Success Stories

Success Story: Virginia

Success Story: California

• Silicon Valley SBDC
• Client: PARTI Program

The Positive Alternative Recreation Teambuilding Impact  (PARTI) program has been in existence since 2001. As a 501c3 organization (tax exempt non-profit), its purpose is to build today’s youth into the leaders of tomorrow through education, leadership development, mentoring, making healthy choices, and volunteerism in the community. The organization’s founder, Winston Ashby, spends a great deal of time working with youth at the high school and middle school levels on San Jose’s eastside. The organization is largely dependent on grants and fundraisers to further its mission, sustain its employees, and continue to increase its revenues.

PARTI operates programs for youth in both Northern and Southern California. Through his dedicated work with young people, Winston has inspired many students to realize their dreams of going to college and building careers for themselves. One of the program’s most famous graduates appeared as a finalist on the TV show “American Idol”.

The on-going challenge for Winston, prior to working with the SBDC, had been securing enough funding to retain his current employees. He struggled to locate new funders in the Bay Area. In addition, Winston knew and understood that he needed more high-profile figures to recognize and support the work of his organization for branding purposes.  (more…)

Success Story: Pennsylvania

Integrated Machine Company was started in July 2001 by Mary Jo Light. The company prides itself in American-made products and the use of American suppliers. The initial purpose of the company was to manufacture quick disconnect fire hydrant storz. This unit has since universalized the fire hydrant connection and allows fire departments to assist one another by using the storz connection instead of a threaded adapter that was unique to each department.

Integrated saw an opportunity to solve a problem in the coupling market. They were approached by two coupling distributors in Erie to create a solution to a major problem with large diameter couplings used in the oil and gas industries, also known as the fracking industry. Many of the couplings purchased by these distributors were failing in the field due to poor quality, thus having negative effects on the environment. Integrated plans to manufacture large quality couplings that will be used with lay-flat hose fluid delivery. These products also have applications in the military, agriculture, and irrigation markets. They plan to offer products of superior quality in order to compete with Chinese imports.

In order to assist in the financing of new machinery to manufacture these couplings, Mary Jo entered the Ben Franklin Big Idea Contest in 2015. She once again came to the Gannon University SBDC for assistance with the business plan and financial projections needed to submit to the Ben Franklin Technology Partners. The SBDC reviewed the plan that she had prepared, as well as her PowerPoint presentation and projected income statements.  (more…)

How to reinvent an essential, nearly century-old product

Wife and husband Samantha Rudolph and Jared Miller of Babyation, a firm born in Branford, Connecticut, now headquartered in St. Louis, had the sort of brainstorm serial entrepreneurs have while vacationing in Vermont. She was reading a New York Times blog about a clunky, noisy, inelegant but absolutely necessary product essentially unchanged for nearly a century.

Somewhere between three to more than five million, depending on the source, of these items are sold annually in the U.S. alone. And users, many highly productive members of the workforce, need this item so badly they will pay up to $400 for a higher-end model.

She is an experienced business development and strategic planning expert who worked for ESPN for more than eight years, he an electronics wizard who can and has built almost anything, even supervising the commentary center for the Olympics for 14 years. They asked themselves, “Why can’t this truly essential product be as smart and functional as a smartphone, quiet as a luxury car? Wouldn’t that sell? Why can’t women have an improved version of something so badly needed to juggle work and family?”  (more…)

Success Story: Missouri

• University of Missouri-Columbia SBTDC, Missouri SBTDC
• SBTDC Consultant: Virginia Wilson (Center Director)
• Client: Pulse Medical Staffing, LLC – SBTDC client since 2011

“When I met Virginia, she encouraged me, saying, ‘You can do this! You can run a business by yourself!’ She helped me see this was a feasible business.” – Dan Latham, owner and founder of Pulse Medical Staffing, LLC, in Columbia, Missouri

Impact of working with the University of Missouri-Columbia SBTDC:

• 2011 – fewer than 10 employees; 2016 – close to 200 employees
• 2012 revenues – $231,000; Nov. 16, 2015 revenues – $942,870

Read the whole story, and learn more about the Missouri SBTDC and Pulse Medical Staffing, LLC .