Meet Kathleen Whitehurst, President double u products, inc. in St. Helena, CA

In the summer of 2005, Kathleen and a friend came up with the idea for the DaysAgo digital day counter, launching what is now an internationally recognized household gadget. Originally conceived as a product that would help consumers determine how many days products have been in their refrigerator, the DaysAgo is helpful in monitoring anything in life that needs tracking, from doing household chores, to taking care of plants, to giving family members their medications. The DaysAgo attaches to any surface through a magnet, band, or suction and begins counting with the simple touch of a button.

The gadget has won the Good Housekeeping Good Buy Award and been featured on Oprah and in Real Simple, and numerous other publications. DaysAgo is available at retail locations throughout the United States and Canada, including Nieman Marcus and the Container Store, and is also sold online at www.howmanydaysago.com and Amazon.com.

Kathleen’s longstanding success in the highly competitive consumer and retail industries stems, in part, from her ability to reach out and build strong relationships with her vendors as well as her customers. Kathleen moved to California for college, where she met and married Dan Whitehurst, her husband of 40 years. They relocated to Fresno after Dan finished law school and Kathleen completed her undergraduate degree.  In addition to giving birth to a son and a daughter, Kathleen soon found herself leading the life of a political wife, as Dan was elected the youngest mayor of Fresno in 1977. 

While Dan was in office, Kathleen became the co-owner and operator of the successful Kris Kringle & Co. store in Fresno, California, a boutique of upscale home décor, interior accents, and elegant gifts that was a mainstay of the city’s retail landscape for 25 years.

With her success also came the hardships of some very difficult medical conditions. In 1995, Kathleen was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, after spending six months so crippled by pain that she could barely walk. Several treatment regimens were unsuccessful and Kathleen was finally put on an experimental drug through Stanford University Medical Center that put the lupus in full remission. 

In 1999, Kathleen heard the two words most dreaded by women: breast cancer. Her cancer treatment was severely complicated by the lupus, but after enduring a mastectomy, grueling chemotherapy, and radical reconstructive surgery, Kathleen found herself cancer-free. After Kathleen invented the DaysAgo, her daughter Jamie suggested that a special Pink edition of the product be created in honor of Kathleen’s successful treatment — and in the hope that more women will achieve similar success by using the gadget to remind them to do their self-breast exams each month. Kathleen’s company donates 10 percent of sales of the Pink DaysAgo to breast cancer awareness and research programs.

For more information, visit: www.HowManyDaysAgo.com