Mobile shower company, gluten-free pie maker among SCORE awardees
Photo / Lori Valigra
Rachel Bouvier (right) of consulting firm rbouvier Consulting in Portland won the SCORE Success Award for green small business. Daughter Sylvia Guarna, age 7, and mother Paula Sommers came to Thursday's annual award event in Portland to see Bouvier honored. The company uses economics and analysis to help companies determine the payback on green investments.
Entrepreneur mentoring group SCORE honored 10 local companies with a Success Award in Portland Thursday at its annual luncheon.
The companies ranged from a young entrepreneur under 30 with a mobile shower rental company to a gluten-free artisan pie company and a green business consultant. Awardees were given plaques and honored along with their mentors.
Karem Durdag, a serial entrepreneur, investor and entrepreneur in residence at the Maine Technology Institute, encouraged the entrepreneurs in his keynote speech, telling them that SCORE is in the battle for the future of Maine.
“You are at the forefront of what the state of Maine will be like for our children,” he said. “We in Maine have this disease called pessimism. Our future lies in creating our own dream.”
Zach Schmesser, owner of New England Mobile Showers, took home the Young Entrepreneur prize for his 39-foot mobile shower systems that include eight men’s and eight women’s showers and can be rented for events, festivals and used at natural disaster sites.
Nancy Strojny, chapter chair of Portland SCORE, said the company was fortunate to have received a Libra Future Fund grant twice.
Schmesser said he’s looking at adding a mobile restroom in January.
Jake Ryan, who runs the Open Bench Project, where inventors can access space to create new products or projects, won for Innovative Small Business. Strojny said that the space is totally booked, and over the past 20 months has grown to 130 members. She noted that after Thursday’s luncheon, Ryan was headed to the White House to participate in the National Week of Making, which builds on President Obama’s “Nation of Makers” initiative.
Rachel Bouvier of rbouvier Consulting, which uses economics and analysis to determine the payback on green investments, is on track to triple revenue in her second year of business.
Bouvier said on Thursday morning she learned she had received a contract with the Friends of Fort Gorges in Portland, which will allow her to hire one of her former students to work on the project over the summer. She is a former University of Southern Maine economics professor. The company already has two part-time employees.
Here are the SCORE Success Award winners:
- Innovative Small Business: Steve Underwood, Deep Blue Design, for the PAKPOD, Scarborough
- Encore Entrepreneur: Kathy Strout, Private Home Care, Belfast
- Business Plan Execution: Colleen Allard, Village Variety, Parsonsfield
- Innovative Small Business: Jake Ryan, Open Bench Project, Portland
- Community Champion: Heather Shields, Pathways Rehabilitation, Brunswick
- Woman-Owned Business: Jill Miller, The Maine Pie Co., Biddeford
- Young Entrepreneur: Zach Schmesser, New England Mobile Showers, Portland
- Nonprofit: Simon Williams, Square School, South Portland
- Green Small Business: Rachel Bouvier, rbouvier Consulting, Portland
- Business Plan Execution: Kate Nelligan, Local Color, Kennebunkport
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