Mary Moeller is pretty good at change.

She is the president of Starrtek LLC and Starrtek Express, both of which offer website development. Starrtek LLC also provides custom coding and application development. But Moeller’s background isn’t in technology.

“I’ve owned businesses since I was in high school. …,” she says. “I’m from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad was an entrepreneur, and I kind of followed in his footsteps. So I’ve always had some kind of business going on.”

For example, when Moeller was in nursing school, she used her days away from schooling to bring crews into her family’s farm to “bean walk” -- walking up and down the rows in the fields and pulling weeds. “I did it because I loved it so much,” she says.

Moeller also went to cosmetology school and created her own business called Hair Designs for Special Occasions. In addition, she’s well-known as a spokesperson on behalf of natural healing modalities for fibromyalgia and has written five books on the topic.
“I ended up as a speaker and writer after recovering from kidney and liver failure. I was a nurse, and stepped out of traditional medicine and starting doing Chinese and holistic practices to recover from that,” she said.

After spending more than a decade providing continuing education to health professionals and the public about her struggles with (and triumph over) her health problems through holistic medicine, she decided to take another career path. Enter Starrtek Express and Starrtek LLC.

“My team, we’re all seasoned in our fields. We’ve all had businesses in the past, so we understand young businesses. With Starrtek Express, our goal as a team is to help small businesses have a professional look and presence online at a price they should be able to budget for,” she explains.

Starrtek LLC takes a more personalized approach. “At Starrtek, we do all our own software development and custom code. So any customer that has an issue, we can program for them,” Moeller says.

Moeller and the Starrtek group of businesses are part of the Mid-America Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. She says joining the Chamber was a very positive experience.

“I absolutely love it. It’s probably the kindest, most loving organization I’ve ever seen. They really take care of each other. … Being with people that are supportive, it’s like coming to a haven. To be around nonjudgmental and caring people is really helpful,” she says.

Moeller is the proud parent of a gay son and a transgender son. It has been a rough road at times, she says.
“When our first son came out as gay, we stayed loving and accepting and lost almost half our friends. It’s one of those things you just move through,” she says. “But it’s wonderful now. And our [transgender> son is so happy. He is the epitome of what we expected our daughter to be.”

Moeller likes to spend her free time enjoying the outdoors, especially hiking and gardening. She also “really loves talking business,” which she does regularly as vice president of the Inventors Center of Kansas City and as an active member of the Chamber.

“I’m the type of person that enjoys changes most of the time,” she says. “I need to do everything and anything I want to do here in the time I have.”

Photo credit: Landon Vonderschmidt

The Mid-America Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (MAGLCC) is an organization that advocates, promotes and facilitates the success of the LGBT business community and its allies. Learn more at MAGLCC.org.