Allison Fraser
After graduating from Boston College as a Communications major, I landed a job doing social media for a well-known national brand. At the time, businesses were just starting to put marketing efforts into social media, so I was really at the forefront of the industry. To be quite honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, since social media courses weren’t an option during my college years. It was a lot of trial and error and figuring things out (and making stuff up) as I went along. Read More>>
Jenna Volpe
My initial interest in the world of nutrition and health sparked I was sixteen. I was volunteering as a “candy striper” at Winchester Hospital after school, and one day a customer at the coffee shop ordered a cup of green tea. As I brought him his beverage, this man began telling me about the incredible health benefits green tea can offer for cancer prevention, anti-aging and more. Read More>>
Catherine Threlkeld
I started to love photography during a college study abroad trip to Italy. I was there on a multimedia journalism program. Going into the program, I thought that writing was my strong suit, but my photography professors quickly made me realize that my talents and interests were in visual storytelling. I returned to the Louisiana State University and began a series of internships and jobs in photojournalism. Read More>>
Wendy Shane
I started my career in the 80’s in professional services, managing finance and operations for small law firms. In the early 2000’s, I decided to obtain some client-facing experience so I accepted a position as a senior relationship manager and consultant in the bank card industry. I worked with community banks and credit unions providing portfolio consultation specific to long-term strategic planning and positioning. Read More>>
Jonathan Kroll
In 2005, after graduating with a master’s in university administration, I traveled to Nicaragua to serve as a volunteer English-language instructor for six months. In addition to teaching English, I facilitated leadership development program for the Language Center staff and students, local university students, and mid-managers of Ford subsidiary. Due to the interest in leadership education, I returned to Nicaragua once or twice a year for the last decade to continue these programs. Read More>>
Cristina Burwell
In 1984, a group of local artists repurposed a surplussed 1905 elementary school building as an arts center. With a charter, board, and this old town school building, the center began to offer space for dance, music and studio space for visual artists. This wonderful town resource has grown to include a ceramics studio, visual arts classes, theater and performing arts, community events, as well as over nine weeks of vacation programming in which many of the artists and educators have participated. Read More>>
Guy Gauvin
Kathleen Tefft and Guy Gauvin started East Coast Paddle Sports in 2014 as a mobile operation where customers would reserve their kayaks and paddleboards and we would deliver them to the customer’s location. That quickly changed when we were presented with the opportunity to have a waterfront presence in East Greenwich at Finn’s Harborside Restaurant. This is a wildly popular restaurant so we immediately had a strong customer base for rentals. Over the next two seasons we kept adding more equipment to meet the demand. Read More>>
Christine DiStefano
I worked in the payments industry for one year, and was employed by a company that would now be considered a competitor. I was twenty-five years old and it was my second job out of college. In my first month, I was a top-three producer on the sales team. I loved everything about the payments business, so I started attending industry trade shows and reading three trade journals every month. Read More>>
Jim Kelly
I left Galway, Ireland to come to America in October 1963. My wife Teresa was here 4 years before that at the young age of only 15. I met her at the State Ballroom in December of 1963, which was the thing to do back in those days. We both worked in airline industries for more than 20 years – she was at Eastern Airlines and I was at Aer Lingus. Read More>>
Malka Ahmed
I’ve always been interested in stories since I was a little girl, so it’s no surprise that I became a writer at an early age. (I went to college to study English Literature and Creative Writing). Writing stories, you see, is a lot like a time machine. It’s a way to preserve a moment, a feeling –it’s perhaps, the only way to return back to our memories. Read More>>
Dmitry Shevchenko
I came to US in 2004. I stayed in NH coast for a couple of years working for different construction companies there before the recession. I was lucky to work with really good teams on complex custom projects and gained a really good experience in both craftsmanship and crew management as an employee. A few years later two of my brothers came over from Russia to me and started working in the same field. Read More>>
Bill Paulson
I am a realtor covering Needham, Newton, and Wellesley. I have been a realtor since 2004. Before that I was in high tech for 20 years. I utilize my technology background to help me in my real estate career. I have grown my business to the point where I sold 18 homes in 2016 with an average sale price of $1m making me one of the top agents in Needham. My clients tell me in their reviews that they appreciate my attention to detail, calm demeanor, and ability to negotiate effectively on their behalf. Read More>>
Elizabeth Akincilar
Spurred on by our desire to make a difference in the arena of pelvic floor physical therapy, my business partner, Stephanie Prendergast, and I opened the doors to the first location of the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (PHRC) in San Francisco in July 2006. Today, over the last 10 years we have been heavily involved in teaching nationally and internationally to medical professionals and the community about pelvic floor disorders, we’ve contributed to several medical journals and medical text books, and have written our own book, Pelvic Pain Explained. As a company we’ve grown quite a bit. Read More>>
Jeff Hubbard
The idea of starting a helicopter company began years ago after I taught my business partner Monica how to fly. At first the conversation about opening our own helicopter company was just a pipe dream, but the more we chatted about it, the more it began to take shape. We started looking for an aircraft while applying for our FAA permitting and finalizing a detailed business plan. Read More>>
James Shiner
As a serial entrepreneur I’ve been running businesses since I was seven years old, my first being a lemonade stand of course. When I was around 11 years old my neighbor got AOL and I saw a website for the first time. I can’t really explain why but instead of thinking how cool this was (it was really cool) all I could think about was what made those websites work and how they were built. Read More>>>
Zina Aghdasi
Boston HypnoBirthing arose from the idea that quality education can help families make informed and empowered decisions for themselves and with their health care providers for positive perinatal outcomes. Too often, pregnancy, birth and infant feeding practices are dictated by a medical model of care that is focused almost exclusively on pathology and treatment. We treat these typically normal life processes as though they were illnesses or diseases, disregarding women’s preferences, comforts, belief systems, values, and lifestyles. Read More>>
Stuart Singer
For as long as I can remember I’ve had a passion for sport and for helping people. As a high school basketball player my coach handed out an article from a magazine about the use of visualization and how it helps sports performance. It immediately drew me in and sparked an interest. Fast forward a few years during my last semester of college I stumbled upon a job coaching middle school basketball. Read More>>
Dr Uma Dhanabalan
Dr. Dhanabalan is a highly respected physician trained in Family Medicine and Occupational & Environmental Medicine, a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a Diplomate Certified in Cannabinoid Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of Newark, New Jersey, Family Practice Residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston. Her Master’s in Public Health, Occupational & Environmental Medicine Residency and Fellowship in heavy metals at the Harvard School of Public Health. She has received the Resident Research Awards from the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine for her research project: “Occupational & Environmental Exposure to Lead in South India.” and from The 7th World Ayurveda Conference & Arogya Expo for presentation “Cannabis & The Therapeutic Uses” Read More>>
Suzana Alves, Noel and Debra Ciminello
Yes! We Van began on Nov 17, 2008 when we formed the only multi-van vanpool operating in the nation. We focused on the commuter, taking pride in nurturing, growing and maintaining a timely, cost efficient method of traveling from New Bedford, MA to Boston, MA for our local South Coast work force.In 2013, Yes! We Van applied those same principals providing professionals and vacationers reliable transportation to New Bedford, MA so they could travel on the Fast Ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Read More>>
Brennan White
My partner Matt Peters and I founded a social media agency 10 years ago – Pandemic Labs. We were the first social media agency in the country and worked with very cool, global brands and huge agencies. Every time we encountered a problem and thought “there should be software for this” we’d Google, we’d find a software addressing that problem, and we’d try it. Read More>>
Holly Lambert
Inspired by my five children; I began Harmony in 2003. Becoming a preschool teacher is a career change for me; but a natural progression, as I loved being home to raise my own young family. Before moving to Hanover in 1993 and becoming a full time mom: I was an accountant and evening law school student. Read More>>
Nancy Safran
Since 2008, I’ve worked with homeowners as an interior stylist. My first jobs were with my wonderful partner-mother who inspired my love of design. We worked together re-purposing client furnishings, showing homeowners how well a home could function specifically for their family. Read More>>
Brian and Beth Quinn
Q’s Nuts is a family business started in 2000 by husband and wife, Brian and Beth Quinn. Our business started as a third income as we both worked full time jobs and we were raising two children at the time. We had the idea that we wanted to have a small side business doing event roasting that would be flexible and could also involve our children in order to teach them the value of work and earning money and we used it as supplemental income for our family. Read More>>
Liz Witunsky
I went to Pedigree Career Institute in 1989 and graduated in January of 1990. I apprenticed under several grooming salons until I opened Poochies Dog Grooming in 1995 in Malden, MA. It was tough for a little while as I didn’t know the grooming shop that was there before me didn’t have the best reputation, but I stuck through it and let everyone know the salon was a new owner and name. Read More>>
Caitlin Isbister
I adore animals. I pretty much want to hug every cat and dog that I meet. After I graduated from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (Chicago) in 2008, I moved to Somerville and have treated humans with acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine since. Currently, my human practice is located at Kate Ruma & Associates Acupuncture in Arlington Center. Read More>>
Anna Strasnick
For several years my husband Rob and I had been sending our Golden Retriever, Noah, to a daycare that was located about 10 miles north of our home. It was between our home and my husband’s office, so transporting our boy back and forth was do-able. About 8 years ago my husband’s office moved from the North Shore into the city of Boston which was now about 12 miles south, while my work routinely took me west of our home. Suddenly, getting Noah to daycare became a more difficult commute. Read More>>
Jon Parsons
I moved to Boston from Brooklyn in 2010 to help run the beverage program for a new restaurant called Sam’s which was being opened by my brother, Drew, and my sister-in-law, Esti, on Fan Pier in the Seaport. We had a fantastic 5 years there as we saw the Seaport develop around us. In 2015, we finally found a location for our next restaurant which would allow myself to join in as an owner. Read More>>
Michael Cooney and John Paine
John and Michael worked together for several years in a restaurant in downtown Boston. They constantly ran ideas by each other talking about what they liked and disliked in restaurants in and around the Boston area. Simplicity, good service, high quality but not pretentious food and a fun atmosphere were constantly the themes of the conversation. Read More>>
Nicholas Paolucci
I grew up in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. I took drafting in high school and succeeded in math and art classes. I decided I wanted to be an architect and went to college at Auburn University in Alabama, which was ranked top ten architectural schools in the country. After five years, I graduated and moved home to RI in 2010. It was tough finding a job back then so it took me about six months to find an internship in Bristol, RI. Read More>>
Tristan Nguyen
Prior to 2016, I worked at medium to large companies and I would be one out of at least a dozen of other highly experienced CPA-level accountants that supported those companies with their accounting and finance. Accountants have a vital role to the success of any business. We are the ones watching over the financial health of the companies to keep the business running smoothly. We are also the ones working with company executives to create budgets and projections and to derive strategies to strengthen and grow the business. Read More>>
Dave Werthman
Before joining the Bancroft, Dave was a mainstay of the Boston bar scene for over a decade, working for years as the Bar Manager of cult favorite West Side Lounge in Cambridge before moving on to be the Beverage Director of The Sinclair in Harvard Square. He believes in a well-rounded approach to cocktails that combines warm hospitality with a commitment to excellence. Presenting an intense beverage program in the suburbs has definitely been a challenge, but a good challenge, introducing our guests to unusual liquors and spirits and combining tastes that they might not think would go together. Read More>>
Eli Angote
I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya and moved to Ypsilanti, MI for school in June 2000. I studied Computer Science and ended up switching to Economics but ended up moving to California before I finished. I worked in various sales roles at various startups before I ended up with a degree in Spanish from SFSU with plans to head to law school. Read More>>
Mike Clark
Mike Clark is a self-taught entrepreneur with over 13 years’ experience. He grew up in Worcester, MA and started learning about computers when he was in middle school. He spent many hours sitting at Barnes and noble reading various books on IT security. His first job was at a large medical company where he was responsible for connecting 43 dental laboratories together though secure tunnels. Read More>>
Tricia Tobey
Inspired by the details and plans on construction documents, I spent hours as a kid looking at drawings for buildings in Portsmouth that a neighbor, who was a developer, had at his house. That interest led to drafting classes in high school (only girl in the class!) and onward to college at Colorado State University for a degree in Interior Design and a minor in Construction Management. What I learned quickly, was that there are so many aspects to design, and I wanted to know them all. Read More>>
Alan Houghtaling
As with most things in life, at least mine, it has not been a point A to point B journey. After college, I had no clue as to what I wanted to do, and after doing some traveling and having a few jobs that were less than thrilling, I was at a loss as to what path I should venture down. I ultimately landed a job counseling at risk teens, and it was a decision that changed my life. Although it was supremely challenging, I discovered that connecting with kids, no matter their background, was something I was good at, and that it felt fulfilling. Read More>>
Erica Tomasello
CARE Resolutions, Inc. is a family owned and operated company that was founded in 1997 by Vicky Hunt, the current CEO’s mother, resulting from the compassionate, moving experience she had when providing care to her own mother. Her search for supplemental care to assist her with her mother, revealed at that time, there was a shortage of consistent, competent, affordable care agencies available. Having been a Social Worker for many years, Vicky was driven to address the problem by forming her own successful agency. Read More>>
Vanessa Schaefer
I’ve always been creative. Even as a very little girl I’d draw or paint every day. My mom wouldn’t buy clothes or dream homes for Barbie, I had to sew outfits and build houses and furniture, which was the most fun part of playing dolls for me anyway. I come from a line of entrepreneurial women. I’ve been told that my great grandmother created greeting card illustrations that dozens of women then copied by hand. Read More>>
Katie Dooley
I actually did not set out to be an Acupuncturist. During my undergrad, I had a huge interest in health and exercise, and worked for years in different parts of the fitness industry. It wasn’t until I graduated that I began to look into acupuncture, and then things moved very quickly! I was never a huge fan of taking lots of medications, and advocated for people working with their bodies, as oppose to against them. Read More>>
Gregory Costa – Saint John
In 2008, Gregory founded Flou(‑e)r with the goals of creating one-of-a-kind floral events and providing superior customer service. His commitment in serving one client at a time allows Flou(‑e)r to personalize each client’s vision and experience. The wealth of Gregory’s creative talent, strong production experience and commitment to excellence, is the driving force behind Flou(‑e)r. Read More>>
Jeff Sinkiewicz
I started in the food service at the age of 13 scrubbing baseboards for a local sub shop. I went on to Southeastern Regional to pursue Culinary Arts there after I went to Johnson and Wales. Because I went to a Vo-Tech for culinary, J & W had an advanced standing program that allowed me to take my freshman year in the summer months after graduation. Read More>>
Angelica Timas
I moved to Boston, USA as a teenager, where I completed high school, I’ve always had a passion for fashion I initially started college majoring in Fashion Designing but life circumstances offered me a detour, so I opted to pursue a major that I could obtain a job and a reasonable salary immediately after graduating. I earned two Master’s degrees in Professional Studies in Informatics and Computer Science though my plan to pursue her PH.D in the same field was place on hold when I decided to pursue my passion for fashion. Read More>>
Tricia Ramanauskas
I started working part time in a local optical shop when I was 16. I continued apprenticing there while I was in college studying to be a journalist. It was recommended to me to study for the optician’s exam as a fall back. By the time I graduated college, I was already working as an optician and loving it. Fast forward 30 years and I am still in the field. Read More>>
Christopher G. Gallo
Mark and Chris were High School friends who lost touch during the college years but got re acquainted by a mutual friend who noticed that they both were doing similar projects in Real Estate Investment and Development. Mark and Chris met for a coffee and noticed that they had very similar goals, values, and business models and thought they should try doing a deal together. One 2 family in Brockton on Denton St turned into a 100+ building 400+ unit Real estate Portfolio servicing the Boston South, South Shore, South Coast markets. Read More>>
Jeff Barry
I was born in Boston and grew up in Providence, RI. I’ve always had a strong interest in small business (my dad ran his own business based in RI), but also wanted to do something that had a positive impact on the environment. In 1995, after college, two years as a Peace Corps volunteer and grad school at Tufts studying environmental economics and business, I moved out to San Francisco. While out there, I subscribed to a service very similar to Boston Organics. Read More>>
