Entrepreneurial spirit drives business student through college

An entrepreneurial spirit sparked, caught fire and ended up carrying Holly Waskiewic through much of her college career.

Waskiewic, 23, graduates from the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado on Saturday. She takes with her a business savvy that extends well beyond the books she pored through the past five years.

The summer after her freshman year, Waskiewic launched an online business that re-sold merchandise from an Abercrombie & Fitch outlet store at Southglenn Mall. With a handful of employees, Waskiewic repaired clothing items with imperfections and sold them through an online site.

Her customers were primarily in the United Kingdom and Germany. The venture lasted about 2 1/2 years.

"It was very, very successful," she said. "It definitely made a college student's life a lot easier. It was a full-time job, pretty much 40 hours a week. I was always working on it. When it's your company there's always something to be done."

Abercrombie & Fitch eventually consolidated its damaged and imperfect merchandise into a single national outlet, eliminating Waskiewic's access to a regional outlet.

On Sunday, she will move to Denver, where she will work in the auditing department of Deloitte and Touche, one of the nation's largest audit, tax and financial advising firms.

Waskiewic, who grew up in Littleton, said it's a good job with healthy benefits.

"I still have an entrepreneurial spirit," she said. "I'm sure once I have kids I'll probably start something back up again."