From Criminal Justice to Flowers: How Mikel McGee Built 414loral and Redefined Success
Mikel McGee did not plan to open a flower shop. Before 414loral became a Milwaukee staple, she had a master’s degree in criminal justice, a full-time job with healthcare and PTO, and a career path that made sense on paper. Flowers were the thing she did for fun, arranging grocery-store bunches at her kitchen counter for friends. On this episode of Success, Rewritten, Mikel sits down with host Emily LoMenzo Washcovick to trace the unlikely path from nonprofit work to a Bronzeville storefront, and how her definition of success changed along the way.
What 414loral Is Today
At its simplest, 414loral is Milwaukee and flowers. The name pulls from the city’s 414 area code, and Mikel has fully embraced that people say it every possible way. What began as arrangements made at home is now a retail flower shop in the Bronzeville neighborhood on Historic King Drive, and it does far more than create flower arrangements. There is a daily build-your-own bouquet bar where every stem is priced individually (roughly $2 to $9) so flowers feel accessible rather than reserved for special occasions. The shop hosts events and workshops, and even curates pop-ups so other business owners can get exposure. This summer there’s a farmers market series at the shop. From the start, Mikel wanted it to be bigger than a place to buy flowers. As she put it, “I want it to feel like a space that you can wander into for flowers, but maybe you stay for the community.”
The Early Days: “I Was Living in Delusion”
The early days were not polished, they were hustle. Mikel was still working full time, making arrangements out of her home, and selling to friends and family. Her first pop-up was in December 2019 at Beta MKE in Walker’s Point, where she sold under the 414loral name for the first time. Looking back, she says she was “living in delusion,” treating the business like a hobby that happened to bring in money. Signing the lease on her first storefront changed that overnight. Suddenly she needed an accountant, pricing formulas, and a handle on sales tax. She had to stop treating it like a creative side project and start building the business underneath it.
Learning to Charge What Her Work Was Worth
Like a lot of creative founders, Mikel started out undercharging. She priced from emotion and from what she thought people would pay, making detailed, beautiful arrangements for close to grocery-store prices. Raising her prices was scary. She worried customers would leave for something cheaper. But the low pricing was not sustainable, and as she said, “If this is a business, you need to treat it like a business.” Raising prices did not sink the shop. It helped people recognize the value of the work, which was thoughtful and unique rather than thrown together. The bouquet bar later closed the loop on that lesson, since pricing every stem helps customers understand what flowers actually cost.
From Speech Pathology to Criminal Justice to Flowers
Mikel’s path does not read like a straight line. She studied speech pathology at UW-Milwaukee, drawn to the idea of helping people advocate for themselves through communication. In her final year she took an intro to floral design class as an elective. Around that same time, she applied to graduate programs for speech pathology and was rejected from every one. That rejection was devastating, and she felt like she had wasted years chasing a dream that disappeared overnight. Not ready to face the real world or her student loans, she pivoted to a master’s in criminal justice, having seen firsthand how incarceration affects families, including her own. That led to nonprofit work at Sojourner, supporting survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. As she said, “Speech pathology to criminal justice to flowers, it doesn’t really read like a logical path, but, you know, life is funny that way.”
Choosing a Life Centered on Joy
The nonprofit work mattered deeply, and it was heavy. Flowers were the low-stakes creative outlet that brought her back to joy. When the pandemic hit, Mikel lost a part-time role supervising children’s visitations, and the shifts in her work made her want something different. “I really want a life that is centered around fun and joy and creativity,” she said. Leaving a full-time job with benefits, PTO, and the possibility of student loan forgiveness felt like a big risk, especially for someone who does not consider herself a natural risk-taker. But she had already done pop-ups and a couple of weddings, she had momentum, and she decided that if it did not work, she could always get another job.
Redefining Success Beyond Money
When the shop first opened, success was survival. Could she pay rent, could she cover the bills, could the doors stay open. For a long time Mikel viewed success in monetary, transactional terms, and if there was nothing physical to point to, she wondered what she really had to show for it. That definition has since changed. Now success looks smaller and more meaningful. It looks like paying her team a living wage, offering PTO plus vision and dental to her shop manager, and building a culture where people want to come to work. It looks like customers who come back and get known by name. 414loral runs on a small team, usually three to four people plus freelancers for weddings, and it has still become woven into Milwaukee’s entrepreneurial community in a way Mikel never mapped out.
Bringing Her Full Self Into the Business
Mikel’s personality is all over 414loral, from the arrangements to the social media to the trinkets, hair clips, and blue mascara. Growing up, she often felt like she did not fit in, describing herself as an awkward Black girl who rarely saw herself represented in the things she loved. The business has helped her confront that and embrace more of herself, and that authenticity makes other people feel welcome too. When a leadership group from Maryland Avenue Montessori School visited the shop, seeing young people watch someone who looked like them do this work left her emotional. It was the kind of thing she wished she had seen at their age.
The Support System: Granola and REy
Mikel’s support system runs through the whole story. Her grandma Vera, known lovingly as Granola, is 81, full of life, deep in her church, doing chair yoga, and showing up at the shop to process flowers and ride along on deliveries. She hands out honest advice whether you asked for it or not, and Mikel calls her a best friend. Her husband Rey has been part of the journey since the early days. They met in 2020 and married in 2022, and one of their first photos together was taken at the shop’s soft opening. Rey was the first shop manager and still steps in during busy stretches like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Mikel describes him as calming and grounding, the person who helps her take a step back before she crashes out.
The Valentine’s Day That Almost Broke Her
Every business has moments customers never see. For Mikel, one landed on Valentine’s Day, which for a florist is the Super Bowl. After an already brutal stretch that included a negative client interaction that shook her confidence, her entire Valentine’s Day shipment never arrived. A mix-up with the wholesaler meant no flowers, 24 hours to start fulfilling orders, and Mikel driving around the city piecing together whatever product she could find. Afterward, the overwhelm made her physically sick. She is more intentional about recovery now, and after this past Mother’s Day the shop closed the next day so the team could reset.
What Is Next for 414loral
Looking ahead, Mikel is focused on consistency and sustainability, and not only the environmental kind. She means sustainable systems that let a small team keep building without burning out. A second location and bigger events are on the someday list, but the real focus is making what already exists really good. That means leaning into fun, hosting a farmers market at the shop on the second Saturday of each month, bringing in local growers and vendors, and running workshops, including one for cake decorating. Her approach to social media reflects the same spirit. She actually enjoys it, treats Instagram and TikTok as ways to connect rather than polished marketing, and keeps it simple. Have fun with it, because social media is supposed to be social.
Mikel’s story is not a straight line from dream to business. It is speech pathology, rejection, criminal justice, nonprofit work, kitchen-counter flowers, pop-ups, a first lease, pricing fears, community, burnout, and support. 414loral started as flowers, and it became a place for joy, identity, and belonging. Her definition of success is still evolving, and maybe that’s the point. Sometimes success is not the thing you planned for, it is the thing you grow into.
