A Journey toward Peace and Light
Paula Lorenz discovers a deeper sense of grace and grit along Stone Feather Road
Paula Lorenz’s ambition and fierce drive landed her in the fashion industry at an early age. Her work ethic and pursuit of excellence propelled her to success, but it’s her devotion as a mother that defines her.
Owner of Stone Feather Road, a Billings boutique with Mountain West influence, Paula attributes her strength to her German heritage, growing up on an Iowa farm, the oldest of four sisters, and being born under the zodiac sign of Leo. The mix has served her well in life and business, but it was after the heartbreaking loss of her first-born child, she discovered a deeper sense of grace and grit.
“It brought it down to a very simple formula for me,” Paula says. “And that was what was most important, the core of my family and how to protect them. It gave me a deeper grit that is palatable, and I own it.” She adds, “Anything that falls out of that circle of what I view as acceptable, then I’m going to challenge it and take it head on. It made my circle smaller, but very strong. Whether it’s my family or my crew, or the people who I see need that help, I’ll fight hard.”
That determination molded her into an accomplished businesswoman who traces the spark that started it all back to the 1970s, when she was in junior high school.
“I’d buy the inlaid faux leather pants and I would have the stacked platform heels,” Paula says. “I edged into fashion and then I blew right into it with fashion merchandising as my choice in college.”
A two-year fashion program in Ellsworth, Iowa, caught Paula’s attention. “It was awesome,” she says. “We did 10 weeks on-the-job training.” When the college leadership asked Paula where she wanted to go, she chose Minneapolis, where she trained with a retail chain for two months.
Between the experience in Minneapolis and a New York fashion trip, her passion for fashion grew. Merchandising made a great fit for an ambitious young woman. The retail store sector filled her 80-hour work weeks for decades.
“At the height, when I exited the multi-store area,” Paula says, “I was running 43 stores with about 700 people under my direction.”
Initially, her fashion focus encompassed jewelry design. “I wanted to be a jewelry designer when I was a senior in high school,” Paula says, “but that really never happened. Store operations were the segue that made sense for me.”
After fashion school, she landed a job with Seifert’s Women’s Clothing in Iowa. “It was the only store in town I where I wanted to work,” Paula says. “I went in and the manager told me she didn’t need any people.”
Talking with acquaintances she made in her horse show days, Paula heeded their advice to go back to Seifert’s and ask for Lana Jones, the district manager. But when she got there, Lana had already returned to her base store in Waterloo, Iowa.
The next day, Paula drove to Waterloo.
“I’d been told Lana was blonde, had a ponytail and wore pink lipstick and pink nails,” Paula says, with a smile. “So, I walked up to her and said, ‘you’re Lana,’ and she said, ‘yes, I am.’ I told her I had talked with the (store) manager who said they’re not hiring. ‘But you’re going to want to hire me,’ I said, ‘because I can sell and I can merchandise, both, and I want a job.’”
She was hired the next day.
Paula says the training set the groundwork for how she models her business today. She shares this experience with her adult children, Charles and Bella, and with anyone seeking work.
“When you’re looking for a company to work for,” Paula says, “A, you want a company that you like, and that you like the people. B, you need to have a company that has some kind of a vision of where they’re going so that you can rise with them. And, C, you better get in and work your tail off and work as hard or harder than anybody in the business, and you’ll rise to the level you want.”
At one point, Paula teamed up with one of the Seifert owners and launched a new women’s specialty clothing business.
“We opened our first store in Minneapolis, which was in the Mall of America,” Paula says. “It was called Timbuktu Station and I was part of that for several years.”
Paula and her husband, Gary, moved to the Chicago area with Gary’s financial corporation. She didn’t miss a beat. She interviewed with a headhunting firm in Chicago.
During the interview Paula was asked if she had ever thought of being a headhunter or a recruiter. Paula replied, “I’ve done that for the last 20 years,” she says, with a twinkle in her eye.
From there, it was off to New York for a second interview, where Paula was hired as a head hunter for the Kenser Corporation. “They specialized in retail placement,” Paula says.
Years later, another move back to Minneapolis with Gary brought an opportunity for Paula to call her own shots. She began recruiting workers for footwear and clothing giant Nine West. When Nine West merged with Jones of New York, Paula became the company’s corporate recruiter.
“I launched my own business to do their executive recruitment,” she says.
“Shortly after that, we had our first child,” she added. “Gary and I were married a long time before we made that decision. And along came John Russell. He was everything and more, and I continued to work from home. Life was good, really good. I did work with several other companies, building my business.”
Two years later, the couple’s second son, Charles, was born when the family was in the process of making another move to the East Coast.
“That’s when our world flipped,” Paula says, in a low-clipped tone. When Charles was 2 weeks old, John Russell, who had just turned 2, was diagnosed with cancer.
Paula shut down her business overnight. “My sister came in and closed the books and it was done,” Paula says. “I was full-time taking care of my two boys. Our lives contracted to just Charles and John Russell.”
Every day was a gift, she says. The family made the most incredible memories because life was compacted into the moment.
“You just have to wrap around what you can do, right then and there,” Paula says. “Tomorrow doesn’t matter. Yesterday certainly doesn’t, but in that moment, there’s magic, and that’s what we did. So, to that end, we didn’t spend it in darkness, we spent it in light.”
John Russell was 3 years and 8 months when he passed away. A couple of years later, daughter Bella was born.
“When Charles and Bella were in school full-time, that’s when I started to think, I’ve got this drive and energy, and so I toyed with jewelry design,” Paula says.
She created a small collection of handcrafted accessories and sold them at various outlets and art shows. Her signature colorful leather cuffs, embellished with turquoise and other precious stones, became her breakout success. By now, the family of four had returned to Iowa and bought a farm. It was here that the name Stone Feather Road took root.
“It was the beginning of a vision that moved into place,” Paula says.
She and her two children hit the road, selling the jewelry at various trunk shows and western stock shows. Eventually other products, like Stone Feather Road cowhide leather bags, became part of their inventory.
“Gary helped with the shows as the business grew,” Paula says. “It’s always been a family effort.”
By the time Bella was barely a teenager, she was helping her mom at the big rodeo and stock shows in Las Vegas, Cheyenne and San Antonio. “I got up to the point that I traveled 176 days a year on the road doing shows,” Paula says. “That was my business model.”
Paula had also opened a storefront in Cedar Falls, Iowa in December of 2016, which she and the family maintained until after their move to Billings over four years ago. Stone Feather Road opened in the Magic City nearly three years ago at 2525 Minnesota Avenue.
“We’ve always loved the mountains,” Paula says. “And Gary was asked to move to Billings in a corporate acquisition, due to his expertise in finance and banking.”
The family motto is, “All for one and one for all.”
Bella works along-side her mom in the store. She attended fashion merchandising school at Colorado State University and graduated from MSU-Billings last year with a business degree. Bella’s online presence provides a contemporary sense of style to the store’s nationwide customers and her razor-sharp business acumen has expanded an already powerful venture.
When it comes to national shows, Gary and Charles help with set-up and tear-down. When it comes to customer service, it’s a family affair.
From a determined young woman who insisted she was the right person for a job to the founder of a thriving Billings boutique, Paula has always forged her own path. But the greatest measure of her success isn’t the stores she’s managed, the business she’s built, or the miles she’s traveled. It’s the family who travels this Stone Feather Road with her — and the grace and grit she carries every step of the way.
