In 1968 more than 150 students graduated from BYU Marriott with degrees in business management. Kristi Taylor Lawrence was one of the few women in that graduating class.
Shortly before graduating, Lawrence had an interview with department store chain Sears, Roebuck, and Co., where she had worked as a retailer for several years. Though it went well, the interviewer told Lawrence he wouldn’t be hiring her. “He indicated that I was exactly what they were looking for,” she says. “I had experience with them, but they would not make me an offer because I was female. If I got sent for training, they’d have to arrange and pay for a second room.”
Despite this setback, Lawrence continued to excel in her retail position and worked her way up through many positions at the company. As she supported her husband, Stephen, through school, Lawrence worked as a credit investigator, an auditor, and a buyer. By the time she tendered her resignation to become a stay-at-home parent, she’d had experiences she felt equaled the management training opportunity she’d been denied. “I look at that job as a great training ground. I wasn’t hired as a trainee, but I got the training as an actual hands-on employee,” she explains.
The Lawrences and their two children moved to the Fresno, California, area in 1974 for Stephen’s job with BFGoodrich, a rubber products manufacturer. Stephen later managed and then owned a tire shop for more than twenty years, and Lawrence used her business savvy to support the venture. She is now president and CEO of the company, K. Lawrence Inc., and is also managing partner of real-estate holdings firm TSK Enterprises. “I am a fifth-generation retailer. Retail and business were common topics of discussion at our dinner table when I was growing up,” she says. “That’s what my father was educated in, and that’s what my brother went into. For me, going into retail was almost like going home.”
Lawrence says she’s pleased her company has no long-term debt. “We’ve been able to go from a starting point, using only the initial capital that we put in as a base, to where everything we do and all of our obligations are paid in thirty days,” she says. “That makes it comfortable when you have problems in the economy, like what COVID-19 has done to us. The pressure is not as great.”
In addition to managing her businesses, Lawrence is president of the board of trustees of the Fresno Mosquito and Vector Control District and an alternate trustee for the Vector Control Joint Powers Agency, a California public entity managing various public insurance programs.
“I came from a family that was involved in the community,” Lawrence says. “You live in the community; you need to be involved in the community.”
In addition to volunteering, she enjoys needlework, reading, and representing her faith and BYU. “We believe in being totally honest,” she says. “Our customers know that we’re not here to take advantage of anyone. I can’t possibly represent myself as a Latter-day Saint and graduate of BYU and not be totally honest.”
