No man is an island (which is, after all, why this is a special-focus “Women in Business” report), but lifelong Bainbridge Island resident and current Bainbridge Chamber of Commerce President, Sherry Watson, could easily lay claim to the title of island business native.

Growing up in the “first family” of Bainbridge Island light manufacturing, the daughter of Graham and Barbara Watson of Watson Furniture Systems, Sherry literally was raised around the island’s center of industry. After completing various educational majors and degrees, ranging from fashion design to business and accounting, she completed her tour of duty as the owner of a successful island children’s clothing store, The Essential Kid, in Rolling Bay. The rest, as they say, is history in the making.

As chamber president, Sherry is leveraging her island experience and her fist-hand knowledge of light manufacturing to pave the way toward the next-generation of the Peninsula’s computer-aided business systems and telecommunications.

The transformation began last August, when Watson Furniture relocated from Bainbridge leaving Sherry, as property manager, with a zoned industrial park of more than 80,000 square feet to bring up to twenty-first century Internet speed. In a series of progressive moves on the digital high tech gridiron, Sherry re-plumbed the entire complex with Category-5 wiring and set up a wireless telecommunications hub at its core where tenants could connect their computers to a multi-megabit gateway from any of the neighboring buildings (within a half-mile radius) allowing them to connect to the Internet without wires.

Christening the new complex “Day City”, and the new business venture “Day City Internet Services,” Sherry had taken one small step for woman(kind) but one giant leap for island manufacturing. The “City” contains roughly 35 acres and 40 business employing 4-500 people and is presently seeing another 35 acres being added during the fifth year of a master plan. Interestingly, Bainbridge Island has the highest number of Chamber of Commerce members per capita for a city its size of any in the nation. The Chamber boasts more than 700 members and the island more than 1300 business licenses.

Ironically, Sherry sees the interpersonal forms of island networking to be the principal reason why those who live on the island should also work on the island. “I would like it to be better understood how business is such a vital part of the community, that living and working in the community gives you an opportunity to be a better citizen, to be a little league coach and spend more time with your children, to involve your children in your business, so that they can learn from your entrepreneurial skills in action.”

Through her parents, Ms. Watson has seen the benefits for herself up close. Today, her daughter also has a business, called Raquel’s Mosaic Creations, on Bainbridge. “I’m her bank,” admits Sherry, “and her advisor, teaching her on how to shop for raw goods, how to be profitable, and to make sure she pays her taxes.”

“People are always in transition. If you don’t keep moving forward in business, you get left behind.” Sherry Watson will ensure that Bainbridge island is positioned squarely at the forefront.