Wichita Eagle Featured Business Person: Donna Grow

From movie posters to flight safety manuals, Grow has helped get a lot of content into the hands and minds of the people it’s intended for.

“I really don’t have a degree in design,” she said. “I just kind of fell into it right out of college.”

The Conway Springs native attended a secretarial college after high school, then got a job as a typesetter in the graphics department at Boeing. She moved to Los Angeles with her husband at the time, Dawayne Bailey, a guitarist who played with Bob Seger and Chicago. While there, she worked for an ad agency that made movie posters for Warner Bros. and MGM.

After returning to Kansas, Grow worked for a couple of printing companies, then spent 11 years at Sullivan Higdon & Sink, eventually helping start its in-house production unit.

“And that’s how I started doing that – production art,” she said.

She’s worked for Greteman since 2000 with one break. Her main client is FlightSafety International, for which she helps produce print and online materials, graphics for trade show booths and more.

“It’s a big brand,” she said. “We’re putting out a lot of different media other than print, so I really just review it all and make sure it’s all within their brand.”

Grow attributes her success in a field she never formally trained for to working with “some really great art directors. I guess I have an eye for it.”

Grow has four grown children. She enjoys reading, dabbling in interior design and walking for exercise. In fact, she walks to and from work every day, no matter the weather.

“I just feel so much better,” she said. “As you get older, you have to try a little harder.”

© The Wichita Eagle 2015

This column, written by Joe Stumpe ran in the April 2 issue of The Wichita Eagle.