Success Stories
Below are some Success Stories illustrating how ACEDC can partner with your business to ensure success.
Special thanks to The Addison County Independent 为2020年ACEDC成功故事系列的原始出版提供支持.
Table of Contents
A "Sweet" Success Story: V. Smiley Preserves & MiniFactory
Agricola Meats: Panton's Farm Agricola Meats正在扩张
Update: Agricola Meats Successfully Completes Kickstarter Campaign for Equipment to Expand Production
Bristol Bakery & caf
Birchmore Sales & 服务:贷款计划促进当地技工
尚普兰果园建立一个更好的甜甜圈操作与英国地质勘查局赠款
ACEDC secured a $15,000 BGS Building Community Grant to enable Champlain Orchards in Shoreham to install a new hood and fryer for their (delicious) donut operation, and move it from their farm market to a commercial space where they also pack apples and make sweet cider. Champlain Orchards manages over 220 acres of fruit trees that includes over 115 varieties of apples as well as plums, peaches, nectarines, European and Asian Pears, raspberries, cherries, and currants. 除了种水果和炸甜甜圈, 他们制作甜酒和烈性苹果酒，并在现场烤馅饼, 并在他们的农场市场上提供各种当地产品. 他们的季节性苹果酒园特色本地采购的食物和饮料, 还有适合成人和儿童的活动.
Treeline Terrains: Three friends grow a custom map art business from a Middlebury College dorm room to a 5,000 square foot workshop
Treeline Terrains creates unique 3D map artwork that celebrates the founders’ appreciation of the natural world. Alex Gemme, Nathaniel Klein, and Jacob Freedman started their business journey while they were students at Middlebury College. 三个人都希望毕业后留在佛蒙特州, 所以他们在2021年4月成立了树线地形公司. 随着时间的推移，他们为自己建立了一个名字，对他们产品的需求也在增长. They moved to a larger shop, invested in more equipment and advertising, and grew some more. 随着需求的持续增长和另一个假日季节的临近, Alex, 纳撒尼尔和雅各布意识到他们需要更多的设备来满足需求. 通过艾迪森县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网, they were able to secure a BGS (Buildings and General Services) grant that allowed them to effectively double their machinery and keep up with an ever-increasing volume of orders.
Establishing and building their business in Vermont provided these three young men the work-life balance they desired, allowing them to enjoy Vermont’s varied recreational opportunities when the workday is done.
“Being a small business, 这真的很难开始，让你的脚离开地面,” Alex told us. “We just want to say thank you to everybody who’s helped us get to where we are here. There’s so many people in this tight-knit community that helped us get off the ground. So that’s why the story started here in Vermont on the slopes and why we stay here in Vermont and kept our business here throughout all of the different steps and journeys as we’ve grown from literally in a college dorm room to a 5,000 square foot workshop.”
A "Sweet" Success Story: V. Smiley Preserves & MiniFactory
V. Smiley Preserves 制作蜂蜜甜蜜饯，强调芳香和地区水果. Owner V. 斯迈利2013年在西雅图创业，2015年搬到佛蒙特州. MiniFactory，于2022年开业，是V. 佛蒙特州布里斯托尔的Smiley蜜饯店. 它也作为咖啡馆和餐厅经营, 菜单上“强调所有蜜饯能带来光亮的地方”, or a depth, to a dish.”
Owner V. 斯迈利一直都知道她的优势在于营销, design, and flavor creation, 这个行业的“数字方面”对她来说是一个更大的挑战, so she was excited to learn that 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 could help her with that aspect of her business. She was impressed by ACEDC’s friendly approach and vested interest in the local economy. She worked closely with ACEDC Executive Director Fred Kenney to come up with a game plan to make her vision of MiniFactory a reality.
ACEDC assisted V. Smiley和MiniFactory有一个商业计划和预测, 帮助建立财务堆栈，并将贷款人召集到一个会议上, and ultimately made a loan of $50,000, 利率和条款都很诱人.
Agricola Meats
潘顿——几年来，我养了二十几头猪, 作为一个业余农场主，他试图在当地销售猪肉, Alessandra Rellini knew two things: she needed to get bigger to make her business work and she needed some help from a person who had expertise in the field.
So, she wrote a classified ad for a farm assistant and sent it afar on a wing and a prayer.
As fate would have it, the ad reached Stefano Pinna, who had just finished his Masters degree in Agricultural Science at the University of Torino in Italy and was looking to travel to see how people farmed around the world. He was offered a position in Kenya but passed that up when he saw the advertisement for the position on an Italian farm in the middle of Vermont raising livestock on pastures using Italian traditions. 他决定通过毕业后的工作签证来佛蒙特州.
以他在土壤科学和动物福利方面的知识, the two formed a partnership and began growing the farm with a focus on sustainable farming.
“我知道我需要成长，而我没有接受过正式的农业培训，”雷利尼说. “So, I put out an advertisement for a farm assistant to grow my little farm team and somehow it arrived to him [Pinna] in Italy… We went from a smaller farm to a much more developed farm.”
HOBBY TO A BUSINESS
2012年，作为一种爱好，Relinni开始了这个占地56英亩的农场，养了20头猪, a dozen sheep, and around 40 chickens. She loved the farm life but knew to develop it as a business she had to seek a farm assistant who had more knowledge about farming and finding a marketable niche.
It’s been working.
现在他们养了160-180头猪，一些冰岛羊，鸭，鸡. 他们还种植各种意大利蔬菜和草药. Most recently, they’ve ventured into the cured meats industry with the help of the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 (ACEDC). They now have a full-time and a part-time employee at the Middlebury plant as well as themselves at the farm. They recently received a $200,000 grant to help market and expand sales of their cured meat largely with the help of the ACEDC.
“我们坚信自己加工肉类的重要性, because you learn more as a farmer,” said Rellini. “拥有自己的设施的成本, however, is really high and, for us, 只吃鲜肉是无法生存的.” The grant, she said, 这是允许他们向那个方向扩张农场的关键部分吗.
Rellini做腌肉已经好几年了. Up until 2018, Rellini processed cured meats on a smaller scale at the Mad River Food Hub in nearby Waitsfield. During that time she heard about a training grant through the ACEDC and decided to look into it. 尽管她最终没有申请资助, Rellini said this is how she became connected to the ACEDC and its executive director, Fred Kenney, 是谁鼓励她从事腌肉生意的.
“I heard about a training grant, 国家给你钱，让你支付更多员工的部分工资. I wanted to learn about it. I didn’t qualify, 但他们(ACEDC)没有让我走,” said Rellini, “他们说，‘你们不是在做腌肉吗, 因为你真的应该赚更多.’”
A year later, Kenney and the ACEDC helped Rellini and Pinna establish their current meat processing facility at 656 Exchange Street in Middlebury, in the town’s industrial park, and provided them with business advice and application assistance for some of the loans and grants they’ve received. Most recently, Agricola Farm won a $200,000 USDA/Rural Development grant, to which the ACEDC made a $20,000 loan as part of the match. Rellini said loans such as this one provided the capital needed to afford necessary equipment and rent at a time when their growing business wasn’t yet profitable.
The Rural Development grant was in addition to an earlier regional economic development grant of $14,000; a Working Land Grant of $50,000; and a Vermont Community Loan Fund SPROUT loan of $60,000. With that money, they’ve purchased, among many other things, 两个意大利进口帕加尼烤漆柜, two aging chambers, a meat grinder and a meat stuffer. 最近的赠款还为市场营销和销售工作提供资金, while the $14,000 award helped them renovate, 改造和装备交换街的设施.
肯尼表示自己愿意努力工作, create an adaptable business plan and stay persistent were qualities that made them good candidates for the grants.
“We noticed in Alessandra and Stefano a persistence and an ability to overcome adversity and roadblocks,” Kenney said. “Even before COVID, they showed that they had what it takes to succeed with a start-up and then during COVID they continued to pivot to make it work. We encouraged their pursuit of pork products cured in the Italian tradition because they exhibited the talent and know-how to bring this new product to a marketplace that is demonstrating demand for locally produced cured meat products.“
肯尼还指出，在拨款审批过程中，时机至关重要.
“Agricola Meats, and the needs they had at the time, made them eligible for the grants. 也就是说，时机往往很关键。. “… they were willing to put in the hard work to generate basic business documents and complete the applications. Two key elements: be willing (and persistent enough) to do the work up front to generate a good business plan, business projections, and a project budget; and stay in touch with ACEDC so that as grant and loan programs become available, 我们可以将项目和计划结合起来.”
MAKING IT POSSIBLE
For their part, Rellini and Pinna were just grateful for the financial assistance to make growing possible.
“Cured meats take a long time, 而你的肉要等六个星期才能卖出去,” said Rellini. “Those grants have allowed us to get to know the facility and get to know the new equipment to then have a higher quality product.”
Going forward, Agricola农场希望建立一个州外的消费者基础, as the market for cured meats in Vermont is not large enough to support their business. Rellini said Agricola Meats has already begun selling its products in specialty stores throughout Vermont and Massachusetts, 并计划继续向餐馆和专卖店销售, in particular, throughout the region.
“我们的目标是餐馆，但更多的是专卖店，”雷利尼说. “Stefano has contacted many of the specialty stores in Vermont, but we can still expand.”
Producing cured meats also allows Rellini and Pinna to support local farmers by purchasing pork at a premium. 雷利尼说，他们目前的目标是能够支持至少12个当地农场.
而Rellini和Pinna是商业伙伴, over the past five years they have expanded their business to include a large social component. 他们在社区内举办晚宴, sell specialty foods, and with the new curing and processing plant they hope to bring even more high-quality foods to the region as a way to share part of their Italian culture with the community while growing as a business.
Pinna summed up their five years together on the farm succinctly and with insight into what’s to come.
“After several months of working together we realized we were more than business partners and our values, 面对困难的目标和方法完美地契合在一起. 我们在所有方面都互补。.
“So we decided we wanted to continue our path together and build something bigger than our farm, something that could tie our cultural heritage with our passion for sustainable agriculture, 这就变成了蒙蒂·威尔第的Salumi, a meat manufacturing facility that specializes in the production of cured meats such as salame, but soon also pancetta, guanciale and coppa. A facility that leverages the value added of pastured pork raised in Vermont and is able to pay a premium to farmers allowing them to engage in sustainable agricultural practices.”
Agricola Meats Successfully Completes Kickstarter Campaign for Equipment to Expand Production
Alessandra Rellini and Stefano Pinna, ACEDC members and owners of Agricola Farm and Agricola Meats (Monti Verdi Salumi), 一直在努力照顾他们的土地和动物吗, processing and curing their meat, AND raising much-needed funds to purchase equipment that will enable them to expand their product offerings and production at their facility in Middlebury.
Their successful Kickstarter campaign raised over $33K in two weeks. These funds will be used as matching funds for a Vermont Working Lands Initiative grant and will allow Agricola to offer a wider variety of cured meats, including coppa, guanciale, prosciuttini, pancetta, and lonzino.
Alessandra and Stefano are quick to acknowledge the help they’ve received from the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网, 包括帮助他们发展业务的建议和专业知识. “我知道，如果没有他们，我们就做不到，”雷雷尼说. “小企业可利用的资源之多绝对令人震惊, but the point is, 你认识他们所有人吗，你们之间有什么联系吗? 当你到了不知道该做什么的时候, that’s the time when you probably should reach out to the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 because they can give you great advice.”
Bristol Bakery & Café Wholesale
BRISTOL 1977年，凯文·哈珀(Kevin Harper)作为一个满怀希望的企业家开始创业, 在他位于里普顿的厨房里制作有机唇部产品. Over the next 24 years, 哈珀将他的想法扩展为后来的“秋竖琴”, 一家拥有超过75名全职员工、价值数百万美元的公司.
1982年，Autumn Harp从哈珀的厨房搬到了一个更大的地方, 十年后又回到了布里斯托尔松树街的一家机构. Finally in 2010, Autumn Harp Incorporated and moved to its current location in Essex Junction.
虽然哈珀很高兴看到他的创业公司的发展, 他最终决定在2001年将公司出售给现任所有者, David Logan.
“24年是很长的一段时间，”哈珀在最近的一次采访中说. “我50岁了，想要改变. It was time to give myself and my investors a return on their investments and for me to try something else.”
哈珀的新项目是接管布里斯托尔主街上的布里斯托面包店, 并在海因斯堡开了另一家分店. 在他经营布里斯托面包店的时候, Harper decided to open a commercial-grade bakery in a portion of what had been the Autumn Harp facility on Bristol’s Pine Street.
2010年，哈珀与其他三家当地投资者合作购买了这5家公司.5英亩的商业空间，并重新开发该物业.
此后，哈珀担任Bristol Works的管理合伙人!, a project aimed at transforming the former Autumn Harp campus into a business park. Harper began leasing a 12,500-square-foot portion of this facility in 2010 and transformed it into a commissary kitchen.
The location at 74 Munsill Ave. 最初是用来为哈珀餐厅供应烘焙食品的, though over time the commissary expanded to serve other institutions throughout the state before becoming a private label production company.
BAKERY TO PRIVATE LABEL
Harper explained the transition from supplying his restaurants to a standalone business.
“我们(有好几年)是给自己的餐厅供货的小卖部。, 然后我们是一家批发面包店，卖给汉纳福德, Middlebury College,” he said. “A few years ago we committed to what’s generally referred to as a private label manufacturing business in the baked goods category.”
哈珀的公司更名为布里斯托面包店批发公司, though the company is currently looking to rebrand after Harper sold the Bristol Bakery & 11月初，亨斯堡的咖啡馆将迎来新主人.
“称这家批发工厂为‘布里斯托面包店’有点名不副实,” said Harper, noting that the company is currently raising funds in part to finance this rebranding mission.
The switch from commissary kitchen to private label company was made in part due to the challenges of running a commercial bakery. 为了跟上面包店的需求, employees needed to work long hours through the night to supply his two bakeries for the breakfast rush and Harper struggled to find people willing to do the work.
Making the switch to private label manufacturing allowed Harper’s employees to work easier hours and specialize in making specific types of baked goods.
布里斯托面包店批发选择专门从事饼干和饼干, 公司的第一个客户是卡斯尔顿饼干, 一家位于卡斯尔顿的夫妻店. 批发设施继续与小, 家族企业遍布新英格兰, but Harper said ultimately Bristol Bakery Wholesale needed to expand past working with small businesses in order to grow.
LOOKING FOR GROWTH
“在2019年，我很清楚，他们是伟大的友谊和关系, but we’re not making any money,这位69岁的企业主说. “我们非常专注于寻找更高层次的客户. 资金状况较好的公司, that can afford to grow, 他们的交易量已经很高，有机会继续走得更高.”
Today, 布里斯托面包店批发更专门从事非传统的, gluten-free baked goods. The choice to do so was made in part because the gluten-free baked goods market is less competitive than its gluten counterpart, and Bristol Bakery Wholesale is able to offer its customers ingredients that are non-GMO certified and organic.
在向自有品牌制造业转型四年后, Harper says Bristol Bakery Wholesale is growing rapidly and looking to hire more employees.
“We now have manufacturing contracts with some very fast-growing brands and we are reconfiguring our entire facility with additional automation in order to meet these needs. We will likely be tripling our sales in 2021 and have grown to over 40 staff already,” Harper said. “We are currently raising capital to accommodate that growth trajectory and are hoping to attract additional staff members in the near future to grow with us.”
Due to this growth, the bakery has had to purchase additional equipment to keep up with the demand. 哈珀说，该业务已经转向自动化, purchasing machines to do the monotonous tasks that were previously done by employees. 需要训练有素的机器操作员与这些机器一起工作, 哈珀表示，他正在寻找能够胜任这一角色的员工.
“在购买(袋装)机器之前，我们是手工填充托盘的. You have to take 15, or however many, cookies, fit them on a tray, and you put it on a scale,” said Harper. “自动化是我们最终的答案, as is a more sophisticated, 想要学习这些东西的专业人员.”
EXPENSIVE MACHINERY/USEFUL GRANTS
The machinery needed to automate Bristol Bakery Wholesale’s assembly line is expensive, but Harper and his team had built a solid relationship with one of their customers who gave them a commitment to a certain volume of baked goods and agreed to pay 30 percent upfront to help finance the pouch-filling machine.
That commitment gave Harper the confidence needed to invest in other equipment through help from the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 (ACEDC). ACEDC以15美元赢得了哈珀的生意,000 Buildings and General Services (BGS) grant from the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services’ Building Communities Program.
These grant funds must be used “for capital and construction improvements that support Vermont towns and regions,” an easy goal for the bakery as their rapid growth has created increased value in its buildings as well as added employees.
A ROLE FOR ACEDC
“The business was a good candidate for the BGS grant because they are an established business with a growth plan that involved specific capital investments (renovations and equipment) that would make the business more competitive and able to add jobs,” explained Fred Kenney, executive director of the ACEDC. “Again, timing was key. 他们有一个资本投资的要求在赠款开始可用的时候.”
Harper’s firm also tapped the Restart VT Technical Assistance program and direct consulting services through the ACEDC. This collaboration has provided professional consulting for Harper’s business in terms of accounting, 财务管理和持续流程改进或精益管理.
Harper said ACEDC’s help setting up Quickbooks Enterprise for bookkeeping has been particularly helpful. The software allows the firm to keep track of incoming demand, inventory and invoices. Introducing the software system, however, 这是一个漫长的过程，哈珀认为ACEDC提供了关键的帮助, 尤其是伊丽莎白·伯丁, the ACEDC’s director of finance.
The new bookkeeping system has been extremely helpful this year when huge losses were followed by steep jumps in business.
“It is the pandemic that has caused such a surge in demand for the ‘better-for-you’ snacks that we produce and the online purchasing that has become the preferred way to buy these specialty food products,” said Harper. “今年5月，我们经历了历史上最糟糕的一个月，销售额下降了80%. 然后琼回来了，比以往任何时候都好, and then July was bigger, August was bigger, 9月和10月的数据仍然很高.”
FUTURE SEEMS BRIGHT
Looking ahead, Harper said he is hoping to hire more employees to help with the growth they’re experiencing. Harper said above all, 他可以为员工提供与公司一起成长和学习关键技能的机会.
“我认为我们最大的卖点不是我们的薪酬或福利, 因为我们的福利很少，因为我们还负担不起. 这是一个成长为职业的机会。. “We have a dozen or so people who are learning and they’ll take that wherever they want to go. They can get a job anywhere.”
Birchmore Sales & Service
ADDISON - At age 14, Jacob Birchmore began working on cars just a mile down the road from where he would open his own shop in Addison, Birchmore Sales & Service, seven years later.
向Justin Almedia学习, 艾迪森的柴油机械师和Just Fix It的老板, 伯奇莫尔说，这些早期的经历开始了他对汽车机械的热爱.
“I enjoyed the fact that there was always a different job to be done and so much to learn, 然后是工作完成后的满足感,” said Birchmore.
Throughout high school, Birchmore continued to work on cars through the Future Farmers of America’s AG Mechanics program at Vergennes Union High School. 2016年从VUHS毕业后, Birchmore went on to study automotive and diesel mechanics at Universal Technical Institute in Norwood, Mass.
拥有并经营自己的汽车机械店一直是伯奇莫尔计划的一部分, though achieving that goal took several years before opening his shop this past January.
“高中时，我的目标一直是拥有自己的生意和商店. Once I finished school at UTI, I started making a plan to start the business and looking around for properties to purchase, 在艾迪森县很难找到合适的地点,” said Birchmore. But first, he needed money so he went to work at New England Kenworth dealership in Shelburne where he spent the next couple years learning more about mechanics.
虽然花了一段时间才找到合适的长期空间, 2018年10月，Birchmore开始在艾迪生租一家店. Doing so allowed him to pursue his own business two days a week while still working at Kenworth. 伯奇莫尔继续这样布置了一年, 但他说，他最终渴望能够自由安排自己的工作日.
“在肯沃斯，即使我想工作更长时间，我们也不得不停工. I couldn’t work longer and I wanted to put in more hours,” said the 23-year-old mechanic.
While pursuing both jobs, 伯奇莫尔也一直在寻找一个他可以称之为自己的设施, 但为任何地方融资都是一个巨大的障碍.
That’s where help from the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 (ACEDC) allowed Birchmore to get his business up and running. Birchmore contacted Fred Kenney, executive director of the ACEDC, in February of 2019. Kenney was able to refer Birchmore to the ACEDC’s Vermont Small Business Development Center (VTSBDC) advisor and get the young entrepreneur the help he needed to apply for a loan.
“你不能就这么跳进来申请贷款. 你必须有一个商业计划和预测，”肯尼解释说. “I referred him to our VTSBDC advisor to help him develop a business plan and projections. 一旦他们知道了这些，我们就可以开始和他合作融资了.”
Together the ACEDC and VTSBDC advisor Sarah Kearns helped Birchmore get in contact with potential lenders, 完成商业计划和预测, and set up his Quickbook files. Kenney said this collaboration with the VTSBDC was part of what made Birchmore’s project a good candidate for an ACEDC loan.
“尽管这是一个年轻人创办的公司, the project was a good fit because Jacob had worked with SBDC to produce a business plan and projections, 他有一些股权可以为这个项目捐款, 这个项目有足够的抵押品, 雅各布以前做兼职时，有一大批客户, 他表示，他愿意努力工作，使企业取得成功,” said Kenney.
TERMS OF THE DEAL
伯奇莫尔从ACEDC获得了5万美元的贷款，利率为5%. 但这笔贷款不能用于住宅物业, Birchmore was able to get a mortgage through the National Bank of Middlebury to purchase a farmhouse he had found in Addison. 这栋四居室的农舍位于泽西南街1513号，有一座独立车库, 非常适合伯奇莫尔的新店. ACEDC的贷款被用来给他的新空间装轮胎机, car lift, and other necessary equipment.
伯奇莫尔说:“把设备弄到这里是件大事. “没有它就无法创业,” explaining that the shop he had been renting came equipped and he knew he had to be able to buy equipment of his own. 伯奇莫尔说:“在商店里摆满这些设备很快就会变得昂贵起来. “I had my toolbox and that was it, so everything else I bought once I had the shop together.”
With the help of the ACEDC loan, Birchmore converted the 1,700平方英尺的车库搬进了他的新店，带着他的狗搬进了农舍, Peyton. Birchmore Sales & Service has been open full time since January 2020, and Birchmore said he’s been keeping busy.
“With mechanic work you always get a couple of slow weeks and then you pick right back up,” he said. “这总是一年中最繁忙的时候，冬季轮胎和现在的底漆. I’ve been staying pretty busy.”
Since opening Birchmore Sales & Service, 当地社区很快就支持了他们自己的一个, 在朋友和家人的鼓励下, 还有一个拥有300多名粉丝的Facebook主页, 他第一年就接待了很多新客户. Looking ahead, Birchmore said his current goal is to hire at least one employee to help mitigate some of the challenges he faces running the business by himself.
“我希望有其他人和我一起工作，”伯奇莫尔说. “There are a lot of challenges I have being in here alone, where it takes two people to do something. 现在我正在即兴发挥，想和一个人一起工作,他补充说，即使面临这些挑战, 他对这一举动感到高兴，并为发展自己的业务感到兴奋.
Wooden Hammer
MONKTON — Ben Raphael’s passion for woodworking began long before he started Monkton-based Wooden Hammer, 他的木工生意，专门定制橱柜和家具.
As a young boy, 拉斐尔在潘顿附近他童年的家附近的树林里建造了树屋, 痴迷于搭乐高项目——这是关键的经历, he said, 这让他爱上了建筑和木工.
“当我还是个孩子的时候，我总是喜欢建造东西, 当然是从积木和乐高积木开始,” said Raphael, who also credited his father, David Raphael, 是谁创立并经营了米德尔伯里的Landworks几十年, 给我灌输了对建筑的热爱. “我喜欢帮助爸爸完成他一直在做的各种项目, like building bridges for his network of cross-country skiing trails” out behind his Panton home.
Raphael, now 39, graduated from Vergennes Union High School in 2000, then went to Colby College. 他对建筑的热情一直持续到成年, 与他的文学抱负相竞争, 为《新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网》(Skiing)等杂志写文章, Backpacking and Men’s Journal. 但他发现久坐不动的写作方式并不适合他, he said, and he got back into building things as a full-time builder in the Boston area for three years.
“I worked fairly briefly for a couple of different contractors before starting a business with a friend, who was a house painter, doing painting and light carpentry. We worked our way up to some pretty big renovation jobs that involved custom built-ins and cabinets,” recalled Raphael, adding that he enjoyed the jobs involving custom cabinetry so much that they soon would become his focus for his own business.
He started Wooden Hammer in 2009.
“那时我也在做装修工作. But I really loved shop-work in particular, and I tried to get jobs that involved that,” he said.
木锤公司成立六年后, 拉斐尔决定让木工项目成为他的专长.
“我决定，我宁愿把时间花在自己的店里，而不是在工地上, 所以我慢慢地过渡到只做橱柜和家具. 我真的很喜欢店里受控的环境, 在那里我可以把所有的工具都设置好. And I love the puzzle of building different kinds of cabinets and furniture with different requirements for joinery, etc.”
As his business grew, Raphael hired an assistant and built a workshop on his property in Monkton. 虽然他原本打算把这家店作为一个长期的店面, his business eventually outgrew it, 2017年，他开始寻找搬迁的地方.
“That was supposed to be my forever home, but then I just kept growing,” said Raphael. “我可能已经找了至少两年的新地方. 我真的很想找个合适的地方.”
拉斐尔在2019年4月找到了理想的空间, after 10 months of renovations, moved in this past February. 这座位于蒙克顿路140号的建筑早在10年前就吸引了拉斐尔的眼球, but it wasn’t until the property was relisted on the market in 2019 that the timing worked out and Raphael was ready to take the leap.
“当我第一次在自己的地产上开这家店时，这栋楼也在出售. 在那个时候，我真的觉得我不能再买一栋楼了, 但我一直梦想着它,” he said. “So when I saw this place come back on the market, I was really excited about it and made it happen.”
A BIG TRANSITION
The shop was originally a creamery, 然后作为镇上的回收中心和车库, and finally was a storage shed for a roofing company just before Raphael purchased it. After closing on the property in September 2019, Raphael began the necessary renovations.
Grants and loans through the 艾迪生县新葡京娱乐新葡京博彩官网 (ACEDC) were essential to converting, then moving into, the 2,848-square-foot space.
“This was a huge project,” he said. “我花在装修上的钱比买这栋楼的钱还多. It didn’t have any windows. It was down to the studs. 至于电，几乎只有一个灯泡和一个插座.”
The ACEDC helped Raphael finance renovations for Wooden Hammer in addition to receiving a $15,600 Buildings and General Services (BGS) grant from the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services’ Building Communities Program. Businesses must use the grant “for capital and construction improvements that support Vermont towns and regions.” Raphael said Wooden Hammer qualified for the grant by providing more jobs and by creating a demand for local lumber.
“Growing my business will support local businesses because we buy all of our lumber from the local lumber yards in Bristol, 扩张的一部分是为了让我雇佣更多的人, which it has,” said Raphael.
他的新店可以轻松容纳四个人, 这将是一个很紧的挤, if not impossible, in the old shop.
“Ben’s project was a good candidate for financing because he had an established business with a good reputation, 他有一个很好的商业计划和可靠的预测, 该项目提供了适当的抵押品,ACEDC执行主任弗雷德·肯尼说. “There was also a timing issue: Ben’s need to make improvements to his new facility coincided with the timing of the program application and funding availability.”
In addition to the BGS grant, Wooden Hammer received a $25,000 loan from the ACEDC to help pay for facility renovations at a commercial interest rate.
ACEDC also helped Raphael prepare documents to apply for additional loans from Opportunities Credit Union and the Vermont Economic Development Authority, 帮他整理财务，偿还所有贷款.
“ACEDC无疑是一个很大的帮助,” said Raphael, adding that it took a lot of the stress off of him and allowed him to focus on growing his business in a more visible location.
“我的上一家店就在我家车道下面四分之一英里处, so I had no road visibility,” Raphael recalled, 他指出，他已经知道“有几个人开车经过”, seen the sign, 现在我们比以往任何时候都忙.”
更新:ACEDC协助获得可再生能源增加的拨款
ACEDC helped Wooden Hammer through the grant process to secure funding to install a new heating system and solar panels at his new shop location. For Ben, 能够在现场产生可再生能源不仅感觉很棒, 但是通过减少开支来帮助他的底线.
“这是一个非常简单的过程……我必须为这个项目提供一个成本估算, 还有关于这笔钱的用途以及我为什么需要这笔钱的叙述, 以及为什么它对项目的成功至关重要, and to have the support of ACEDC to get it done… it’s just kind of a no brainer to do it. 即使你不知道你需要什么, you’re just like, ‘help, I’m a business owner, I know I need something, I need some help somewhere,’ they can give you a list of the resources that they can provide and point you in the direction of other resources. 这就是他们来这里的目的，他们来这里是为了支持艾迪生县的企业. And I think they do a great job.”