Posts Tagged ‘ECDI Spotlight’

Woman-owned businesses thriving at ECDI’s Food Fort

Bleu & Fig Owner Brooke Kinsey is one of the fabulous female business owners taking advantage of a unique entrepreneurial boost available only in Columbus. The Eddie Grayson Culinary Lab at the Economic and Community Development Institute −a fully licensed kitchen for caterers, bakers, and individual...

December 27th, 2012 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Daycare center designed to meet needs of working families

Sisters and working moms Ayan Yusuf and Safiya Ismail were frustrated because they were unable to find clean, safe daycare center options that fit their second shift work schedules. They knew that other parents faced the same problem. Rather than continuing to look for a solution to their dilemma,...

August 30th, 2012 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Bowers PR and Marketing and ECDI believe in helping businesses grow

Growing a small business into a profitable and innovative brand looks easy from the outside. Susan Bowers Fortner knows better. Using hard work and ingenuity, she has spent her publishing and public relations career making increasing profits and positive branding easier for others. Fortner’s firm,...

June 28th, 2012 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Ethiopian engineer capitalizes on skills to start local business

When Retta Tegegne arrived in the United States with his wife and three children in 2004, he left behind his twelve-year career as a civil engineer in his home country of Ethiopia. While working unskilled jobs to make ends meet, Tegegne sought ways to use his engineering skills and background to support...

May 24th, 2012 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Food truck entrepreneur thrives with help from ECDI

This has been a banner year for Carla Saunders, owner of Columbus, Ohio’s only gourmet cupcake truck. She worked at her mother’s brick-and-mortar bakery in her hometown of Grove City for many years, creating famous delicacies such as carrot cake cupcakes and red velvet cupcakes. 3 Babes and a Baker...

December 22nd, 2011 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

NRG Gallery opens in Westgate with assistance from ECDI

Columbus native Nicholas Gonzalez wore many hats throughout his long career, from taxi driver, to restaurant manager, and finally retiring as an insurance underwriter. After losing his wife to cancer in 2004, he found himself pursuing a very different passion: painting. His love of creating art soon...

November 23rd, 2011 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Ella serves up locally-sourced food and art in New Albany

Hayley Savage Four years ago, Hayley Savage left her high-powered corporate career to turn her lifelong love of art into a business. While rising up the ranks in her business life, Savage spent decades collecting brilliant art. She was proud to support local artists, building an enviable gallery of contemporary...

August 25th, 2011 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More

Angry Baker thriving in Olde Towne East

Vicki Hink honed her cooking talent behind the line of many of Columbus’s most prestigious eateries, always quickly rising through the ranks. While she knew that someday she wanted to open her own restaurant, a vacant storefront spotted on Oak Street in her adopted neighborhood of Olde Towne East...

July 28th, 2011 | ECDI Spotlight | Read More