By Rebecca Keister
PBN Staff Writer

Miriam A. Ross may have the secret to being a successful business owner, and the answer isn’t all that surprising.

It takes passion, direction and lots of hard work, she says.

“I’m up early, and I’m up late,” said Ross, who has run her own law firm, Law Offices of Miriam A. Ross Esq., in Providence for the last eight years. “To be successful in anything, you need to be doing something that you love and [from which] you derive benefit. … [When you’re doing that], it all sort of falls in place.”

Of course, as hard work would imply, getting to that point isn’t quite that easy.

Ross wrapped up her philosophy on how to do it all while reflecting on the path her life and career have taken, from growing up in 1960s Ohio to becoming one of very few women-owned law firms in Rhode Island.

She recently was named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s New England Women in Business Champion of the Year, an honor she said she was humbled to receive.

Though she is, in her own words, “quite measured” in what she shares, she did admit that there have been bumps along the road to success.

“I have encountered, as I think most professional women have, resistance in the marketplace for a competent woman,” she said.

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, Ross earned her law degree at Cleveland State University College of Law.

She began her career practicing corporate law, eventually relocating to the Providence area for a position with Textron Inc. She worked after that for GTECH Corp. as counsel managing the global compliance program.

Making the switch to entrepreneurship and to a focus on the Providence area’s small-business market, rather than corporate America, she said, was born out of her passion for business – this time a passion to run her own.