Come Home, Stay Home: Olean Business Development features new video series highlighting young workers, entrepreneurs

By JOHN BARTIMOLE | Special to Olean Times Herald

July 22, 2026

“I regarded a home as a place I left behind in order to come back to it afterwards.”

For many who have left the greater Olean area, only to return years later, Ernest Hemingway’s words ring true.

“Since we began our Come Home, Stay Home series, I’ve been amazed at the stories we’ve come across about those who have moved away — for jobs, for education, or just to get away and explore someplace different — who have come back to the area because they realized they missed what was missing in their lives, such as family, opportunity, just the positive vibe of the place they grew up,” said Bob Forness, President & Executive Director of Olean Business Development Corporation.

To celebrate those stories, OBDC has launched a second phase of its Come Home, Stay Home video series, available at oleanbd.com/come-home-stay-home and OBDC's YouTube channel. The series highlights the stories of five individuals and families who either moved away and have now Come Home, or chose to Stay Home.

Featured in the series are:

• Marissa Magro, a pediatric speech-language pathologist serving the underserved children in the area. Her return to Olean was prompted by the birth of her son and the desire to be near family.

• Wes Senn, a Randolph native who moved to Kentucky after graduating with a degree in Material Science Engineering, only to return home with his wife, and now works at Napoleon Engineering, after finding life in the big city was too crowded and too far away from family.

• Emily and Sam Gardner, founders of Gardner Chiropractic, who returned from jobs in Hudson, New York to be near family and to open their own chiropractic business — and to be with family and help build the Olean area economy and entrepreneurial community.

• Brianna Stayer, who epitomizes the “Stay Home” side of the initiative, as the coordinator of innovation and entrepreneurship for the Cattaraugus County Campus of Jamestown Community College and co-founder of The Hatch, JCC’s innovative eatery for students, faculty, staff, and the community.

• Joie-Rose Stangle, who came home after stints at University of Akron, and living in California, has now returned home to get her degree in engineering physics and computer science and now working at Siemens Energy.

“Their stories are heartwarming and inspirational,” Forness said, “and reflective of the many strands of life that pull people back to Olean. “It’s refreshing to feature them in our Come Home, Stay Home series.”

An example of stories shared in the series is how Stangle, from Allegany, who had a music background as well as strong grades in science in math, attended Akron (Ohio) University for a couple of semesters but then decided to explore the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles. After a time, she realized she again needed to focus on studies so she returned to attend St. Bonaventure University, where she is double-majoring in physics and computer science while working as an intern at Siemens Energy in Olean.

“I realized I should probably get back to getting a degree so I could get a job, and maybe something that I enjoy as well,” she said, while later reflecting on her decision to return to the Greater Olean area.

“I think it’s easy to lose sight of the value of having your family as a support system near you,” she said. “And then I think if you’re coming from a big city that you’ve been in for a while it’s really nice to get away from that, too.”