As a small girl, India Eaves would hang out in the family kitchen, watching her mother do hair. As her mother worked, India absorbed the conversations of the women being beautified. What seemed like a hair appointment was always so much more. Her mother artfully created an experience where women…
New chapters are a recurring theme for Chris Ornelas, General Manager and Owner of Plaza Antigua, a Mexican restaurant and now event venue in Waynesboro, Virginia. The first new chapter was moving with his family from their home in Mexico to Virginia. Chris was four years old at the time…
Talking with Seth Blanchard and Jonathan Steck about their company, Skylark Hammocks, is less like a business meeting and more like sitting around a campfire telling tales with old friends. It’s easy to understand how these two best friends, former college roommates, and social work professionals came up with the…
The next time you stroll into Starbucks for your favorite brew, enjoy a meal at Panera Bread or relax at a Marriott Hotel, take a look around at the woodwork. That’s right; there’s something special about the flooring, wall cladding, and wood accents that you’ll find in these locations and…
In the course of your day, how much do you use technology? If you’re like most people, a cell phone, tablet, laptop, and personal assistant device like Alexa are usually within reach. Technology also spills over into our work lives. Whether you work for a mom and pop shop or…
Right now, as you read this, there are hackers hard at work trying to infiltrate everything from bank accounts to medical records to top-secret Department of Defense files. As you go about your day, the threat is present. In the business world, size isn’t a safeguard against hackers either. Small…
*Please note: There’s been an exciting update to the Blue Ridge Bucha story. Please read the entire article for the full story.* Over a decade ago, Ethan Zuckerman started an interesting hobby. He began homebrewing kombucha, a fermented tea that’s flavored and served cold. Kombucha is heralded as a lower-…
When Brian Mininger was a kid, something exciting happened in his Waynesboro neighborhood – a construction crew began working on his street. To many, this may seem like an ordinary, even unnoteworthy scene, but young Brian was fascinated. He’d rush through breakfast and make his way to the site, passing…
Cael Kendall’s lifelong sustainability journey has landed under the soaring beams of a heavy-timber warehouse in Waynesboro, Virginia. But once, it began in the mists of the coastal Rocky Mountains, in the old growth forests of British Columbia. Born into an era of clearcutting booms, Cael spent his childhood watching…
Initial Inspiration runs what founder and owner Jennifer Ledford calls an “Idea Factory.” Curious customers with t-shirt concepts, costume ideas, Pinterest images, embroidery designs, and more are welcomed into the business’s production studio for collaborative and personalized fabric and design creations. “If you’ve seen it on the Internet,” she says,…