Laine Business Accelerator celebrates fifth cohort at 2025 Community Showcase

OLEAN — The fifth round of businesses graduated from the Laine Business Accelerator on Tuesday with the annual entrepreneurial showcase.

Held at Cutco Theater, the heads of 1907 Wax, Adored Boards, Fuller’s Fabrication, MDA Consulting Engineers, Olean Carpet Cleaning, Pine Hill Cattle Company, Preston Personal Training and Turbo Machining shared their stories and their growth through the 13-week program which aims to provide tools for management and expansion of small businesses. Each firm received a check for $5,000 to help their business grow in addition to the program.

Tom Cullen, co-founder and director of the LBA, noted the group received more than 150 applications in five years, and 38 firms have been assisted through the program.

“We’ve given those businesses $200,000 in the last five years,” he said, noting the firms have also added hundreds of jobs to the local economy.

More than half of jobs in the county are from small businesses, Cullen said.

“This is how we can grow our community in a vibrant way,” he said.

One of the hurdles to growth, he said, is a lack of local investment capital, and he encouraged local business leaders looking to make investments should contact the LBA.

Josh Fuller of Fuller Fabrication began making fire pits with a $45 angle grinder and a cheap welder before going viral with a metal koozie dispenser on the ecommerce platform Etsy. But it was a collaboration with Rusty Rooster owner Jean Smith, who was a member of the 2024 cohort, which got him in touch with Cullen. “Jean is the reason I’m here tonight,” he said, adding he gained much from his experience with the LBA.

Molly Vaughn of 1907 Wax in Cuba said that her time with the LBA pushed her to purchase a new location in Cuba with four times the salmon space and room for eight other businesses to rent. She said the push came from a suggestion by Cullen during an LBA session to take a three-year business plan “and crush it in three months.”

“I wouldn’t have done this without the Laine Business Accelerator,” she said.

Jeff Andrews of Pine Hill Cattle Co. in Randolph said that as a child “on Pine Hill Road, there were four to five farms. Now there’s four farms in Randolph,” but he joked that “Dairy farming is a little bit like meth — do a little bit, and you’re hooked.” With help from the LBA, he hopes to start a retail store to serve his direct-to-consumer beef and poultry sales from the circa 1893 family farm. While the area needs more butchers to set up, he said he hopes to help bring back some of the jobs lost by the closure of feed mills and other farm-oriented business in the community over the last few decades.

Brian Rodman of Turbo Manufacturing said his businesses benefited greatly from his LBA participation. The firm, founded two years ago, now makes aftermarket parts for nuclear reactors and naval vessels. Always attending auctions of closing machine shops for equipment, he said that many of those shops were generational shops that did not keep up with technology — something he wishes to not succumb to. The business, in the former Kmart plaza in the town of Allegany, is one of two shops in the region to have 5-axis milling equipment and robotic inspection capabilities. He said that a local investor would be beneficial to helping further expansion, with another three employees expected to be hired next year. “We’ve been on a trajectory of strong growth,” he said. “Joining the Laine Business Accelerator has just been an amazing opportunity.”

Shaina Griffin of Adored Boards took a passion for food and has turned it into a catering and private chef business. Her time at the LBA gave structure to her business and gave her ideas on how to look at expansion. She said she plans to launch a spice kit line for sale online and in local stores that will bring her style and creativity to the home chef. “Food is more than nourishment, it’s experience, it’s art, it’s storytelling,” she said.

Jake Alianello of Ellicottville-based MDA Consulting Engineers said he had much to learn about business operations when taking over his father’s engineering firm, and credited “many valuable lessons” from the LBA for helping grow the firm, which now employs eight people. “I’m so glad I can run a business here that handles a fundamental need,” and his time at the LBA “empowered me to better serve my community in this area.”

Sharon Tom of Olean Carpet Cleaning came to the U.S. with her husband from Trinidad “with just two suitcases each and the American dream.”

The couple purchased a struggling Olean Carpet Cleaning, founded in 1998, and “we worked seven days a week to rebuild trust.” While the firm has managed to land many commercial clients in the region, “for years I worked ‘in’ the business,” Tom said, utilizing her time with the LBA to work “on” the business with assessment and planning efforts she did not have time for before. The company now plans to renovate a structure to serve as a proper headquarters and looks to hire more staff for expansion.

David Preston of Preston Personal Training went from an overweight teenager to his first bodybuilding show on the Cutco Theater stage before branching out into strongman competitions. However, along the way he was asked for tips and chose to make it his profession. He brought three clients to the presentation, including Tracy Jaskolka, one of his first clients. “I asked him to dumb it down for me,” she said, crediting Preston for “changing my life.” The firm has now had more than 2,300 clients and puts on youth, senior and corporate programs.

At the end of the ceremony, Jim Stitt and Marianne Laine presented Preston with the Community Builder of the Year Award, which was chosen by the cohort members.