Congratulations to Nia Ramo, one of our 2017 Wonder Women.
Drugs. Teenage pregnancy. Divorce. Cancer.
Any one of those would be enough to tear a person down, throw in the towel or, at least, not try as hard. Nia Ramo has faced all four, coming out on top each time, and she hasn’t even reached 40.
Ramo, 37, is a married mother of four and the owner of Graphite Media, a Plant City-based social media and content marketing agency that specializes in working with small businesses. The five-year-old business she started while living in Atlanta is rapidly growing, her offices expanding into more and more of the Shoppes of the Arcade building’s retail space.
With her focus on small business, Ramo can boast helping local realtors, mechanics, construction companies and more establish and
build their brands.
And it all started in a trailer on Coronet Road where Ramo was born. Her parents were 17 at the time. They had been married at 16. Ramo wound up the eldest of five and the only girl.
Her mom, Luwana Hughes, she said, taught her early on the values of responsibility and reward.
“I have the coolest mom ever,” Ramo said. “A lot of kids grow up with parents already being established adults and they know what’s up. My mom was 17, she had four kids by the time she was 21. When my parents divorced she was very young. She took care of the four of us. We never knew we were from a divorced family.”
Whether it was dance parties while cleaning the house or sending her to the store for groceries, letting her use the change for some candy, Ramo said her mom always found a way to push her and show her that even doing chores didn’t have to feel like a chore.
“My mom, she’s my inspiration for everything,” Ramo said. “For being a good mom, a good wife and a good friend. With five children, you have to have a lot of patience.”
Her mother wasn’t the only strong woman who inspired Ramo. She decided to start Graphite in 2012. Her grandmother, Bonny Snow, handed her a $500 check to help get the business going. Ramo didn’t take the money, but said the gesture still brings tears to her eyes and it was Snow’s support that signaled Graphite would be a success.
“I didn’t do it alone,” Ramo said. “The people that have gotten me here are so amazing.”
The road to “here” wasn’t easy for Ramo. She had her first child as a teenager, was married by 21 and had two more children. At 29, with a second marriage in the weeds and losing a business, she set off to Atlanta.
It was in Atlanta that she took a social media marketing course and began planting the seeds for Graphite. Her boss at the time, Doug Klassan, joked that he’d work for her one day. Now he does.
Over the next few years, the seeds grew. Eventually, the passion project became a part-time, then full-time job. In addition to the downtown Plant City offices, Graphite has an Atlanta location.
While building her own brand, Ramo was diagnosed with cancer, but she didn’t let it slow her down. Her family had to make a pit stop in Kentucky before resettling in Plant City a little more than a year ago.
Her journey, Ramo said, came down to the choices she made, good or bad, and how she responds.
“It’s about the choices,” she said. “I choose happy. Some days it might happen later in the day, but I choose happy.”
