In late October, the Pennsylvania Economic Development Association honored the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center as the 2015 Economic Development Program of the Year. As we look back over the past year, it is exciting to see everything that has gone on around the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center that has made this award possible. The list of accomplishments, for both our clients and us, is a testament to our mission of helping startup and early-stage manufacturing and technologies grow and become successful. Here are some highlights from 2015:
Architrep (KitRex)
The first of three new companies accepted into the business incubation program this year, Lisa Glover’s company, Architrep, which manufactures a flat-packed papercraft 3-D dinosaur line call KitRex was accepted into the program in January.
After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 for her first product, Glover was able to take her Technical Entrepreneurship master degree project and launch it as a company. She because the first full-time resident in the new Flex Launch and Coworking Space at Bridgeworks. In March, Glover launched her second Kickstarter campaign.
The Colony Meadery
For The Colony Meadery, one word that can summarize 2015 is “growth.” At the start of the year, the company expanded its presence within the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center by absorbing the 2,000 square foot suite next door to their current location into their operations. In July, the company added a second location in downtown Bethlehem inside the historic Moravian Book Shop.
The Colony Meadery also marked success by winning five medals (two bronze, two silver, and one gold) at the Mazer Cup International Mead Competition; its first year competing on the mead industry’s biggest stage. This makes Colony Meadery one of only three meaderies to garner that many awards.
County Seat Spirits
The “grain-to-glass” micro-distillery marked their grand opening of its Bridgeworks operations in April. The 1,000-square-foot distillery performs the entire production process on-site, from milling raw grains, to mashing, fermenting, distilling and aging. County Seat Spirits currently offers vodka, rum, and gin and should have its first bourbons available in early-2016. In September, the company garnered some early success by winning the Washington Cup Bronze Medal for its Lock Keeper Gin.
JH Plastics LLC
JH Plastics, LLC teamed up with plastic manufacturer Vycom to donate a sculpture to the town of Jim Thorpe for its new “Fallen Soldier” sculpture at the town’s Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. The sculpture used Vycom’s Seaboard™ material, ensuring that it will be low-maintenance and withstand the elements long-term.
LightLab International Allentown LLC
The second new company to join the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center in 2015 founders Mike Grather and Tracy Silvert had a busy year. After securing a $100,000 loan from the Enterprise Zone Revolving Loan Fund, the company worked diligently through the spring to fit-out their 3,200 square foot lab and office space. By mid-summer, LightLab International Allentown had fully installed its two primary pieces of test equipment with the fall seeing the lab secure is ISO certification and taking on its first customer work. The year culminated with the celebration of LightLab International Allentown’s grand opening in October.
MTS Ventures LLC
In 2015, MTS Ventures marked two major milestones: its 10-year anniversary and its graduation from the business incubation program. After seven years in the program, the company has reached the point of being self-sustaining and profitable – key milestones in the business incubation program. AEDC has teamed up with MTS Ventures to make the company its first anchor tenant in several years.
It has been a success year for the Clients of MTS Ventures as well. In July, MindBridge Innovations LLC was awarded a $35,000 investment from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeast Pennsylvania in order to advance the development of its OrthoBike prototype. MTS helped with a significant redesign that made the bike more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing.
Netizen Corporation
The last of the new recruits in 2015, the cyber security firm Netizen Corporation was accepted into the business incubation program in January. In June, the provider of cyber security solutions for government and commercial customers, Netizen was awarded a $514,000 contract for the Defense Logistics Agency in Puget Sound, WA.
By November, Netizen entered into a multi-university partnership, which included Lehigh University, to pilot a groundbreaking $12.2M Department of Energy (DOE) program.
Finally, in December, Lehigh Valley Business named the company Business of the Year in the Emerging Business category.
Business Incubation Program Improvements
We continue to make marked improvements to business incubation programming that we offer to our client companies. Early in the year, we added a Peer-to-Peer Mentoring program for our clients. Led by Stephani Olexa, a Bridgeworks Advisory Committee member and certified business coach, the program is designed to teach our entrepreneurs to work with each other in order to tackle challenges that arise as they work to grow their companies.
This year, we were also determined to completely rebuild our entrepreneurship education experience. Focusing on the rapid development of sales revenue, we introduced our “Growing Your Business” series of sessions in September which continues through January 2016. The first four classes in the series focused on fulling understanding the market and the customer in order to build a successful brand and marketing strategy for a company.
Continued Investment in Infrastructure
Ensuring that our business incubation program continues to thrive into the future not only requires AEDC to continually improve its program offerings, it also requires continued investment in the physical assets of the center.
In 2015, we moved forward with Phase II of our rooftop replacement project. The overall project involves creating improved heating and cooling efficiencies for the entire building by replacing aged and inefficient roofing materials.
Phase I was partially funded by Economic Development Administration and Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grants. The four-month project began in August 2013 during which time approximately 60 percent of the roof (1,440 linear feet) was replaced. The first phase of the project resulted in approximately 54 percent decrease in energy costs for the building. Phase II of the project, which replaced an additional 480 linear feet of the roof, began in late April 2015 and is expected to create additional energy savings while improving the marketability of the available spaces.
The second major project completed in 2015 was the relaunch of the Flex Launch and Coworking Space in November. Thanks in part to a $50,000 award from the SBA Growth Accelerator Challenge, AEDC renovated the coworking space and outdated offices to create a flexible launch pad space for technology-based companies.