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Yvonne Pire

CEO, Trofholz Technologies, and Founder, The Rising Zone

Yvonne Pire had already found success several times over in her career when she realized she needed a healthier balance between work and home life.

It was 2015 and Pire’s company, Trofholz Technologies, which specializes in information technology and electronic security systems, had grown to earn $23 million in annual revenue. The founder and CEO was also a parent to four growing children.

“Between working in high-pressure work environments and raising kids, by the time I was 40 I was just physically, emotionally and mentally feeling like I was exhausted and falling apart,” Pire says. “At that point, I went through a life-changing timeframe.”

That’s when she envisioned The Rising Zone, a Rocklin-based event and co-working wellness center. Pire uprooted everything. In 2016 she sold off half of her contracts and set out to rebuild the company. She also thought deeply about resetting her equilibrium on a personal level.
As a child, she’d grown up in the foster care system in Texas before joining the U.S. Air Force right out of high school. Pire realized she was still dealing with a heavy load of past traumas she’d never fully addressed.

“I needed to heal myself,” Pire says. “I started the company to find balance in the corporate world.”

Pire envisioned The Rising Zone as a vital and holistic approach to the work-life experience. By 2023 it had come to fruition. Today, the two-story space encompasses an expansive first floor that includes a gym and recovery room with four cold-plunge tubs and an infrared sauna, and a hyperbolic energy chamber. The Rising Zone, which offers three tiers of membership, also houses a cafe and treatment rooms where clients can indulge in massages and facials, among other services. Upstairs, co-working offices house several businesses.

“There are a lot of high-functioning professionals who just drown themselves in work,” she says. “I wanted to integrate work and wellness together for them.”

Pire, who still runs Trofholz Technologies, has built the company back up to $14 million in annual revenue, with clients and offices across the globe including the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel and the Golden 1 Center, as well as federal government and military bases across the U.S.

“I’m a living example of someone who it does not matter what your past was. You can transform your life at any time in your life.”

As an executive, Pire says her leadership ethos is one rooted in compassion. “I believe in taking ownership of empowering people to transform their own lives. It does not matter where you’re from in your past,” she says. “I’m a living example of someone who it does not matter what your past was. You can transform your life at any time in your life.”

The opportunity to guide others, she adds, is valuable because throughout her career she often found herself lacking mentorship. Instead, she turned to women-focused networking groups such as GoBundance Women.

“Being a woman in a male-dominated industry my entire life, I have sometimes often felt like I was trying to figure things out on my own,” she says. “But what I find helpful is joining communities that lift me up.”
Now, Pire’s children, three sons and a daughter, ages 19-29 years old, are adults. When she’s not working, she enjoys hiking or dancing — any kind of dancing — and spending time with Haiven, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel.

Finally, she says, she’s found that balance, one grounded in a hearty embrace of finding that which brings her a balanced sense of success and fun.

“My slogan is just to love your life, to live life to the fullest,” she says.   

View the list of honorees from 2015 through 2025.

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