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Living in Los Angeles and working as a marketer for a global biotechnology firm, Jana Kirlin Brownell (MBA '83) saw her career path take an unexpected turn. More than once, her father had asked her to come home and take over the Kirlin Company, the family's Detroit-based commercial lighting business. But Brownell, happy in the health-care field, was hesitant to do so. On a visit home in 1986, however, things suddenly changed -- her father's health was in question.
After discussing the matter with her husband, HBS classmate Stephen Brownell, she decided the next day that she would leave her biotech job for Kirlin, a company her great-grandfather had founded. As she told the Detroit News (March 20, 2000), "Detroit is the hub of resources important to manufacturers like Kirlin. It was my first home. I could be part of the heartbeat of the city." For his part, Stephen also agreed that he would join the company on the manufacturing side, leaving behind a job in investment banking.
As it turned out, her father made a complete recovery and was able to continue with the company. But Brownell stuck by her decision, worked at Kirlin under her dad's tutelage, and eventually took over the top spot in 1996. Today, sales at Kirlin are 300 percent higher than in 1986; the company, which designs and manufactures lighting systems for commercial, institutional, and custom residential construction, has created lighting for a full spectrum of venues, including the Detroit Opera House, Euro Disney, Graceland, and O'Hare Airport.
Brownell herself has become a business luminary -- she was honored recently as one of ten "women of distinction" by the Greater Detroit chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
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