Client Spotlight: Global Asia Resource

“Business is in his family” says Rodney Robbins of Global Asia Resource. “My father was a self-made man” talking about how his father started a tire business and later got into floor covering. Entrepreneurship has been instilled in him all of his life.

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Mary Margaret Epps
The Look of of a Place

I am often asked how a community can differentiate itself from the competition. Most economic development organizations try to highlight their strengths, their assets, to attract particular industry sectors, which you almost have to do.

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Mary Margaret Epps
The Startup Surge

The latest release of Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics data shows that nearly 1.4 million applications have been filed to form new businesses likely to hire employees through September of 2021 — the most through the third quarter of any year on record.

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Mary Margaret Epps
The Challenge for the Heartland

Here's the good news, new business launches are exploding. Applications to form new businesses are reaching unprecedented levels. Seeing millions of people from all walks of life starting their own business in the face of greater than usual uncertainty is inspiring.

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Mary Margaret Epps
Welcome Customs Café Brands to the Shoals Business Incubator

Teresa White was one of the first businesses to operate from the Shoals Culinary Center in the 2000’s when she started a small business in Muscle Shoals. Starting with a coffee bar in a giftshop, she was soon asked to add a coffee shop to the new Florence Library. Needing a space to prepare baked goods, the relationship with the Culinary Center was born.

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Mary Margaret Epps
New Services at Monzyk Innovations

Monzyk Innovations(MI) would like to announce the addition of a full time skilled and experienced  Analytical Chemist, Marion Cates, to our staff. We are now able to do a variety of analytical procedures and consultations for clients that are accurate, reasonably priced and with a quick response time. All work is supported by a Ph.D Chemist with a career of R&D chemistry.

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Mary Margaret Epps
An Extraordinary Time

Americans last year filed paperwork to start over 4.3 million new businesses, a 24 percent rise from the year before and reversing a 40-year decline in entrepreneurship. The increase in “Covid era” companies is on pace to continue this year. The share of workers reporting they were self-employed hit an eight-year high in July. 

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Mary Margaret Epps
Welcome View 360 Marketing to the SBI

“We want to make an impact” was the business goal of View 360 Marketing’s owner, Bart Davis. Davis started with SpotOn as a Regional Manager, a business solutions company, about 4 years ago. Since then, he has grown and wanted to offer his clients the complete package with a marketing agency as well. View 360 Marketing was born.

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Mary Margaret Epps
A National Dilemma

With millions of Americans still out of work and job openings at a record high, policymakers are dealing with an unexpected problem: How to coax people back into the labor force.

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Mary Margaret Epps
Jus' A-Mayes-N Popcorn

They call her “the popcorn lady”, but Vivian Baldwin started Jus’ A-Mayes-N Popcorn in 2017 from her love of gourmet popcorn. Her love affair with popcorn began with a visit to the mall. They had a gourmet popcorn stand where she tried some gourmet popcorn for the first time.

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Mary Margaret Epps
Monzyk Innovations New Addition

Monzyk Innovations LLC is a Shoals-based water puricaon and strategic metals consulting company located in the Shoals Business Incubator. The company was founded by Sally Monzyk and Dr. Bruce Monzyk in 2017. Dr. Monzyk has about 80 patents and has dedicated his life to environmental and economical industrial chemistry and water purification.

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Mary Margaret Epps
Red Clay Farms Partners with Green Acres Organic Pharm

Red Clay Farms, located in North Alabama, took a leap of faith and entered the hemp market this past year. They started small, with two acres of product. It has been a long process due to the stringent regulations and changing guidelines in the industry. Red Clay planned to take the hemp back to Virginia for processing but discovered how cost prohibitive transporting that amount of product would be. That is when they started to do a little market research and found Green Acres Organic Pharms.

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Mary Margaret Epps
Welcome Elizabeth McKinney to the SBI Board

Please welcome Elizabeth McKinney to the Shoals Business Incubator Board of Directors. Elizabeth is originally from Haleyville, Alabama but moved to the Shoals to attend UNA in 2011. After obtaining her Bachelor of Business Administration in Human Resources and a Masters of Higher Education Administration from UNA, she has stayed in Florence. Currently, she works for Western Governors University as a Faculty Advisor.

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Mary Margaret Epps