The Bakersfield College Sexuality And Gender Acceptance club hosted guest speaker Alisa Reynolds over zoom on February 10th. SAGA will be hosting multiple guest speakers this spring semester to speak with Bakersfield College students about different topics.

SAGA is a club that acts as “an advocate for students of the sexual and gender minority communities; to facilitate a safe environment for sexual and gender minority students and allies; to offer support to affiliate organizations of local high schools, and to promote a culture of acceptance through education.” The club’s advisor is Professor and Department Chair of Communications’ Helen Acosta.

Guest speaker Alisa Reynolds is an artist, inventor, and entrepreneur. The Bakersfield College alum spoke about wanting to leave a positive contribution to the working world without anyone being left behind. She does this with the invention of her yoga-incorporated office furniture.

Reynolds previously had very little woodworking experience, she took one semester of it her junior year and had worked at Home Depot for a while but other than that there was still so much she didn’t know. Before landing on her career of being a furniture designer and builder, Reynolds had a lot of jobs before landing on that dream career of hers. She said she’s had about 15 or 20 jobs but that each one played a key role in finding out what she wanted to do in life.

She said that with each job she learned who she wanted to be and who she didn’t want to be at work. For example, she didn’t like who she was when she worked in an office but she likes who she is now in her career because she gets to be creative. Finding her career even took her back to who she is at her core since she was a child, and she realized that when she was young she was always playing with building blocks.

One of her jobs she had previously that was an important part of leading her to furniture design was being a yoga teacher, which is what influenced her invention. She said that she spent about a year thinking about the project and once she figured out that furniture design was something she was interested in, she went to classes and learned about how to use all the tools to make this dream a reality.

She did, and soon enough was able to launch her business into the world. In the beginning, she said people were like “Why are you doing this?” and even at times she had to reassure herself throughout the process that she could do it. Her courage and pure curiosity kept her going, and her desire to make a real difference in the world.

Reynold is the founder and co-owner of Otthsaw, an office furniture store.