Angelina Musik-Comp
From immigrant to domestic violence survivor; 2x SBA awarded entrepreneur;
creator of the welfare entrepreneurial achievement program for women.

  

          Angelina Musik-Comp immigrated to San Antonio, Texas from Munich, Germany in 1978 at fourteen.  She attended private schools in downtown San Antonio, and graduated from Madison High School in her senior year at age sixteen. She had a hard time fitting in, as her mother was German and her military step-dad was from Guam. Until her move to San Antonio, there was little American culture in their household for her to relate to others through.   

          To cope with this challenge she escaped into a world of music and theatre and grew in her compassion to help encourage others who struggled similarly, by building their belief in themselves.  She had a knack for business by starting her own babysitting referral service and eventually designed a youth development program as a teenager while attending college.  After two years in college she found more satisfaction in helping others and learning on her own than continuing her education through traditional means.

          However, she still struggled as a young insecure woman with no female mentors to gleam from. Sadly, she was told by her step dad, growing up, that she would be lucky if any man would ever want her, believed it and married the first guy that came along out of fear. For the next thirteen years she would go through various types of emotional, financial, verbal, spiritual and physical abuse for having made a decision based on the lie of her unworthiness as a young woman. She still creatively figured out a way to become praise and worship leader at her church, produce her first contemporary Christian album, and run a business around the chaos in her world, around raising her children.

          In 1999, Musik finally fled from Texas to Washington State after being homeless for two weeks with her two young children, while earning money through her house cleaning and organizing business. She had already raised the funds through her entrepreneurial endeavors to fund her eventual departure, as not to put her friends or other family members at risk in dealing with her husband. In starting over she persuaded the WorkFirst division of Pierce County, WA, to invest her learning technology and entrepreneurship, around caring for her kids, through a company that her current husband had started back then.  Self-education and life long learning was her attitude to success.  

          Unfortunately, her Texas husband would pull a favor through his attorney and she would lose her children for a year and a half after having settled them in Pierce County for five months.  In 2000, she and her business partner, Daniel Comp, moved her back to San Antonio, Texas, to fight for custody of her 11 year old son and 13 year old daughter. Long story short, she won through their father’s abuse, neglect and abandonment habits and through the help of the ‘secret phone’ that she and her children communicated through during this difficult time.

          In 2003, a physical and digital version of MOMtrepreneurs.com was launched that she had started in the early nineties. It would be the venue she would use to reach out to women to empower and encourage a better life through entrepreneurship.  At her MOMtrepreneur events she filmed about women’s business and stories, aired them on TV, her MOMtrepreneurs Radio Show, and through email campaigns to promote them.

           She wanted reach as many women as possible who needed to fund themselves out of a difficult situation, like she once had to, by teaching them how decide, start and succeed in business.  In 2004 she was awarded twice by the Small Business Administration as the ‘Woman in Business Champion of the Year’, and recognized by the Governor Rick Perry’s office for her achievements and methods in how she helped women better succeed in business. 

           A month later she would become a semi-finalist for Trump’s Apprentice III but had to drop out because of a severe car wreck head injury she sustained a few days before the show’s taping. In spite of this setback she created the first commercial free motivational entrepreneurial ‘The Angelina TV Show’ with her second husband, Daniel Comp, to once again expand her reach in teaching viewers how to decide, start and succeed in business. The show aired for five episodes. She had to stop production to focus on healing, but not before finding out that her show had beaten the ratings of local shows that aired across from hers like Jane Pauley, Tyra Banks, and Martha Stewarts TV show.

          After a two year sabbatical to heal from the her car wreck head injury, and with MOMtrepreneurs having gone from becoming the largest International woman in business network Internationally in its first year to being put on idle, Musik decided to write her book on ‘How to Believe and Achieve’ alongside the launch of her radio Believe and Achieve Radio Show from 2006-2007.    

           In 2008 Musik was asked by a TANF agency in Washington State to create a solution to empower Native American women on welfare. This was the perfect platform to design her Welfare Entrepreneurial Achievement Program (WEAP) from personal experience. A two million dollar budget was slated for the program. Sadly, that TANF agency underwent budget cuts after it was developed and though its concept received high reviews at the national TANF conference, the WEAP program was put on hold.  In 2009 a summary of the WEAP program was send to Washington, D.C.’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

          This past year Musik and her husband Daniel developed a new entrepreneurial program ‘The Enterprising Cycle’ around reducing the business and marriage mortality rate after working with rural economic development projects for a couple of years.  They observed how the rate of marriage and small business failure, infidelity, divorce and domestic violence continued to rise due to the economic crisis.  

          Their MOMtrepreneurs (Women in Business) & MENtrepreneurs (Enterprising Men of Valor) workshops helps empower agencies, facilitators, and entrepreneurs with practical tools to better succeed personally, in marriage and family, as well as in business, so out of their abundance they can once again give back to their communities.

          To demonstrate Musik re-launched the ‘community’ division of MOMtrepreneurs, TheRedDressSociety.com, which garnered a wonderful review from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. The Red Dress Society was designed to recognize, award and promote women behind social causes in their community in hope of attracting possible entrepreneurial funders, philanthropists, and sponsors. A Texas tour for both is being planned, for the next few months, to help entrepreneurs.

 REVIEWS

ACCOLADES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• 2003 International Athena Award Nomination
• 2004 San Antonio Business Journal ‘Top 40 Entrepreneurs under 40’ Nomination
• 2004 U.S. Small Business Administration, San Antonio’s ‘Women in Business Champion of the Year’ Award Recipient
• 2004 U.S. Small Business Administration, Sixth District (Five States) ‘Women in Business Champion of the Year’ Award Recipient
• 2004 Letter of Recognition from Governor Rick Perry for achievements through MOMtrepreneurs.
• 2004 NABOW Entrepreneurial ‘Rising Star’ Award Nomination, San Antonio
• 2005 Essence Magazine’s ‘Women Who Change the World’ Nomination, National
• 2005 NABOW Entrepreneurial ‘Innovator’ Award Nomination, San Antonio
• 2008 I designed the first WEAP - Welfare Entrepreneurial Achievement Program for Women, that was recognized by National TANF Agency Directors as an alternative solution to help women off of welfare while strengthening their families emotionally and financially.
• 2009 SAMY Award Nomination (Internet & Digital Media Production Category) thru the American Women in Radio and TV, San Antonio Media Alliance
  2009 The Red Dress Society’s ‘Philanthropic’ Angel Award Recipient, National - MOMtrepreneurs and those in the business community in San Antonio granted me this award even though I am the founder of the Red Dress Society. Out of respect for them I accepted.
• 2009 Letter of Recognition from U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for recognizing women behind social causes through The Red Dress Society.
• 2010 Portland Business Journal ‘Women in Business Award’ Nomination
• 2010 Texas Women Hall Of Fame Nomination