MARIETTA - Cobb's female entrepreneurs were recognized Saturday morning during the second "Celebrating History through Her Story" event in commemoration of Women's History Month. It was conducted at Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta.

The free event was co-hosted by the League of Women Voters Marietta-Cobb, a nonpartisan political organization, and the YWCA of Northwest Georgia, which provides programs and services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. International Women's Day will be observed Monday. The day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women.

On Saturday, five female business owners discussed their careers, challenges and achievements as entrepreneurs in Cobb. The panelists were: Tammy Cohen, president and chair of InfoMart; Kim Gresh, president of S.A. White Oil Co.; Jeannette Hunter, owner of JQ Hunter Realty; Barbara Morris, owner of AT Morris Realty Group and Cynthia Rozzo, publisher of the East Cobber.

The discussion's moderator was Cobb native, Condace Pressley, assistant program director of News/Talk 750 WSB. A question and answers period was conducted after the discussion.

As a twenty-something-year-old woman, relatively new in town, without a college degree and no experience in the background screening business, Tammy Cohen quit her property management job to form InfoMart, a pre-employment screening company.

"It was very, very tough," Cohen recalled. "I think that the ignorance that I had was a good thing because I was able to make it through."

Cohen initially survived on one month's salary from her previous job. She said she learned to lose her pride from having to wear the same business suit on special occasions and doing whatever needed to be done at the office.

"What is the No. 1 thing you have to have to be able to run your own business?" she rhetorically asked. "You just have to have work ethic. You have to be able to work many hours - whatever the hours - and do whatever job you're asked to do, especially in the startup year."

By 1986, Barbara Morris and her family had settled in east Cobb after her husband's company transferred to the area. She was raised to believe she could achieve anything through obtaining a good education, kindness and hard work, she said. However, Morris wasn't prepared for what she encountered when she decided to start a new career in real estate in east Cobb.

After going to real estate school, earning her license and interviewing for a position, she remembered receiving a letter in the mail from the company she had interviewed with.

"The letter stated that I could not sale real estate in east Cobb. I was told where in the metro Atlanta area I should go to sale and be successful," recounted Morris, who is black.

The experience didn't stop Morris. She soon after landed a job at another company and eventually opened her own real estate company, A.T. Morris Realty, in 2003. Today, 95 percent of her business is based on referrals, she said, and she's been the recipient of numerous awards her in profession.

"The question has been asked many times, 'Why did you decide to start your business in Cobb County?'" Morris stated. "I answer, why not? This is where I live, it's my home."

Her advise to those looking to start a business is to first love what you do. The financial rewards will come later, she said.

In the early 1970s, few women could be found running businesses in Cobb.

Back then, Jeannette Hunter wanted to start her own real estate company. She always had an interest in homes and land. Besides that, all of her children were in school, which left her with time on her hands. But before she could get a business loan her bank required her husband to co-sign.

That slight didn't detour Hunter from going on to establish JQ Hunter Realty in 1975. Her company grew and she became an original member of the Marietta Development Authority, which she served on for 15 years. Years later, Hunter's husband, Dick, decided he wanted to start his own construction company, which led him on a trip to the bank.

"I had been quite successful, so they told him, 'We would give you a line of credit if Jeannette would co-sign," recalled Jeannette Hunter.

" If you have an inclination to start a business, take it a day at a time. First thing you know, things will work out for you."

Cynthia Rozzo was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but she fell in love with east Cobb when she moved there. Before establishing the East Cobber magazine, she worked in marketing for a publishing company in Marietta. Six months later she was laid off at age 31.

"It truly was a wake up," Rozzo said. "I said this is never going to happen to me again. I am not going to work for anybody and get burned."

In 1993, Rozzo, working solo, used her editing experience to create the East Cobber, a free, monthly magazine that spotlights the east Cobb community. She then sold advertisements door-to-door and personally distributed it. It grew from a 15-page, black and white, newsprint publication into a colorful, 56-page magazine. In 1995, she established the annual East Cobb Community Parade and Festival, which today draws up to 2,000 participants.

"All I did was just hang in there. I was in it for the long haul," Rozzo said.

"There's been so many times during my business, when I got stumped and wondered if I had enough money to print the paper or if people would show up for my parade," she said. "My faith has deepened because of the good people I've met."

S.A. White Oil Company had been owned by Kim Gresh's family decades before she became its president in 1999. However, Gresh enjoys noting that her grandmother and mother took over a majority of the company after her grandfather died. So it became a woman owned business in 1964.

Today, it remains a majority female owned company. Since 1926, the company has supplied gasoline, diesel fuel and lubricants in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. WellStar Health System and C.W. Matthews are among its 500-plus customers.

As president, Gresh oversees the daily operations of the company. In 2002, she expanded it by starting a mobile fuel service. She is also the first female board member of the 77-year-old Georgia Oilmen's Association.

"I think the greatest risk when you own your own business is worrying and caring about your employees," Gresh said. "You know you have those 55 other lives in your hands and that if I stumble I'm going to take those people down with me. So everyday I think it makes you your absolute best."