Success Stories

In 1998, Hollis Thomases left a successful corporate marketing job to start her own company with a brand new idea: to market web sites by brokering co-op print ad space. She had no clients, no experience and no outside financial backing – basically, she had nothing but her vision and confidence.

A medical technologist, Joan Gordon enjoyed her job in the clinical lab in Maine’s largest hospital, Maine Medical Center, and worked there for over 30 years. But in 2000, in her fifties, Joan shed the safety of her 30-year routine and embarked on an entirely new venture, co-founding a company involved in the emerging field of molecular diagnostics and genetic testing. “I’d never owned a business in my life and, in fact, never thought of owning a business,” says Joan, but when her boss at Maine Medical Center, Dr. Clark Rundell, proposed the idea, she jumped at the opportunity.

Kay Brandhurst contacted the Louisiana SBDC seeking guidance on developing a new business
strategy. For over twenty years, Kay sold seafood (primarily wild Louisiana shrimp) at her
brick-and-mortar seafood shop in Chalmette, LA. When Katrina hit in August 2005, the store
and factory went completely under water.

In 2000, Joe Brady knew there was room in the marketplace for another metal fabricating
business in Central Kentucky. In his job in the industry, he consistently saw mid-size companies
being overlooked or turned away. He just wasn’t sure how to capitalize on this niche opportunity.