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From ‘Business Report’: Community Coffee’s leader is one of 2019’s Influential Women in Business

Donna Saurage didn’t always view herself as a businesswoman. Even though she has represented Community Coffee Company for decades and played an essential role in growing the business, she didn’t earn a paycheck.

In the 1950s, when Saurage married into the Community Coffee family, it was expected that she would stay home and raise her children while her husband worked. Five years ago, Saurage’s husband, the late Henry Norman Saurage III, was diagnosed with ALS. Donna Saurage became the sole manager of CCC Holding, the parent of Community Coffee Company.

Saurage says her husband, a third-generation Community Coffee owner, always talked to her about what was going on at work and would confide in her when he was worried about something.

“He would go back with a solution or how he would deal with something,” Saurage tells Business Report. “I felt like I always worked for the company. When you have a family business, the women are involved.”

Read on for more of Saurage’s story and the nine other business leaders featured in Business Report‘s 2019 Influential Women in Business.