the materials she needed to start making face shields with the donated money.
Since March, Five Star has made well over 1,000 shields and 1,000 replacement shields. All of these were given – at no cost – to regional hospitals that lack sufficient funding.
“Everything that we did was really because we felt like we have the equipment to certainly make a difference and help, and that was really our total motivation,” Higginbotham said.
In a way, Higginbotham is a local superhero.
“She’s my role model,” said Jeanette Brewer-Richardson, company administrator at Engraving Concepts LP in Texas, and a close friend.
The two met about 15 years ago through an online discussion forum and have grown their relationship through their continued involvement in industry expos.
“I learned about her personal history and learned that she is as strong and optimistic in her personal life as she is in her business life,” Brewer-Richardson said. “She has volunteered countless hours – I know, everyone says ‘countless hours’ on something like this, but I mean it literally – there’s no way to count the hours she’s invested in our industry.”
In the future, as the need for PPE decreases, the events industry makes a comeback and the world embraces the new normal, Higginbotham wants to continue to serve her community every way she can.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re picking up trash on the side of the road or making a donation to the food bank, you know you’re making a difference,” she said. “It is the best feeling in the world.”
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