Dante Fagone
I work for my father for 30 plus years and decided it was time for me to go out on my own. We opened in March 3 2016 my daughter became a hairdresser so she works for me and have another girl that was at the other salon that came with me. Read More>>
Leah Beth Goodman
I’ve always loved the water. Growing up in a waterfront community such as Marblehead is truly magical. It sometimes makes me sad to think that some people don’t experience the ocean. My grandfather took me sailing, fishing, clamming, boating, snorkeling, & swimming. Read More>>
Billy Starr
I started the PMC after tragically losing my mother to melanoma when I was just 23 years old. At the time, I didn’t have many resources at my disposal but I knew that people who put in the mental energy, not just the physical, follow their goals from theory to mission accomplished – and that’s what I was prepared to do. Read More>>
Renee Ciaramella
My father, John DaMore, and his late business partner, Dick Ray, operated a Dollar Rent A Car location on Bremen Street in East Boston just minutes from Logan Airport. Not long after they signed a lease and began operating the rental company they were offered a better location for the business on airport property which would allow the new car rental company to prosper. Park Shuttle & Fly was born in 1975 out of a need to pay the lease on the old car rental property. Read More>>
Stephen Driscoll
SFC started out as Gold’s Gym in the late 1980s, expanded its facilities to 20,000+++ sq. ft. in the early 2000s and reorganized as Salem Fitness Center in the mid-2000s as an independent health/fitness club serving Salem-Beverly-Marblehead, Peabody, and Lynn. SFC features a separate, exclusive women-only exercise/workout studio as well as co-ed facilities, including Group Ex studio for hosting 40+ classes weekly. Both the men’s and women’s sauna, steam and locker rooms have been renovated recently. SFC also hosts Parkinson Fitness classes twice weekly. Read More>>
Tasha Bracken
I was in the public relations field and one of the aspects of our job was to plan events for our clients. I decided this was my passion and wanted to start my own business. I first came up with a name and designed a website and reached out to some contacts – the rest is history. Read More>>
Liz Fuller
I used to be in high-tech PR for almost 10 years. It was an interesting, fast-paced industry, but I didn’t feel passionate about it. Technology was still new at that time, so the concepts were a bit difficult for me to fully understand. I also taught high school English. Read More>>
Amanda Barror
I have been in the hair and beauty industry since 2003, and have been the owner of Aqua since it opened in 2008. While growing up in my family’s salon and being surrounded by the business, I have developed an extreme passion for what I do in my career. I strongly believe that the key to success is constant education and keeping up to date with the latest trends and styles. Aqua strives in the importance of each client’s experience to keep our repeatable award winning salon and spa nothing but the best. Read More>>
Dr. Martin Cutler
Dr. Cutler received his medical degree from St. Louis Medical School in 1972. He completed his internship at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, followed by his ophthalmology residency at the prestigious Friedenwald Eye Institute in Baltimore. Dr. Cutler studied under oculoplastic surgeon Charles Iliff, M.D. in Baltimore for 6 months, prior to opening his private practice. In addition, Dr. Cutler was a past clinical instructor in ophthalmology at the Tufts Medical Center. Read More>>
Samantha Shih
My story began 2006 at a place called, Bu Bu Bu (in Chinese it means, “cloth, cloth, cloth.”). It’s one of the largest fabric markets located in Nanjing, China — a second-tier city near Shanghai. Bu Bu Bu’s austere, concrete facade is a stark contrast with what lies inside. Stalls of colorful bolts of fabric cover almost every inch of space. Read More>>
John Cacaccio
Well it all started for us in 1996. I was working as a mobile logistics sales manager for Klm Royal Dutch Airlines in based in Boston MA and responsible for cargo sales in New England & Upstate NY. After 20 years with the airlines my position in Boston was being eliminated and I was offered the opportunity to take a position in NYC at JFK Airport. But after several relocations with the airlines my wife and I decided we love Massachusetts so much that we wanted to finally put our roots down, so we decided to start Bristol County Coach. Read More>>
Andrea Beane
I started practicing Baptiste yoga in 2001 and immediately fell in love with all that the challenging practice had to offer. I had been a runner for years and loved a good “sweat’ and “hard work out” but my body couldn’t really handle that sort of high impact intensity anymore. Yet, through this style of yoga I could still find so many of the same physical benefits but so so much more. Read More>>
Jonah Soolman
At 20 years old, my definition of exquisite nutrition was including a small bowl of iceberg lettuce with my dinner. As co-captain of my Tufts University tennis team and with three Boston Marathons already behind me, I figured I was active enough to make up for eating whatever I wanted. Shortly thereafter, a health scare inspired me to consider what I could do to take better care of myself. Ultimately, I departed my research analyst position with the U.S. Department of Transportation in order to reenter academia at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a focus on nutrition. Read More>>
GUILHERME BARBOSA
My birthday is on the 4th of July. When I was 12 years old I used to go to the fair that was in town for the holiday. I was always fascinated with the way it all came together, piece by piece, until like magic a whole new city is on display for all to enjoy. Families would come to create everlasting memories and traditions, regardless of the hefty cost of an afternoon trip to the legendary Brockton Fair. Read More>>
Pete Santini
I started fishing when I was 3 in Medford where I grew up my uncle Nino would take me with him to local ponds and rivers. For sunfish perch and trout got hooked on fishing right away As I grew so did my passion I would fish he ocean for flounder cod stripers bluefish out of Boston harbor. In 1992 I opened up fishing finatics.in Everett and I have been here helping people catch fish for 25 years. Read More>>
Sandra Napoli
I went school for Massage Therapy at the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge and graduated in 2002. Before graduating I took a continuing education course for Chair Massage. I really enjoyed this subset of massage therapy, so much that my business plan for graduation was focused on chair massage. After graduation I jumped into table massage and worked at a spa and then a hospital. Read More>>
Meghan Perlow
I started my career in the field of Interior Design, from designing Starbucks stores in Seattle to Sports Architecture firm Populous in Kansas City, and eventually as the Director of Interiors at Boston firm Arrowstreet. As Poppy Floral continued to grow, I left the world of Architecture to pursue the chance to run my own business. My passion for floral design started as a simple request from a good friend to design her wedding flowers, after that I was hooked! I loved the hands-on designing that takes place each day, and challenges of working with a natural material that can change so rapidly. Read More>>
Nestor Lopez
I’m a graduate student from Keefe Tech (carpentry shop) Technical school in Framingham. Back in 1994 I started working for a construction company for 5 years. In 1999 I decided to go on my Own and founded Lopez carpentry and painting. I then decided to do just carpentry and got my licensed and change my name to Lopez contractors. Read More>>
Frank Fredella
Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Frank G. Fredella was raised and attended public schools in the Boston area. His first contact with the clothing industry started as a part-time, after school employee with Picariello and Singer, Inc., a manufacturer of tailored boys’ and student’s clothing, as an apprentice designer and pattern cutter. After graduating from high school, he continued his employment with Picariello and Singer in various capacities, while attending Boston University during the evenings where he earned his BS degree in Business Administration in 1961. Read More>>
Courtney Lampman
When my husband and I got engaged, I was so excited to plan my wedding and felt like it would be a breeze with my event planning experience. I knew that I didn’t want a typical packaged wedding. I wanted to host the party of the century! I wanted my guests to feel excited and emotionally invested in our marriage. Read More>>
Philip Barlow
My interest in health really began as a child. Growing up with five brothers and sisters, my financially stretched parents tried to limit the certain costly effects of our appetites. They allowed each of us to pick our own single box of cereal, for example, but we had to make that last for two weeks until the next round of food shopping. While my siblings chose the delicious, sugary options, my cereal choice was “Total®”: a meal, the box boasted, that would provide “100% of the daily recommended allowance of at least 11 vitamins and minerals that your body needs to be healthy.” Read More>>
Jacqueline Grennell
I started Fairytale Dream Parties almost five years ago. I started off very small with only a few costumes and myself as an actress. With each party my business grew and I was able to add more costumes and actresses. Soon we were able to expand and offer parties in other states. In the beginning we only offered princess parties but after a few years we added Spa parties to our repertoire as well. Read More>>
Grazia Commendatore
The world of holistic medicine has always intrigued me. After going to school to study Exercise Science, I realized that there are a lot of people suffering from physical pain, who have no idea that their pain levels could be significantly decreased without medication or surgical intervention. I decided that I wanted to find a way to help people manage their pain and live better lives, through one-on-one interaction in a safe, calm, welcoming environment. Massage therapy provided the exact career path I was looking for. Read More>>
Dr. Kara Firestone
I originally went to college for a degree in nutrition. After my first year, I worked part time at a practice in New York, which provided chiropractic and nutrition services. I absolutely loved the holistic approach to health and how the two complemented each other. I was amazed at the results patients were receiving. It was then I decided that I not only wanted to be a nutritionist, but a chiropractor as well. Read More>>
Ron Levy
I am a musician, Producer, arranger, composer and writer. I began my career as a High School student in Brookline in the mid-1960’s backing up various artists visiting Boston with my little blues band (Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley & others) From there, I began touring with blues legend Albert King. Soon after, I began touring with B.B. King as his pianist from 1969 to 1976. Read More>>
Ludgy Michel
I come from a very business oriented family. I grew up watching my mother build her business from the ground up and teach herself everything she needed to know about becoming a small business owner. I’ve learned a lot of my business sense from my family. I started having an interest in events and planning when my son was born. Read More>>
Skylar Shankman
I first came to Boston in 2007 to attend Northeastern University. At the time I was a psychology student. I had federal work-study money and decided to work in the photo lab on campus since I’d always had a passing interest in photography. I began to learn more and more about photography and dark room processing and eventually I took my first photo class and was so excited with what I was doing I decided to switch majors and try and become a photographer full time. Read More>>
Susie Ropolo
Pasta Beach is the story of a love triangle between an MD from Torino, Italy, a girl from New England and the endless plate of spaghetti pomodoro you find on every corner in Italy! The beginning of the Pasta Beach idea started years ago in a favorite local trattoria located in Torino, Italy. Gianni, my future husband at the time and I would go to our favorite spot in Torino just about every night for something quick to eat. Read More>>
Sarah Roth-Oosten
La Petite Boutique is owned and operated by Sarah Roth-Oosten, a Winthrop native. Sarah started her career with organizing and choreographing fashion shows at prestigious art universities. After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree with a double major in Psychology and French, she went on to earn a Master’s Degree in International Business with a focus on Entrepreneurship from a University in the Netherlands. Afterwards, Sarah moved to France where she started her own fashion event production company called HYPE Fashions (www.hypefashions.com) which she continues to manage today. Read More>>
Lynn Strazzere
We grew up at Hago’s. We spent our childhood on these greens. We have so many great memories and we are excited to help others make memories too. We would approach the owner once a month if he was looking to sell we would like to buy it. As years went on we would approached the longtime owner, Jim Haddad. One day he came to us and said he wanted to sell and that’s when we were going to make the memories continue. Read More>>
Marian Klausner
I was actually an attorney, in practice for eight years, before opening the shop in 1994. I had been the program director of a small nonprofit women’s criminal justice project which ran out of funding and I found myself unexpectedly unemployed. I had been painting furniture and home accessories and doing local craft markets on weekends and really loved the energy of the makers’ community. I secretly had always wanted to own a small boutique but it always seemed like a crazy dream. Read More>>
Bruce Spero
Our firm is woman-owned and led by three principals – Jillian Domenici, Bruce Spero, and Kirsten Holmes. We took our collective 50 years of experience in informal learning to start Trivium Interactive last year. We specialize in interactive and immersive media for museums, visitor centers, aquariums, and other special venues. We have a strong focus on collaborating with our clients to create innovate ways of telling complex stories to multi-generational audiences. Read More>>
Molly & Sarah Ford & Jesup
The Food Lens started over our mutual love for food and travel. We met our freshman year at Boston University and spent the greater part of the past decade since eating and drinking our way around the world. During our many trips, it became apparent that the crowd sourced sites out there fail to deliver reliable restaurant recommendations in comparison to advice from actual locals. This left us doing hours of research before each trip, trying to find the best and most authentic dining experiences. Read More>>
Breanne McGinness
Fitness balanced was born from a desire to see women change their opinions of what “fit” is, and finally begin to view themselves as beautiful, powerful, and strong. We are hoping to shift the industry in a body positive direction, where all people are able to love their bodies. We are also passionate about people finding a form of fitness they enjoy to do, and excelling in that arena. Read More>>
Paul Mozell
Paul Mozell is a Boston area photographer who wears many hats. With over 25 years of experience as a pro, and a lifetime of immersion in the art and craft of photography, he accepts a wide variety of projects and assignments. Paul’s vision is deeply rooted in a lifetime of hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing and skiing in the American wilderness. With backpacking gear and a pack full of cameras and lenses he has recorded the landscapes of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, New York’s Adirondacks, the Wind River Range of Wyoming, the Rockies of Colorado and Montana, the red-rock territories of Utah and Arizona, and John Muir’s Sierras. Read More>>
Dina Konovalov
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan I moved to United States with my family at a young age and immediately found a medium through which she would communicate and tell stories – photography. After earning Bachelor’s Degree Fine Art Photography in 1999 at Mass. College of Art, I started working for Ticketmaster/Citysearch and freelanced as a contributing photographer to many other local publications. Read More>>
Lauren Vermette
It’s a unique story in that I ironically had no experience in the salon world yet I purchased the rights to three salon suite franchises, Salons by JC, in the greater Boston area. Our first is located in Stoneham (Redstone Shopping Center), the second in Burlington/Lexington (Middlesex Commons Shopping Plaza) and the third is yet to be developed. We are a salon suite facility offering fully furnished rentable suites to beauty professionals in the area. Read More>>
Rachel Brown
Since I was a little girl I always enjoyed art. Actually, I initially wanted to be an artist. My love of art drew me to hairstyling which I believe is a form of art. It probably had to do with my mom always asking me to brush her hair. She always had long beautiful locks and I would spend hours every week brushing it. It relaxed her and most importantly, it felt good. Read More>>
Penelope Hoffman
I started as an esthetician 20 years ago. My own personal journey as well as the industry’s ongoing advances and innovations encouraged me to stay on a continuous education course has brought me great satisfaction and work that I love to be involved in. I worked with skin care salons and spas, eventually with physicians and today I own a small boutique clinical skin care office that provides the latest in non-invasive high end skin care. Read More>>
Peter Femino
Boston Common Coffee Co. was founded in December of 2004 by Peter Femino & Anthony Massari as a small local coffee shop in the North End. At the time, we were one of the few roaster/retailer/bakeries in the Boston area offering locally roasted coffee, a retail presence, and in-house pastries baked fresh daily. We also focused our cafe design around a “living” area with couches, loveseats and a gas burning stove to huddle close to during the winter months. Read More>>
Dave and Will Willis, brothers and co-founders
We started Bully Boy Distillers in 2010, becoming the city’s first craft distillery and have been making award-winning whiskeys, rums, gin and vodka ever since. We were inspired to begin distilling after growing up on our family’s fourth-generation working farm in Sherborn, MA, first making apple cider as kids, and then apple jack brandy as we got older. We later discovered a vault in the farm house basement that had dozens of Prohibition-era spirits bottles belonging to our grandfather, which further fueled our interest in distilling. Read More>>
Alec Houle
As the age of 13, I started working for my neighbor who owned a cleaning company. I worked for him till I was in college as well as working other jobs as well. While in college, I started doing some jobs on my own, mainly commercial contracts, since I could do them nights and on weekends. In 1970, I officially formed my company and for the next 25 years did predominately commercial work involving carpet cleaning with some upholstery cleaning. Read More>>
Ruby Phan
I have been working as a nail technician for over 10 years now and fully licensed as Cosmetologist. It has always been one of my dreams of own my own salon and I was able to get that opportunity in the summer of 2016. Tiffany, the other manager reached out to me to about a possible salon location and it happened to be in South Boston. Since last summer, we have been working with tremendous effort to make D Luxe Nail Bar what we envisioned it to be. Read More>>
Arvik Ozcan
We took a risk started our casting business 27 years ago in 1990. My husband Zeki is an artist, an architect, and metallurgist. For last two decades he has manufactured jewelry for retailers and wholesalers using his one of the kind platinum as well as gold work. I joined him in 2000, and combined my 30 years business skills I challenged myself and embraced the opportunity and opened the retail shop in 2000 next to studio! Read More>>
Rose Hanig
We are the bookstore of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious tradition that affirms the individual search for truth and meaning. (For more information, please visit uua.org/beliefs.) We have a long tradition of proving reading material for our denomination and its members, which included such literary luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, among others. Read More>>
MARTIN WILLIAMS
I arrived here to Boston in 1986 from Dublin Ireland. With little or no knowledge of Boston, I had to take advantage of any jobs available at that time. Painting, Plumbing, Carpentry and also a very short spell as a waiter on Charles St. When I found a moving company in Cambridge (Jim Clark Moving) I knew I had found my calling. It is something I have always found fun, easy and rewarding. I learnt from the very best at that time. Read More>>
Harout Mouradian
I’m a sole proprietor of fine jewelry in Boston. I’ve been working in the jewelry industry for 28 years, and have owned and operated my own shop for just over two decades. I take great pride in working very closely with my customers to not only serve them with wonderful, high quality ready-to-wear jewelry, but I also specialize in creating custom couture jewelry for my client. Read More>>
Joyce Hampers
My profession is that of a lawyer and I practiced for several years after Law School before being appointed by the Governor as Massachusetts Commissioner of Revenue in 1975. When George H.W. Bush was elected President in 1989, I went to Washington, D.C. to become U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce. At the end of Pres. Bush’s term, I returned to Boston and decided to start a business. Read More>>
Amy Jo Accardi
I always knew that traditional western healthcare left a lot to be desired. I always dreamed about better answers, but it wasn’t until I was 19 that I got some direction. That year, my aunt brought her boyfriend home for Christmas, and he introduced me to herbal medicine. It was one of those things that I always knew existed, but had never seen before. Read More>>
Paul Duggan
I started in the field of horology in the mid 1970’s as a hobbyist. My first interest was collecting and repairing antique clocks. A friend introduced me to the National Watch and Clock Collectors Association and my interest soon expanded into watches. Read More>>
Antoine Rubini
In June 2008, I founded Cuffs & Collars, an AMR Clothing Company venture, with the intent of continuing my father’s legacy in fine apparel by providing customers, access to high end Italian made clothing at a great price point. We are committed to our customers from the beginning of production in beautiful Italy, to the end result of leaving the shop feeling more confident. Read More>>
James Kaya
I started as a jewelry apprentice at a very young age. When I was in my early twenties I opened my first store in Boston and soon after I began earning national and international recognition for my designs and pieces. Boston is a very traditional city with its roots in classic aesthetics, and my designs tend to be much more modern and contemporary which makes it difficult for me to appeal to local taste. Read More>>
Vesna Longton
It was in 2006, when I came to America. Of course, I was looking for jobs on Craigslist (as many people before and after me). One of the ads that responded was about wedding painting. Live paintings were not something new for me as I am a professional artist with formal art education and we do it often, though I`d never painted weddings before. So this couple visited me to see my art. We discussed the details. They explain that lots of artists had responded and they should see them too. They left and a minute later the doorbell rang. They’d come back with the deposit check. I still remember my first wedding painting in beautiful Ocean Cliff, Newport, RI. I was very lucky that I stumbled upon that add. Very lucky to be introduced to live wedding painting. I don`t think me`d have come up with this idea by myself. Read More>>
