Kaci Cronkhite, founder of Concentricom
Cronkhite Ranch House in 2005, 98 years old.Kaci grew up as the oldest of the fifth generation on a national landmark wheat and cattle ranch in Oklahoma. From the day she could hold a pencil, she wrote. From the day she could walk, she "went." Her favorite words were "go outside." And go, she did. Red dirt, rattlesnakes and drop dead sunsets primed the pump, but Oklahoma wasn't west enough.
At 21 she got her first sight of the ocean and something clicked inside. Saltwater has been the source of many things and that night it spurred the start of two decades of a farm girl's journey around the world. Plane flights and road trips as a travelling university admissions director let her skip through thirty-two major US cities, twenty-nine Alaskan villages and four provinces of Canada. Seductive summer sun and year-around scenery of blue greens, gray pinks and white whites anchored ten years of adventures in academia, the arctic, Thailand and the Himalayas while calling Anchorage, home. With a masters degree stowed and glass ceilings looming, the ocean called again.
This time, Kaci was 31 and the salty muse took the form of a sailboat ride in the windy juncture of Port Townsend Bay. "Take the tiller," he said. "Keep the wind in the sails and head for that point." Wind. Ocean. It all felt deeply familiar. But how?
A few months later it was bon voyage to friends and colleagues at Alaska Pacific University, Alaska Geographic Society and Craciun & Associates Marketing Consultants and aloha to pursuit of a Ph.D.
What was it about sailing that inspired such transformation, bliss, empowerment and freedom? Questions lead to answers that lead to more questions. What were other women's experiences? Polynesian mythology, pacific maritime history, psychology, poetry, modern women's anthropological research, history and events were ripe for harvesting women's experiences. The internet was still new, and by the end of 1993 with steady progress on doctoral candidacy, Kaci climbed aboard as mate on two upwind passages: Hawaii to Port Townsend, then Australia to Hawaii. After the second double-handed all-woman passage, renowned sailmaker and sailor Carol Hasse 
(in blue jacket) connected her with Captain Nancy Erley, the first woman captain to privately organize an all-woman circumnavigation. In 1995, Kaci joined Nancy as First Mate and co-instructor aboard Tethys, her 38' custom cutter-rigged sloop. For a year, they taught women ocean passagemaking skills in the Pacific, and Kaci continued her research. With the magic silhouette of Moorea's Belvedere as backdrop and the turquoise ocean beckoning, they agreed to head west again, to continue teaching women on another all-woman circumnavigation.
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, Kaci lost the internet and Commonwealth library access, trading in the Ph.D. for an around-the-world "education". She and Nancy continued west through the Maldives, Chagos, Seychelles, Mayotte, Madagascar, Mozambique and around the infamous Cape of Good Hope. 
There, where not just two, but three great oceans meet, Kaci first got the idea for Concentricom. During the next year's travel across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, out to Galapagos, Hawaii and finally "home" to Port Townsend, the rhythm and truth of core values and work became clearer and clearer. In 2001, after 6 years and more than 50,000 nautical miles, Kaci closed another circle of her life, in the Bay where the sailing all began.
With another decade of experience and the ocean sailing doctorate in her wake, Kaci dropped anchor in Port Townsend for good. "So many circles of my life and work lead here. Boating, friends, writing and marketing. Here, I can combine them all."