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A Successful NightOwl

Andrea Wallack planned to pursue a career in biochemistry after her graduation from Washington and Lee in 1989. But plans change, and today Andrea is the CEO of NightOwl Document Management Services, the company she founded when she was only 24 and already managing director of two affiliated companies, Miralex and archiving company, ImageXe LLC.

Finance & Commerce, a business publication in Minnesota, recently profiled Andrea and her companies. The story describes Andrea’s 1991 decision to leave her career path. she had completed postgraduate work in chemistry at Harvard and obtained her field certification in biology at the Darwin Research Centre in Guyaquil, Ecuador. She and a friend decided instead that there was a future in helping law firms manage their flow of documents.

Based in the Twin Cities, NightOwl’s niche is in combining “world-class technologies with the practice of law,” and the company offers “document solutions for litigation, compliance and risk management.” At a time when the legal system is awash in electronic documentation, the services that Andrea’s company offers are in even greater demand. But, as the article in Finance & Commerce notes, the road was bumpy. Andrea told the newspaper that to be a successful entrepreneur, “You need tenacity and be able to overcome adversity, because there is no easy ride. You have to have the stomach to handle the ups and downs.”

OAndrea has that tenacity. In April, she was named to Finance & Commerce’s list of 2010 “Minnesotans on the Move.”

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