Once when Natalie Ransom was a child, she escaped her grandmother’s watch and ran out of the house. Eventually, her family found her, in a neighbor’s yard, picking flowers.

“As long as I can remember I have been incredibly drawn to flowers,” she said. “The colors. The symmetry. The smell.”

Ask anyone when they last received flowers, Ransom said. They’ll remember.

Flowers mark every major event in life — birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals.

“I call it the circle of life,” Ransom said. “Flowers are there for the whole circle.”

So when she wanted to start a small business, she knew just what she would do. She started Pozie by Natalie floral arranging in 2015. She works out of a shop in her Bellingham back yard, making custom arrangements to order.

In her arrangements, she likes to use local, in season flowers.

“We are really lucky to be in one of the biggest flower-producing areas,” she said. She always tries to partner with small local flower growers.

She uses her flowers to support other local businesses, too. She runs treasure hunts, where she’ll place a small arrangement in a Bellingham storefront and post a picture of it on Instagram. Whoever gets to the store first gets to keep the arrangement.

Her support for small local businesses stems from her childhood, growing up in a small town on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“The town that I’m from only has small businesses,” she said. “You knew the owners, you knew where the money was going.”

She also supports female local business owners in her role on the board of the Whatcom Women in Business.

“It’s just great to have that support system of wonderful ladies that know where you’re coming from,” she said.

Ransom also serves on the board of Blue Skies for Children, a nonprofit that helps support homeless and low-income children. Since she doesn’t plan on having children, Ransom said she wants to support the next generation in any way she can.

“I really need to make sure that I’m making a difference for children in some way,” she said. “That’s super important to me, to make the next generation empowered.”

Natalie Ransom is one of this year’s winners of the Top 7 Under 40 Award. Click here to read about the rest of the winners.