Rowena’s, Inc. began with the three fruit trees in her backyard, from which she made the original jams and jellies. “I’d give them to friends or to charity auctions,” Rowena remembers. When she wasn’t in a jam, Rowena was baking. One of her specialties was a flavorful almond pound cake made from an old family recipe. Total strangers began calling to ask where they could buy her goods. “I was raising three children and working as a medical technologist at our children’s hospital so I already had a pretty busy life. But I liked doing this so I decided to give it a try. I learned how to bake from my mother, and I have a degree in chemistry, so I’m pretty comfortable in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I knew nothing when it came to business. But I didn’t know I couldn’t do it, so I did it.”

Rowena believed there was a market for gourmet quality foods and opened her factory-showroom in the historic Ghent section of Norfolk in 1983. Since opening, the “Cake Lady”, as she is known locally, has placed her fine products in more than 2,000 gourmet and gift shops and catalogs across the United States and developed a mail order business that reaches a much larger clientele. During the Christmas and Easter seasons, Rowena’s ships thousands of cakes a week. Her factory, retail store and tearoom employ 20 full-time people, and that number grows to over 125 during the holiday season.

She lobbied Congress to help small businesses receive an exemption from the National Labeling and Education Act of 1990, served as chairman of the Governor’s Small Business Advisory Board for six years and was a delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business in 1995, acting as co-chair for the Regulation and Paperwork Reduction committee. She also served on the Board of the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority, and was a Commissioner of the Bay Bridge Tunnel. Locally, Rowena serves on the Board of Directors of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce and the Ghent Business Association, among others. She is the recipient of many national, state and local awards, such as the national Blue Chip Enterprise Award in 1994, the National Association of Women Business Owners Southeastern Virginia Entrepreneurial Woman if the Year Award in 2000, the Women Business Advocate Award for Virginia and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the SBA in 2004. Rowena has been featured in national publications such as Lady’s Home Journal, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Taste of Home and Southern Living and has appeared on Food Finds on The Food Network, QVC, The 700 Club and The Today Show.

Life is more than just business for Rowena Fullinwider and her record of community involvement proves it. Her keen interest and commitment to education has led to her service on advisory boards for three local universities: Virginia Wesleyan University, Old Dominion University School of Business, and Regent University Graduate School of Business. Rowena’s concern for humanitarian work has been reflected in her work as a volunteer for Operation Smile in the Philippines, the Ruth Sargeant King’s Daughters Circle for CHKD, Young Life, Girl Scouts, and membership in the American Society of Clinical Pathology. An accomplished fundraiser, Mrs. Fullinwider showed skill in chairing the Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast Capital Campaign, The American Heart Association and the Virginia Opera Docent Program.

In addition to the above, Rowena has found time to author two children’s adventure cookbooks and co-authored “Celebrate Virginia!” a historical cookbook.