Gretchen Penny is the owner of A Woman’s Work, which is a retail boutique focused on helping women in the important role of bearing and nurturing their babies.  Gretchen has owned A Woman’s Work for about 3 years.  She purchased the business from Sandie Lemke, a well-known lactation consultant here in Houston and Sandie still sees clients in the consultation room in the store.  She was the founder and president of Easy Expression Products, Inc., which manufactured and distributed her line of specialty bras for nursing mothers.  In 1999 she was awarded a U.S. patent for her designs. Gretchen sold Easy Expression Products to Medela in December 2009.  Prior to running her own company, Gretchen provided business consulting and project management for AMR Global Services .  Gretchen’s career also includes positions in Finance, Product Development, and Product Marketing for Sabre.  Gretchen graduated from Rice University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and an MBA in Finance.  While there, she received the Mike Wright Award for Leadership from the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business.  Gretchen lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Ken.  They have two sons who will be starting college in the fall of 2016.  Gretchen breastfed both of her boys and they were the inspiration for her first product and business.  In this case, necessity truly was the mother of invention.