Taking Chances
The Dawning of a Techno Couture
by Anne H. Kim

When Southern California's aerospace industry collapsed, Kay Fontana found herself out of a job. Her only prospect was a lifelong dream that until now was just that, a dream. Armed with her retirement money, she took a chance and enrolled in a fledgling design school, the generically dubbed California Design College. Kay was in her late 30s. After graduating from CDC, she landed a job with Chorus Line Apparel teaching computer aided design, CDC's specialty. Today, Fontana is the company's VP.

Taking chances. To many, that's what fashion is all about. And for some students, like Fontana, who find themselves having to start over again later in life, a school like the California Design College can be a welcome opportunity.

"More than anything [the fashion industry] is very challenging, I've seen a 22-year-old making $100,000 a year and I've seen a 57-year-old just getting started," says Sabrina Kay, founder and executive director of California Design College. "It's only possible in the fashion industry."

Originally, Sabrina Kay had wanted to open a school that would provide retraining for fashion industry professionals. But she realized there weren't too many professionals out there in need of retraining. She switched her focus and developed a basic design program using computer technology. Today, her students are as varied as an artist's palette and they find new careers and lives at CDC.

The school itself was built on a chance Kay's father, and numerous other investors and educators around California took back in 1991. Amid the many discouraging sentiments, CDC opened its doors with the goal of giving students with dreams of scissors and tape measures a competitive edge by teaching them computer aided design.

There's no denying technology is invading us. Everywhere you look there are people huddled over laptops or people looking at ads screaming about special internet discounts. Some think, all this hi-tech gadgetry is really getting us nowhere, only faster.

But in a fast-paced, highly scrutinized industry, such as fashion, doing things the old fashioned way will only leave aspiring designers in the scrap bag.

Technology is definitely the runway of the future for fashion and CDC is walking the catwalk before everyone else. Lectra, the largest international company that provides computer programs for the likes of Calvin Klein and Pierre Cardin, considers CDC to be the best training ground available for technological design. Just last year, the school was also offered full accreditation as a junior college allowing students to apply for Pell grants and Stafford loans. CDC was also approved as a vendor for the Job Training Program for which CDC has capped 95 percent placement and completion. All in just under six years of operation.

"It's been a short time, but we kind of sailed through," Kay says with a smile.

To any other person, "sailing through" may not mean coming in everyday along with 'everyone else but leaving at 2 a.m., (3 a.m. is overtime), and sometimes pulling all-nighters when deadlines need to be met. Other people might have cause for a nervous breakdown if they had Kay's schedule, which includes sitting on the boards of 14 different community organizations, writing columns for five newspapers, not to mention the countless weekly television and radio shows she co-hosts.

But all these "extracurricular activities" take place strictly during her "spare time," insists this petite professional whose energy bubbles over in her laughter. And to all those who ask why she doesn't just throw everything down and take off for a vacation, she answers, pointing to her desk, "This is my vacation. When I'm at work, I'm the happiest. "Except skiing, of course," she adds.

What matters most to Kay is making the difference and watching students take the initiative to educate and improve themselves. Kay gets a kick out of visiting different fashion companies and walking into the computer room where all the employees are CDC graduates. "It's almost like your baby has grown up and became an adult!" says Kay with a proud smile.

That's why Kay doesn't really miss designing, which is what she originally intended to do after graduating with a degree in industrial design from California State University Long Beach. Kay believes working on the educational side of fashion makes more of an impact. C o u n s e l i n g always was and always will be a very large part of Kay's repertoire at CDC. Each year, she makes it a point to meet all of her students at least once and on average she spends about four or five hours on her students to help them figure out what they want to do. The importance of one-on-one attention at CDC makes it unrealistic to expand the enrollment beyond 300. To Kay, having a school of 2,000 students is "mass production."

Having a personal touch is ingrained in Kay who takes her inspiration not from a fellow designer but from her father. There aren't too many fathers out there with enough faith in an inexperienced 27-year-old to give her $500,000 for an experiment. Kay's father did. After the first year, she lost $250,000. But instead of berating her for losing so much money, he took her to an expensive jewelry store in Beverly Hills where he had a $500,000 necklace waiting for her.

"He said, 'Here, try this on,'" remembers Kay. After a few minutes, they left the store and the necklace. You see, there are women out there who spend $500,000 on a necklace, her father told her, but he was proud of Sabrina because she was putting her money where she felt it would do some good. With that lesson and some sound business advice, Sabrina was off and running again.

California Design College has gotten past its initial hurdles and is continuing to grow stronger every year. With the help of her "second family," her staff, with whom she credits CDC's success, Sabrina hopes that some day all the great designers will be CDC graduates. If she keeps going the way she is, that goal just might be possible, but if anyone knows Sabrina Kay, she can't stop there. But more importantly, Kay won't rest until her long term goal to teach computer aided design globally via satellite is realized. But, of course, that means working overtime.

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