Joan H. Zimmerman

Listen to this article

When a situation or circumstance doesn’t go Joan Zimmerman’s way, she never considers it a failure.

“To me,” she says, “it is just something that didn’t work out quite the way I anticipated.”

But the most important career move in Zimmerman’s life did work out in a spectacular way.

She was working for Greensboro public relations executive John Harden in 1959 when an idea was hatched that would propel Zimmerman into a world of flowers, gardens, and beautiful lifestyles.

Harden did not have time to develop and manage the garden show Zimmerman dreamed up, but she did have time – and enthusiasm.  She recruited her husband Robert to join the venture. Both kept their day jobs for a few years, but when the business took off, they never looked back.

In 2010, Joan and Robert Zimmerman and their son David were featured on the cover of Greater Charlotte Biz magazine, celebrating 50 years in the life of Southern Shows.

Today, Southern Shows owns and produces 19 shows each year, in 11 different markets throughout the South and Midwest.  Combined, the shows attract 10,000 exhibitors and more than 600,000 attendees annually.

Events include the Southern Spring Home & Garden Show, the Southern Farm Show, the Southern Ideal Home Show series and the Women’s Show series.

Today, David Zimmerman is president of the company and does the heavy lifting, but his parents are still involved.

Joan Zimmerman looks back on her life and career and concludes the real turning point was not when she started managing shows, or when she started her Southern Shows company, but when she was a sports-obsessed teenager.

“I received a scholarship to a junior business college,” she says. “My entire life, at that point, was sports, but my professors said, ‘You, my girl, have a business brain – and that’s the track we’re putting you on.’”

Those professors were right.

In 2005, Zimmerman was inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and over the years, she has won many other notable awards.   In 2000, Appalachian State University added the Zimmermans to its roster of the top 40 Travel & Tourism Leaders of the 20th century, and Joan Zimmerman was the inaugural recipient of the Queens University Woman of the Year Award in 1995.

But her satisfaction does not come from accolades or awards.

“Satisfaction comes from a job well-done, a goal achieved, a family member’s accomplishments, friends in our home enjoying conversation, a perfect standing rib roast,” she says. “Satisfaction comes in all shapes and from many places.”

Despite her busy schedule, Zimmerman enjoys taking time out for books of all kinds.

“I’m an avid reader of fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, biographies, and business,” she says. “The book I currently am recommending to friends is ‘Citizens of London,’ a close-up look at war-time England. The author uncovers the traits of leadership, and how one self-centered decision can affect many lives.”

With all that Zimmerman has achieved, both on her own and with her husband and son, she probably could write the book on leadership herself.