Pasadena Magazine

February 2016 - Beauty, Love and Money

Pasadena Magazine is the bi-monthly magazine of Pasadena and its surrounding areas – the diverse, historically rich and culturally vibrant region that includes Glendale, the Eastside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley all the way to Claremont.

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A Beauty of a Business Plan With unbending faith in herself and a strong business sense, Ruby Polanco built a thriving company and transformed her life. STORY BY // CUYLER GIBBONS IMAGES COURTESY OF // RUBY POLANCO MAKEUP ACADEMY ∫ WITH BUT ONE SHORT WEEK OF DRIVING INSTRUCTION (AND NO HIGHWAY EXPERIENCE), 18-YEAR-OLD RUBY POLANCO TOOK HER NEW LICENSE AND DROVE THE RENTED U-HAUL, FULL OF THE BELONGINGS OF HER YOUNG EXISTANCE, ACROSS THE DESERT AND AWAY FROM LAS VEGAS AND AN ABUSIVE HUSBAND, AND TOWARD A NEW BUT UNCERTAIN LIFE IN SOUTH CENTRAL LOS ANGELES, WHERE HER family lived. Unsure of her nascent driving skills, she called her mother to come to Vegas to pick up her one-year-old son, to spare him the risky trip in the U-Haul. South Central was familiar, if less than encouraging territory. With her parents, Polanco came to America from Honduras when she was 12. At that time, even South Central seemed a world away from the poverty she had grown up in, and by junior high, Polanco was being bussed to affl uent Sherman Oaks. Although when they arrived, the extent of Polanco's mother's ambition for her daughter was that she "learn good English so you can get a good paying job cleaning houses," the valley children Polanco went to school with betrayed a lifestyle that was completely foreign, but one she coveted. Though it would be several years and some experience later, the spark of her future success had been struck. "That's when I got really curious, wondering 'how can I have that?'" she says. Life in the hood intervened however, and Polanco dropped out of school, was mar- ried at 16, and living in Las Vegas with her husband and newborn son at 17. Soon back in South Central, however, after the marriage failed, Polanco began working as a nanny and cleaning houses. While this career may have satisfi ed her mother's ambition for her, Ruby Polanco had set her sights higher. As a 19–year-old mother and junior high drop out, she started to contemplate what it would take to go to college. Polanco began by going to night school and getting her 8th grade certifi cate. Taking considerable heart from what she felt others saw as a relatively minor achievement, she enrolled in adult high school at night. When she discovered she could get a GED simply by passing the test, however, she decided on an accelerated course and purchased GED study guides. She spent three months absorbing the material independently and passed her GED on the second try. Soon Polanco enrolled at Trade Tech and, as she says, "I took just about every single class they had. I ended up with something like 128 units, but mainly I was learning English." Following Trade Tech, she enrolled in the University of Phoenix and began taking courses in business management. In the midst RAGS TO RICHES. Ruby Polanco proves you can fi nd success with passion and hard work. FEBRUARY 2016 49 B O D Y, M I N D A N D S P I R I T HEALTH & WELLNESS health_Feb16.indd 49 1/20/16 2:38 PM

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