People, Place, & Purpose

Elaine Hamel is the Founder and Executive Director of Girls at Work, a nonprofit whose mission is “to empower girls with tools, unleashing their power and potential to accomplish anything,” and truly, empowering others is her life’s work. From Elaine’s roots in renovations and contracting, to dreams of solving our housing shortage and homeless challenges, to replicating Girls At Work worldwide, sh...

Brandon Chrostowski is the Founder, President & CEO of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute based in Cleveland Ohio. If you were visiting Cleveland and happened upon his restaurant, you might think it’s just a traditional French restaurant, but in fact, it’s a 501c3 nonprofit focused on providing education, training, and support for those who are formerly incarcerated. After training a...

Tyler and Medina Gauthier are husband and wife and the co-owners of Mint Printworks based in Nashua, New Hampshire. When a spontaneous move from New England to Hawaii came to an end and they found themselves back in New Hampshire, they decided to start a print shop. From its roots in the attic of their house to a now official space in a historic mill building where they also employ 10 other people...

Melinda Williamson was born and raised in Kansas, is of Native American descent, and had dreams of being an entrepreneur all the way back to when she was in the 4th grade and started a house cleaning business through hand drawing a flyer complete with her school picture taped on it and handing out photocopies around town. While her professional career was primarily based in academia doing research...

Tyler Ray is the Principal of Backyard Concept, the umbrella organization for Frontyard Law, Granite Backcountry Alliance, and Granite Outdoor Alliance – all focused on supporting outdoor recreation and helping to promote and advocate for the economic benefits of the industry. He escaped the traditional world of practicing law to live and work where he also wants to play in the outdoors. Offline T...

Corinne Milien is the proud daughter of Haitian immigrants, and thus a first-generation American, now calling Cumming, Georgia home. After serving in the United States Air Force, Corinne worked for Pat Summit and the University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Team, ESPN, and eventually co-founded and led the non-profit, the Winning Edge Leadership Academy. Now she is forging her own trail in the f...

Ryan Barton is the Founder and CEO of Mainstay Technologies, a full IT and Information Security provider for small and medium sized businesses in Northern New England. And while it has now been 18 years and his team has grown to about 80 people, he says he actually started the business by accident. In our conversation, Ryan shares more about the business and his journey, but we also talk a lot abo...

Despite thinking, when she was younger, that she would never end up staying in her hometown of Allegan, Michigan, Landria Johnson now runs her very popular headband company, The Sassy Olive, from her hometown. They’re located downtown in a 12,000 sq foot historic building she owns, and where she now employs 22 additional people. In this episode, Landria talks about the challenges of starting a bus...

Amanda Osmer is the Fourth Generation Steward of Grappone Automotive Group, which includes five new car dealerships (Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Ford, and Hyundai), used cars, wholesale parts, and service, but Amanda both isn’t a car person, nor is she motivated by money, and yet, she wakes up every morning excited to get to go to work and absolutely loves what she does. With her 25 years at Grappone sh...

Suzelle Snowden is the Founder and President of Fit Bodies, and when she’s not living out of a suitcase and jet-setting around the world, she lives in northeast Kentucky. Suzelle is an incredible spark of energy and after listening to her story and her consistent drive to try new things, it probably won’t surprise you that she has been a certified fitness instructor since 1986, spanning time, a wi...

Dr. Kelly Parker-Mello is the Physician and Owner at Tailored Pediatric Medicine in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a direct primary care practice. Discovering her love of anatomy and physiology in high school put Kelly on the path to becoming a doctor. She has always been a go-getter – marrying her high school sweetheart, getting a puppy, buying a house, and starting medical school, all in a two-month...

Laura Barnard is from the suburbs of Chicago and after a couple of times venturing down paths, she felt like she “should” take (taking the LSAT, law school admission test, thinking she would be a sports agent ala Jerry Maguire, going into the family home building business), she discovered a passion for marketing. In the marketing realm, she had the opportunity to work on cool brands like Skittles...

Mariah Morgan lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and arrived there by way of Texas, Connecticut, and San Francisco. She’s the founder and principal at Stout Heart, which recently celebrated its 7th anniversary of being in business. Stout Heart is a full-service creative marketing agency serving "brave brands," centered around building relationships, and focused on those who are driven b...

Elyssa Alfieri is the owner of Lilise Designer Resale, also known as LDR, and she’s the founder of her own clothing line, Inclination, which she describes as “elevated basics with a dash of vintage and estate jewelry, curated for each season.” Elyssa is a social media maven, super community minded, and incredibly generous with her infectious energy and positive attitude. When we joke about bringin...

Crustology is a direct-to-consumer, handmade, Midwest-style, cracker crust pizza crust company created in Waukesha, Wisconsin about 30 minutes outside Milwaukee, owned by a brother-sister duo. Chris Miller has a marketing background by education and previously owned a company selling private-label sodas to bars and restaurants. Anne Cookson has a degree in farm management and managed horse farms f...

Javion Blake is originally from Montego Bay, Jamaica and by way of Montana, New Mexico, and other spots, now resides in Colorado. He’s an engineer by training, and as he said, that allowed him to learn “how to use the resources around you to create the things you want to see,” which is exactly what he has done in starting Jus Chill International. They’re importing breadfruit from Jamaica and turni...

Johanna Voss has a background working on political campaigns, operations, nutrition coaching, and has leveraged all of that experience, plus her desire to build relationships with those around her, into the business she launched in 2016 as a Talent Manager & Agent for Female Social Media Influencers + Bloggers. Johanna’s role is one that is still fairly new and perhaps a bit mysterious, but yo...

Jenny Cheifetz is former baking company and food truck solopreneur who baked to order from her home commercial kitchen providing sweet treats (including some delicious sounding s’mores cupcakes) for corporate events, celebrations of life, birthday parties, food truck events, and a variety of other happenings but she continually grappled with how to balance the wants and needs of her clients with t...

Pete Colman is the owner of Vermont Salumi and AR Market, both located in Barre, Vermont. Pete was born in Italy and moved to VT early in life. He spent summers in Umbria, Italy, and the rest of his growing up years on Cate Farm, an organic plant and produce farm in Plainfield, Vermont. Pete has a healthy appetite for food, of course, but also for business and hands-on learning. In many ways, Pete...

Kristin Hardwick is a New Hampshire native, and what I would call a "multipreneur." Different than a serial entrepreneur, as she has not just had multiple, successive entrepreneurial ventures, but multiple ventures at the same time – triplets, as we speak - a photography business, a coworking space, and a new personal assistant company. During our conversation, I really appreciate Kristi...

Lloyd Ahlquist, also known as EpicLLOYD, is a childhood friend of mine who was a gymnast through middle school, high school, and he started college for gymnastics, but eventually stepped away from the mat. Lloyd took that hard work and determination he learned being a gymnast and put it into his life as an entertainer – an improv comedian, actor, writer, an internet personality, a freestyle rapper...

Krysta Lewis is a licensed esthetician, certified makeup artist, and the founder and CEO of Aisling Organic. After suffering health issues caused by her makeup, at 21 years old, Krysta dove headfirst into the world of entrepreneurship and started Aisling focused on clean, organic products with botanically-based ingredients. Her dedication not just to the world of clean beauty products, but also to...

Kate Fosson is the Co-Founder and “Brand Hunter” of Brand Pollinators whose mission is “Inspiring purpose-driven brands to achieve sustainable excellence through values-driven consulting, relevant resource sharing, and high-impact networking.” Her life as a military spouse includes moving to another part of the country about every two years and in some ways, entrepreneurship found her as a means t...

John Mortimer is the Owner and Founder of Millennium Running. John was a runner in high school and college, eventually had a professional running career with Reebok and Adidas, went on to coach at the college level, and eleven years ago, out of both necessity and a passion for the sport, started a running company. Millennium Running hosts signature road races and triathlons, has a retail store, a...

Amy McCoy is the Creative Director, Illustrator, and Founder of Tiny Farmhouse based in southeastern Massachusetts, right near the Rhode Island border. She has spent her career as a Freelance Broadcast Producer, but loves being an artist, traveling, growing her own food and raising animals, spending time in nature, and thinking about sustainability. In this episode, she references numerous times h...