Success Stories

Success Story: Colorado

After 15 years in the glass industry, Kris and Valerie Petersen opened Petersen Custom Glass, LLC in 2014. Kris has extensive experience designing and installing custom glass products. His specific areas of expertise include high-end frameless shower enclosures, ADA accessible showers and other custom glass projects. With his leadership skills gained from the military and her executive skills, Petersen Custom Glass has become a successful local business in Parker, CO, serving a 25-mile radius in the metro area.

“We feel that starting up slowly and receving help from the SBDC along the way, we established a solid foundation from which to grow financially in the coming years.”

In October, 2015, Petersen Glass moved out of the 1100 sq-ft garage into a brick and mortar retail space. Business expanded quickly as capacity grew to include showroom and workshop space.

All three of the consultants in the Aurora-South Metro SBDC Lone Tree office assisted the Petersens with financing questions and concerns, advertising direction and a solid marketing strategy. With the consultants’ guidance and discussing the financial pros and cons of ‘taking the leap’, “we have been able to ‘crack the nut’ with an online presence and a new physical location.”  (more…)

Success Story: Idaho

As Derek & Sophia Bates began seriously talking about their long-imagined dream of owning a bakery, a memory of a visit to the Great Harvest Bread Co. in Logan came back to them. They sent for an information packet and decided Great Harvest was a good fit.

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Success Story: Washington State

By Hope Belli Tinney, Washington SBDC

When WWII-era buildings at the Port of Moses Lake, Washington needed work in 2013, Sonico, the aircraft parts repair and maintenance business leasing those buildings, was told it would have to depart.

The simplest solution was to move to the I-5 interstate corridor near SeaTac – for close access to the aerospace customer base and a variety of lease options. But Sonico didn’t want to withdraw – or remove 45 good-paying jobs – from the town that had been its home for more than 30 years.

The problem, said company president W.B. “Bill” Perdue, was there was nowhere in Moses Lake to relocate. New construction had been on the drawing board for years, he said, but he’d been stymied in his efforts to find financing for a state-of-the-art Federal Aviation Administration-certified facility.

It took more than three years to work through that problem and others, but Sonico finally began construction of their new 28,000-square-foot building this summer, thanks in part to business advising from the Washington Small Business Development Center (SBDC).  (more…)

Success Story: Missouri (A-Plus Contractors LLC)

It’s well after 5 p.m., but Will Sanders, owner and co-founder of A-Plus Contractors in Saint Charles, Missouri, a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) specializing in dump truck work and heavy equipment hauling, excavation and power washing throughout the St. Louis area, is excited. But also a little tired.

“I am just a hard-working, ordinary guy,” he says of himself. “I am boots on the ground, boots in the office all day.”

Those boots are getting a lot of wear at Lambert Airport tearing out old concrete, hauling dirt and old concrete, laying new concrete and even planting trees as a subcontractor. And they’ll get even more on projects soon underway around Maline Creek, a small tributary of the Mississippi River on the northern edge of the City of St. Louis that’s suffered from severe erosion, and on the seven decades old, deteriorated Route 47 Missouri River Bridge, among other projects.

Sanders has almost a quarter century of industry experience, and he established the business in 2009. But the business didn’t really take off until 2014, when Sanders purchased his first dump truck.

That number has swelled to seven in just a year. He jokes he spends his lunch hour shopping for trucks. Sanders expects company revenues to be about $500,000 this year, significantly up from 2014.  (more…)

Success Story: Vermont
Bookkeeping Assistance Key to Business Health

Over the course of its twenty-year existence, the growers at Red Wagon Plants in Hinesburg have become experts at producing high quality organic plants and vegetables. But as their business evolved, owners knew they needed to focus on more than just agriculture to ensure they could also experience healthy business growth.

“Our business is special because it has grown organically over twenty years,” said Red Wagon Plants owner Julie Rubaud. “We believe in what we do and are known for our high quality standards,” she said, adding that she started the plant business “as a way to augment the income of the vegetable farm in 1996. Since then, the plants eclipsed the vegetables.”

As the plant portion of the business became more integral to the farm’s success, Rubaud came to realize that monitoring budgets, expenses and other overall bookkeeping tasks were proving increasingly important, as well as challenging. The farm, which grows and sells plants at both retail and production locations in Hinesburg, also works with wholesale partners throughout the state.

Rubaud knew she needed help determining which aspects of the business were most successful and why, so she sought the assistance of Vermont Small Business Development Area Advisor and Agricultural Specialist Steve Paddock. The two quickly went to work making sense of the sometimes complicated budgeting and bookkeeping at the farm.  (more…)