Owner/President: Laura O’Rourke Company The Culinary Center
City/State/ZIP: Overland Park, Kansas, 66201
Phone: (913)341-4455
E-mail:
Web Site: www.kcculinary.com
Type of Business: Cooking school and retail kitchen store
Year Founded: 1997

The Culinary Center of Kansas City is …a venue in the Midwest where "culinarians," both skilled and unskilled, can gather together to celebrate the culinary arts in a variety of ways. Housed in a beautifully restored turn of the century buggy barn, the Culinary Center encompasses 6,500 square feet of uniquely designed and comfortable teaching kitchens and event space and offers hundreds of cooking classes each year, team-building activities, unique event space for private and corporate entertaining, creative catering, a culinary resource center and chef-prepared frozen dishes for sale. Also housed in The Culinary Center is Kitchenology, offering “culinary retail therapy” through a unique offering of culinary products. 
 
PERSONAL WEALTH 
For me, personal wealth is not defined financially, but rather as a joy and enthusiasm for my work and the creation of a healthy balance between my home, personal and business life.  Honestly, if I wanted to concentrate on money I would still be practicing law. The irony is that I’ve found when I don’t identify money or profit as the sole driving force for my work, the financial part of the equation takes care of itself.       
 
COMMUNITY WEALTH
In designing The Culinary Center of Kansas City, it was important to me to create a venue in the Midwest where culinarians of all skill levels could gather together to celebrate the culinary arts. I believe that I have also contributed a viable, stable and successful business to the community, especially the Downtown Overland Park area.    
 
SOCIAL WEALTH
The Culinary Center of Kansas City contributes to the community through its support of women-owned business as often as possible and through charitable causes, especially those benefiting women and children.      

FINANCING
It has always been my paramount goal to run this business without long-term debt.  Until the recent expansion involving a second teaching kitchen, new offices and a culinary retail shop, the business was debt free.    
 
SUPPORT
I am very involved in the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program. It’s like finding water in a desert to be able to call upon trusted confidants and fellow business owners to assist in solving problems and to provide my own form of counsel back to those folks. 
 
As equally important is my group of women friends I affectionately refer to as “The Goddesses.” Women approach business and life in a different way than men I believe and their advice, counsel and social network have been invaluable to me. 
 
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
I have contributed to the community by creating a safe and nurturing place of employment.  I believe strongly that if you provide an environment where people can pursue their passion, whether it be creating a beautiful meal, meeting a client’s goals, balancing the books or maintaining a beautiful garden, these people will flourish.       
 
CHALLENGES 
Being a woman in the legal industry in the 80’s and early 90’s was a challenge. I did innocently believe that if you did the best work and you were loyal that all good things would follow.  I went through several transformations in my legal career to try and find a place in which to practice that felt right.  There was one watershed experience that changed the way I looked at my profession.  
 
When I was three months pregnant with my first child and practicing law, I was suddenly faced with pre-term labor.  It was a very stressful and confusing time and one that was not supported at all by my law firm. I had the opportunity to do a lot of thinking.  I asked myself over and over whether this was the type of career environment that I wanted to be in.  Was it the right one for me?  If not, then what really did make me happy?  I realized that I had always been haunted by my passion for cooking and creativity as well my desire to create environments where people could relax and enjoy themselves.  I always thought it was a hobby and later found out it was in fact my destiny and my heart’s fulfillment.                     
 
There were lots of smaller challenges in my profession throughout the years such as the fire that shut our business down for a while.  A pervasive challenge for me is the constant challenge to develop and keep balance in my life between my work, my family and myself. 
  
Most recently, I have been challenged with some personal loss that was overwhelming. I believe that I have trained my whole life to handle the past year and a half.  From it though, has come increased consciousness in living and an acute awareness of my strength as a person.