BUILDING A BETTER MOUSETRAP.

• Author: Rakestraw, Emory
• Position: NC TREND: Game changers: Profile of a female leader

FENDING OFF A MOUSE WITH A PERFUME BOTTLE GAVE KARI WARBERG BLOCK AN IDEA NOW. SHE'S DISRUPTING THE $7.8 BILLION PEST-CONTROL INDUSTRY.

It was a mouse scampering up Kari Warberg Block's leg that spawned EarthKind Inc., a line of eco-friendly pest repellents. Back then, Block was the wife-to-be of a Midwestern farmer. Today, the CEO splits her time between Bismarck, N.D., and Mooresville, where EarthKind is manufactured. In between was the hard work of bringing a nontoxic, nonlethal product to an industry that has mostly thrived on extermination. EarthKind's pouches of herbal mixes are on hardware-store shelves at Lowe's and Ace. Block, 54, has grown the company into a $10 million entity since discovering that balsam fir essential oil and ground-up corncobs repel mice effectively. Though EarthKind is headquartered in North Dakota, 38 of its 42 employees are in North Carolina. Block hopes to take the company global with the help of EarthKind's first outside investor. The company plans to name the investor, a former CEO of a large organic food company, this month or early next year. Comments were edited for brevity.

* WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME TURNING POINTS IN STARTING THE BUSINESS?

I called SC Johnson [maker of household products such as Windex, Drano and Ziploc] and Woodstream [maker of the ubiquitous wooden mouse trap for more than 100 years]. They both turned me down and said, "This is the stupidest thing I've heard of; no one is going to use this. Natural is going to cost too much."

I'm more introverted. I had to learn to beg for money and get grants, assert myself and get other people to believe in it. The thing that kept me going is being a mom and knowing that other moms want something safe around their kids and pets. I knew that farmers loved it already because it prevented a lot of damage.

* WHY DID YOU KEEP PUSHING THE PRODUCT EVEN WHEN IT SEEMED ODDS WERE AGAINST YOU?

People don't wake up, get out of bed and say, "I'm going to do the impossible," but they do when it matters. I knew in my mind that if it was going to happen, it was going to be up to me. For anyone starting a business, the money is not worth it, but it's like being the change you want to see in the world. For me, that was worth it.

Being a woman made it a little harder. I still run into this. One major retailer said they hated [the product] and it doesn't look like anything in the category because it's too feminine. Lowe's Cos. was the first one to do it. Finally, I got...