October 5, 2020 –

“I had steel-toed boots when I was very young,” Peggy Del Fabbro said about her early exposure to M. Davis & Sons Inc., one of the leading industrial and construction contractors in Delaware, where she has been CEO for over a decade.

Del Fabbro was born and raised in Wilmington, attending Brandywine High School and graduating from the University of Delaware with a degree in business. “M. Davis has been in my family for five generations. I grew up hearing all of the stories. My dad would take me out to job sites as a kid. It’s been part of my entire life.”

As a kid, spending time with her father at the paper mills where M. Davis worked projects gave Del Fabbro a unique perspective. “A lot of people really don’t see how things are actually made. It’s incredible to see water and either pulp from a tree or cotton rags becoming paper. And then seeing things like cups being made at Sweetheart Cup in Baltimore from the flat materials in the press.”

But Del Fabbro wanted to be a veterinarian, with her strong love of animals since she was a child. “High school chemistry defeated me, so I was lucky to have a strength in accounting, which I enjoyed and was exposed to in our business.”

Del Fabbro took over the role of CEO in 2008, just as the economy went into a deep recession. She considers it the biggest highlight of her M. Davis career so far. “I look back at that time and realize that I had the guts to make it through that. How at that time our sales were $41 million and now we’re over $80 million. But that said, it’s not all about me, and I did not accomplish that alone.”

Del Fabbro holds elements of M. Davis’ history as part of what guided her through that challenging period. “I was aware of our experience (with economic challenges) in the past, and looked closely at what helped us. It isn’t that sophisticated and really is about knowing where you stand.” Knowing where they stand was effectively a combination of controlling costs and having difficult conversations about what was and what was not working at the time. “The sooner we could identify where something wasn’t working, the sooner we could act and make better decisions, and that is still my overarching approach today,” Del Fabbro says.

Women’s Business Enterprise National Council

While dealing with the challenges of 2008, Delfabbro became certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), which opened up a lot of doors for M. Davis.

“It helped the company, but it also helped me to grow as an owner of the business. Learning from other women who own businesses is just invaluable. A lot of those women had the guts to start those businesses from scratch, and what I’ve learned from them has been so beneficial. And how they have reached out and had us work together during this pandemic has been critical.”

Beyond the direct assistance Del Fabbro has received from WBENC, it has also affected her ability to connect with existing clients and attract new ones. “Every market I serve is there. It was almost overwhelming to prepare for meetings because it was so wide. So I have a color-coded spreadsheet for that, of course.” Relationships made at WBENC have helped introduce Del Fabbro to other female leaders in traditionally male-dominated industries.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Del Fabbro’s leadership strategy is concise, but not simple. “I appreciate the people that I work with, and I strive to put them in a position where they can be successful. If I can do that, the company will be successful. My style is common sense and down to earth, if the message gets convoluted it often gets misunderstood.”

“I am always looking for continuous improvement. The moment I think, ‘We’re good,’ is when I know we are in trouble.” Del Fabbro finds communication to be one of her biggest challenges since the company is so physically spread out. “With all of our recent growth, I find myself constantly looking at areas we need to improve or make more efficient or safer.”

M. Davis’ management of the COVID pandemic has been informed both by the challenges of 2008 as well as helped by the strategies she’s put into place since then. “We were hit really hard back in March, and I look at the workload we have now and think this is really good, but it’s still a problem.” Every week in the M. Davis newsletter Del Fabbro reminds her team of what it will take to maintain the workload in the midst of a pandemic. “Safety is the biggest threat to our workload, period.”

M. Davis’ strong connection to students interested in trades has been uniquely successful in the last two decades. 

“Years ago we realized there would be a shortage of people working in construction.” At that point, M. Davis had established relationships with the vocational-technical school districts in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, where they could find students interested in the trades.

“We brought in students to co-op in their senior year to get hands-on experience. Those kids could then come out of high school, and if they liked the experience they had at M. Davis, they could find themselves with a full-time job, with benefits and no student debt, and then also continue on in the Delaware Apprenticeship Program with whom we have a strong relationship,” Del Fabbro says.

“After three to four years with us, they end up with their Journeyman Papers (a certification of completed training as an apprentice), which is just as valuable as a college degree. In some cases more valuable as they don’t have the debt. Earn while you learn.”

College, Del Fabbro says, is not for everybody. “Kids that like to work with their hands, or even on computers and automation, can find perfect spots in companies like ours. We need to change the perception of these jobs, these careers.”

Terry Webb and the Path to Leadership at M. Davis

Terry Webb created a 19-year career at M. Davis by starting with an apprenticeship. After graduating from Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington, Webb took a position at M. Davis that immediately connected him to the Delaware Apprenticeship Program. “I knew it was a pathway for me because the education leads to Journeyman Papers that I will have with me for life.” Webb is now a foreman at the company.

Webb has graduated from State of Delaware apprenticeship programs in sheet metal, electrical, HVAC and plumbing.

“The apprenticeship programs that I graduated from really expanded my knowledge in that trade, along with the working hours I had to graduate. While the classes were technical and not focused on leadership, I found that having more knowledge and education put me on the path to leadership at M. Davis & Sons.”

When asked, “Why Delaware?” Del Fabbro immediately says, “Why not?”

“I always say, it’s two hours from everywhere. It’s easy to ship globally from here, which is critical for us. It’s a great location to springboard from. The weather can be challenging but, knock on wood, we don’t have too many extremes.”

M. Davis’ recent cooling tower project for DuPont is an example of why Delaware and Delaware relationships work well for M. Davis.

“We told them up front that we believed we might have a better way, a safer way with better quality, a shorter timeline and, by the way, would save money. Because they know us and trust us, they were willing to take that risk. For me, that is the perfect situation.”

When asked about another Delaware business that inspired her, Del Fabbro is quick to mention Dogfish. “That’s an easy one. I love them. We’ve worked with them close to 15 years. They are a family business and a nationally recognized brand, but they have not really changed who they are.”

M. Davis is a classic Delaware company that leads from the idea that “knowing where you come from” and honoring the relationships and skills developed from this leads to success. From a childhood of watching her family navigate M. Davis through many of the larger corporations in the area, to the challenge of leading a company in a male-dominated industry, Del Fabbro has taken the business where she came from and amplified its success. 

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

October 2, 2020 – 

Earlier this year, as they were approaching just their second anniversary, CEO Craig Wensell, CFO Keith Hughes and VP of Marketing John Fusco of Wilmington Brew Works holed up in their expansive Miller Road location to discuss the state’s then-recently announced phased re-opening. Their navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic since then has been both successful and a testament to the partners’ collaboration and the strategic partnerships they have created along the way.

“We were almost dead in the water there for a little bit,” Hughes recalls. “There was a national shortage of crowlers and growlers, and there was nowhere to put the beer we were making. It seemed like every day there for a while, something would happen that had us trying to figure out how to keep the lights on.”

Throughout the pandemic, local breweries, along with the Delaware Brewers’ Guild, have worked to keep breweries up to date with changing restrictions. They also have come together to help each other out when supplies have run short.

“We put out a call because we were very low on crowlers,” Wensell says. “And, lo and behold, Drew [Rutherford] from Stitch House reached out right away and helped us out.” 

Pivoting quickly also helped.

“On the weekend of March 13, I was on the computer all weekend building a website to allow us to take online orders for pickup,” Fusco says. “We were able to launch that the day the government shut us down. At the end of that week, we could not believe how much business we had done.” 

The three actually have been together for a long time, working as very early collaborating partners on Bellefonte Brewing Company. Fusco did the logo and design work for that, Hughes put the business plan together, and Wensell brewed the beer.

“Building a good team is very hard,” Hughes says. “[It is often important] to understand when not to get involved in something. We are all very Type A here, which is usually a tough situation to have, that many opinions. You have to respect the person and their role, which I think we do a good job with here.”

The Homebrewers Connection

Hughes and Fusco originally connected with Wensell as homebrewers.

“[Ed Mulvihill] at Peco’s Liquor told me there was someone I should meet who was creating great beer,” Hughes remembers. “I was involved early on with some of the financial parts of Bellefonte, and when this came around I was excited to be a part of it.”

The trio, Fusco says, developed their own design ethos for how they wanted to do everything. For example, he says, the naming convention for their brews.

“[That] came from the very first beer that we ever put out called Superfluous Nomenclature, Fusco says. “We wanted something difficult to read, with long words that could introduce people to new vocabulary. We have a big list of weird words that we collect and try to match with each other.”

“Our most recent beer, Sartorial Absence, came from a podcast I was listening to about the history of clothing. The word ‘sartorial’ kept coming up and making me laugh. We then had Dave Sanchez [from Spaceboy Clothing] design our label for that, which was a lot of fun.”

Sartorial Absence also brought a bit of notoriety to Wilmington Brew Works with a Facebook post that was posed to look like Wensell was brewing beer without clothing. That, Wensell reassures, was “all staged.”

Wilmington Brew Works’ first collaboration had occurred when Wensell was approached by Herb Inden, Wilmington’s director of Planning and Development, with a conveniently located spot just off Interstate 95. The location had been empty close to 20 years, Wensell says, and the city did an “incredible” job preparing it for the new brewery. 

The building itself was created by Francis Irénée du Pont after he left the DuPont Company in 1917. The long, winding Spanish Mission style was unique for this region. Blueprints from some of du Pont’s many patents, which include the first steam-powered car, a liquid vending machine and a steam power plant, all hang inside the brewery. 

La Pizzeria Metro

Another of Wilmington Brew Works’ many collaborations, the on-site addition of La Pizzeria Metro, has arguably been the most valuable. Metro is one of the hottest restaurants in the city, and the Wilmington Brew Works trash cans typically are piled high with pizza boxes at the end of each night.

“I spent four months in Naples,” Fusco says, “and Metro and Pizzeria Vetri in Philly are the only things close.” 

Wensell calls this collaboration “perfect from the start” as the Wilmington Brew Works team never sought to be a brewpub or enter the actual restaurant business.

Wilmington Brew Works attributes a lot of its pre-pandemic success to the multipurpose Alamo Room, which is physically connected to La Pizzeria Metro. The Alamo has hosted parties, concerts, plays, games and even yoga.

“We’ve had so many people tell us, ‘We’d never been here before. This place is wonderful. We’re coming back,’” Hughes says. “Or we’d get calls on Monday from people who were at parties wanting to schedule their own.”

Wensell notes that among the range of activities taking place in the Alamo Room, one, in particular, has been a specialty. Spoken word, he says, is a niche they have been able to fill. 

“We’ve had comedy and Delaware Shakespeare,” he says. “The [Delaware Poet Laureates], the Twin Poets, played back there and were fantastic. And these things have consistently drawn a great response to the point that things sell out, and people call and harass me on the phone. They want to speak with the manager.” 

Hyper-focused Local Approach

The combination of this niche community, great beer, a convenient location and a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere makes Wilmington Brew Works unique to the region. Wensell notes that one of their most surprising demographics has been parents of young children and mothers with babies who are looking for somewhere they can be comfortable.

“We have these long tables because we want to encourage people to come, hang out and meet strangers,” he says. “So many people have met friends here for the first time.” 

The hyper-focused local approach has been a win for Wilmington Brew Works, creating a microcosm of a small town in its offerings.

“It’s allowed us to really focus on what we do – it’s like we are not really competing with other breweries so much as ourselves,” Wensell says. “Ultimately, the COVID shutdown was a fantastic opportunity for us.

“Our team looked at it as the excuse we needed to take the steps we were going to have to make anyway.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 28, 2020 – 

NEW CASTLE, DE — Put a fedora on her head and a bullwhip in her hand and Erica Nemser would be Delaware’s version of Indiana Jones as she and her team at Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) search for the chemical equivalent of the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail in this case is separating chemicals known as olefins and paraffins through membranes rather than distilling them. These membranes separate the gases used to create plastics (olefins) from kerosene and other products (paraffins). 

Refineries primarily use a heating process that requires massive distillation columns. These and other industrial separations account for more than 10% of the nation’s energy consumption. Nearly every commercial industry uses these separations to make consumer products as varied as detergents, plastic bottles, packaging, pipes, siding, window frames, automotive components, lubricants, carpet, and clothing.

CMS’s efforts to create membranes with commercial applications has been described by industry journals as a process improvement that could be “one of the separations to change the world” and “reap great global benefits” through heightened energy efficiency.

But CMS CEO Nemser sees another potential use for its membranes – delaying the ripening of fruit, vegetables, and flowers – that could be a huge money-maker when you consider the impact on transporting perishables from farms, on storing them in grocery stores and consumer kitchens, and on providing the military with fresh food during deployment. During the pandemic, there have been many videos of food banks throwing out food, a situation that might not have been necessary, had the CMS membranes been protecting them.

“Nobody likes seeing food spoil,” Nemser says, explaining that those applications are in the early stage of commercial availability. “But [developing them] is pulling on our investments and funds and focus. The challenge is figuring out how to lean into that and continue to serve our customers well.”

Delaware – the Best Place to Start a Chemtech Company

Nemser believes Delaware is the “best place on Earth to start a Chemtech company because the chemical engineers coming out of the University of Delaware are excellent and have been taught to have an entrepreneurial mindset; there’s a community of Delawareans from places like Chemours, DuPont, and White Dog Labs who understand chemistry and their peer companies; and state government understands and profoundly supports innovation in chemicals. I’m not sure we’d get the same attention somewhere else.”

But beyond those factors, Nemser says what she loves about being in the First State is that “people in Delaware are genuinely helpful and genuinely nice. I have found that many people out of state look for transactional relationships. People here are looking for genuine long-term relationships; you don’t have to worry about being sharp-elbowed by people trying to win the cocktail party.”

Early in her time at CMS, Nemser predicted that company revenues would double every year for the next four to five years. But she says “growth has taken longer and has taken more investment to get where we want to go. We made active decisions to invest our time in the olefin technology instead of other areas. That has come at the expense of revenue because we looked at our portfolio and thought carefully” about how much money, time, effort, and focus would be needed to drive longer-term success.”

Nemser says CMS has lots of UD graduates who are fresh out of school and leading projects at the small company (~25 employees), which likely wouldn’t be happening at larger companies in Delaware or elsewhere.

“I’m not an engineer or a chemist,” says Nemser. “My background is economics” but she built her reputation as a management guru for pharma and medical products – and for leading McKinsey’s global efforts to recruit, retain, and promote women within the firm — before joining her father’s company in September 2015.

She laughs when asked about a 2013 Wharton School panel where she described her marriage as a joint venture – saying she and her husband have switched off as breadwinners and primary parent for their three children over the years – and then saying she was “very clearly not” an entrepreneur.

That’s changed since she joined CMS.

Nemser Delivers Distruptive Innovation

Nemser describes her role as delivering disruptive innovation and finding – or building – new lines of business with multi-billion-dollar potential using CMS’s membrane separation technology. Over the past five years, she’s moved the company her father founded in 1993 when he left Du Pont to focus on licensing Teflon AF for gas separations from shifting the mindset from a domestic science-driven research and development lab to a global commercial organization that is constantly generating new intellectual property (IP).

Nemser describes herself on LinkedIn as having an “uncanny ability to break down messy business problems, quickly see the possible future states, and chart the optimal solution paths.”

“I like the problems where people say addressing them is impossible,” she says. “I like to figure out how you make it possible.  I have skills but not a process. You have to be able to say what you want and then break down the problem and determine what’s on your critical path and what isn’t.  What differentiates people is a willingness to challenge assumptions because if you do it the way it’s always been done, you won’t get to your goal.  And you have to be rigorous about what you’re willing to take on.”

At the same time, Nemser is applying what she learned at McKinsey to address the challenges that women have found with a narrower career pipeline in the chemtech world.

“We hire women here into senior roles and recruit them at the entry level,” she says. “In many industries, men are promoted on potential and women are promoted on performance. We’re being very conscious of applying [those two criteria] evenly.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 25, 2020 – 

DOVER, Del. – Dover Air Force Base is using its new Bedrock Innovation Lab to enable airmen to find solutions to barriers impacting its global mission of providing rapid global mobility.

Bedrock has been operating with four founding members since January 2019, with successes that include creating 3D-printed masks for distribution across the base; 3D-printing door handles to reduce the spread of COVID-19; and improving traffic flow at the base’s main gate.

“We had a proposed contract that would have cost taxpayers $123,000, but a collaboration between our team and base security professionals and engineers enabled us to find an alternative that only cost $3,000,” said Capt. Ryan Nichol, the base’s chief innovation officer who oversees the Bedrock program and also serves as a flight instructor on the base. 

“The Air Force is getting back to its roots when it comes to innovation,” he said. “We encourage failure, push the boundaries and come up with visionary solutions.”

Nichol said the jewel of the new facility is the coworking space that comprises about two-thirds of the 5,000-square-foot building. Other features include an event stage; a virtual reality classroom; a podcast studio that has already recorded 20 episodes of The Bedrock Podcast; and a prototyping lab with the aforementioned 3D-printers. 

Bedrock also has a four-month internship program to teach airmen innovation skills they can take back to their units or into the community after they leave the service. Bedrock is comprised entirely of volunteers from every group on base who are committed to improving processes and solving problems.

“Ten to 20 years from now, I believe we’ll realize that something special was born here today,” said Col. Matthew Jones, commander of the 436th Airlift Wing during a Sept. 23 ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We must accelerate change because losing is not an option.”

Jones was paraphrasing Bedrock’s founding principle of “Accelerate Change or Lose,” which was coined by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and is on the new building. 

Rob Nicholson of the Delaware Department of Technology and Information (and a Navy Reservist) sees the state acting as a “matchmaker” to encourage on-base and off-base engagement with organizations that have existing solutions or want to test solutions that will help Dover AFB and other Air Force facilities be more efficient, Nicholson said.

“There’s been a major drive by the military services to look for innovation at the local level, to engage service members, universities and local businesses to develop strategic partnerships at the base level, which benefits our national security objectives. Bedrock is one of those programs that the state is aligning with to engage the community, participate in collaborative initiatives and help secure project funding.”

One key is obtaining funding from the federal SBIR program, a highly competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and research and development (R&D) that has the potential for commercialization. Through a competitive awards-based program, SBIR enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides the incentive to profit from its commercialization. By including qualified small businesses in the nation’s R&D arena, high-tech innovation is stimulated, and the United States gains entrepreneurial spirit as it meets its specific research and development needs.

“Any commander [at Dover Air Force Base] can sign a Memorandum of Understanding detailing interest in working with an SBIR company. If selected for contract, we are able to team with the company to tackle a specific problem set [with SBIR funding],” Nichol said. “Dover currently has one for a virtual reality egress simulator, but we’re looking for more.”

The Bedrock initiative targets more sophisticated research and is designed to move from idea to operationalization, both Nichol and Nicholson agreed. 

Part of ARWERX’s Spark Initiative

The efforts at Dover Air Force Base are part of a broader USAF initiative called AFWERX, which is expanding technology, talent and transition partnerships for rapid and affordable commercial and military capability. Bedrock is part of AFWERX’s Spark Initiative, which connects Air Force personnel to commercial innovators using virtual collaboration, immersive training and networking opportunities that inspire ideas and cultivate a creative Force. AFWERX sees itself as the Air Force’s community of innovators, connecting airmen with the resources required to transform their ideas into reality, according to its social media platforms.

Chartered in 2016, Spark is an Air Force-level grassroots program modeled to bridge the challenges of rapid innovation at the unit level while navigating the administrative hurdles of compliance that often impede the velocity of change. In January 2019, Dover chartered its own Spark hub with the creation of Bedrock.

One success of the Spark initiative can be found at the Open Innovation Campus in Rome, New York, a new $12 million technology research partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Griffiss Institute and SUNY Polytechnic Institute that will help solve complex computing problems for the Air Force by linking researchers from government, industry and academia on the site of the former Griffiss Air Force Base that closed in 1995 and is now owned by the local county.

“We could potentially develop an off-base manufacturing innovation lab that is open to the public but influenced by base needs over the next five years [like the one in Rome],” Nicholson said.

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 18, 2020 – 

Enhancing Ethnic Cuisine at the Delaware Beaches

In the past, Delaware beach restaurants primarily served family-friendly fare. Think burgers and captain’s platters (a fried or broiled seafood medley with a side of slaw). Those days are long gone. Today, the resorts boast so many offerings that the area is collectively known as the Culinary Coast. 

Credit chefs like Gyanendra “GG” Gupta, who with his partners brought Indian-inspired cuisine to downtown Lewes. 

Since opening in 2019, the restaurant has developed a loyal fan base. In part, that is because Indian cuisine had been missing from the healthy roster of area ethnic options, which include Thai, Mexican, Japanese and Chinese restaurants.

And then there is GG, the friendly face of the restaurant, who regularly makes the rounds in the dining room to greet guests and suggest dishes. He is soft-spoken and gracious. He also has an impressive resume: GG has worked in five-star hotels in his native India and in the Caribbean.

The Journey to Lewes

One of five children, GG grew up watching his mother prepare the family meal. “I was a mama’s boy, you know, I love that,” he says fondly. He was 8 when he began questioning her actions while she cooked. Why was she adding this? Why was she stirring that?

He began accompanying her to the market. “Not only did she pass me the cooking skills, but also the purchasing skills,” he says. “Everything had to be fresh. When we were young, I don’t think we had a refrigerator in the house.”

GG’s father wanted him to be a doctor, but the passion for cooking was too strong. After earning a bachelor’s degree, he enrolled in a three-year hotel management program. 

The luxurious Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, a 650-room hotel, hired him as a management trainee, and for five years, he worked as a chef in the hotel. “I’m a real five-star hotel guy,” says GG, who’s opened numerous restaurants for high-end hotel groups. He worked at properties Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada and St. Lucia.

While in Grenada, he met Lewes native Vinay Hosmane, who was in medical school. (Hosmane’s father, Ramachandra, began working at Beebe Hospital in 1978.) They became friends.

Back in India, GG rejoined Taj to open The Vivanta brand in Goa, a world-famous coastal resort. The area made an impression on GG and his family, who returned to Goa after working in Jaipur. 

GG and Hosmane, who became a cardiologist, kept in touch and visited each other. In 2015, GG was a guest chef at the MidAtlantic Wine + Food Festival, which held events throughout Delaware. 

While touring the state, Hosmane suggested opening a restaurant at the beach, and GG agreed.

Hosmane and some associates had been looking for an investment property in the resort community. Meanwhile, Hosmane’s father knew investors interested in the hospitality industry. With GG’s help, the two groups pooled their resources to create Raas, which means “celebration.”

The location, a circa-1899 Queen Anne Victorian on Savannah Road, might seem an odd choice for an ethnic eatery. But Hosmane knew it well. As a child, he rode his bicycle past the house and admired the sweeping front porch and turret. Hosmane felt that it defined the coastal lifestyle. What’s more, the classic architecture speaks to the British Raj that has influenced Indian cuisine.

Built by Capt. W. “Diver” Johnston and William H. Virden, the home is best known as a former residence of Mayor Otis Smith, who oversaw the menhaden fisheries in Lewes. (At one time, the small town was the leading producer of menhaden in the country.)

As a spa, the structure’s exterior was a garish can’t-miss purple paint. The new owners returned it to a soothing blue. Inside, there’s a pop of saffron along with turquoise. White linens cover tables. The atmosphere is decidedly more upscale than an Indian restaurant in strip malls.

Between the massive renovations on Raas, the summer 2019 opening and the pandemic, GG has had little time to rest. When restaurant dining rooms were closed in spring, he forwarded takeout orders to his cell phone, so he did not miss a call. Once dining rooms reopened, he carved out more alfresco seating for the increasing number of people who want to eat outside. 

Lewes-area residents and visitors have embraced the flavors of India.

“They call me back to say they never had a dish before, and it was phenomenal,” says GG, who appreciates the sense of civility and culture in the area. “People want us to be successful as much as we do.” 

The network of support characterizes Delaware, he notes. If he’s standing on the covered porch, it’s not unusual for a driver to honk and call out: “Hey, Chef GG!” 

Many visitors are so pleased with the cuisine that they want him to replicate the concept. But while Indian food is “in my blood,” he says, a second restaurant may showcase a different ethnic cuisine. After all, he’s opened numerous Italian, Thai and other restaurants in hotels.

For now, he’s satisfied with making his mark in downtown Lewes. Says GG, “If my guests are happy, then I can sleep at night.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 9, 2020 – 

Matthew Saponaro, the founder of A.I. Whoo, is a savvy CEO. In early 2020, his artificial intelligence company marketed its services to zoos, aquariums and other attractions. By using existing video footage, A.I. Whoo could ethically capture visitors’ engagement level and provide data and insight to improve outcomes.

But with the advent of COVID-19 in spring 2019, most venues closed.

Instead of looking for money-making behaviors, the University of Delaware student focused on disease-spreading behaviors that might cost them money.

Enter COVIDVision, “a clear solution that moves on getting rid of COVID,” he told an audience in a virtual conference.

Using artificial intelligence, his company can help quantify coronavirus-spreading behaviors, such as mask-wearing, social distancing and human traffic load, “so we can start reopening safely.”

Saponaro wasn’t pitching his idea on the ABC television show “Shark Tank.” He was among the 18 teams in the Summers Founder program, a 12-week pre-accelerator for University of Delaware students with early stage startups.

The program, sponsored by the university’s Horn Entrepreneurship, culminated with Demo Day.

Like the 2020 Summer Founder program itself, the event was virtual this year due to the coronavirus.

Nevertheless, this year’s participants still reaped the program’s rewards.

“Before Summer Founders, I was definitely a developer,” said Saponaro, who recently received his doctorate. “But this turned me into an entrepreneur. What’s the value proposition? Look for a problem, and build a solution.”

It was the fifth year for the program, which provides weekly, individualized mentoring, meetings with advisors, classes and a stipend.

“Entrepreneurship, much like baseball, can’t be taught by [just] sitting in a classroom,” said Vince DiFelice, senior instructor of entrepreneurship and faculty director of venture support. “One has to do it. There are unwritten rules in baseball, and that’s true in entrepreneurship. You learn from people who’ve done it before.”

Participants must work full-time on the project; they can’t have an internship or summer job. Course credit is available.

Typically, there are up to eight participating teams. But due to the pandemic, many UD students lost internships and summer jobs, leaving them with nowhere to go.

“We marshaled all of our resources with donations from a number of kind folks—who donated not only money but time and experience,” DeFelice said. “We worked with over 20 teams and 30 students.

Even as a virtual program, Summer Founders was “intense,” said Sierra RyanWallick, who with Michelle Yatvitskiy founded UP Cycle.

Their company takes post-consumer waste, such as clothes, and creates new products, including handbags. The goal is to prevent clothes and fabric from winding up in landfills.

“We want to hire marginalized community members to make these items,” RyanWallick explained. “The main goal of UP Cycle is to raise awareness about sustainability and make an impact in as many areas as we can.”

The women came into the program with a loose idea and “exited the program with new mentors, prototypes of our ideas, more than 100 customers interviews, a newsletter with more than 60 people on the list and a partnership with the New Castle County government,” she said.

In between, they pitched to philanthropic investors, met with advisors, attended educational sessions, revised their business plan and worked on their presentation for Demo Day.

Presenting Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs

In the past, Demo Day took place at the Venture Development Center on campus. After the presentations, which occurred on stage, audience members could visit the companies’ tables for further discussion.

This year, advisors, teams, mentors and other participants came together in a virtual setting.

The teams each had seven minutes to present their product or service to the Zoom audience.

“Their PowerPoint presentations were absolutely, positively fantastic,” said Ajit George, a volunteer advisor and the founder of Second Chances Farm, an indoor hydroponic farm in Wilmington that employs returning citizens released from prison.

“I wish I had a Summers Founder program when I was at UD in 1972,” said George, a serial entrepreneur. “The students now are smarter, brighter and have better technology. They got incredible advice from the whole program.”

George worked with UP Cycle, and he used his contacts at Goodwill Industries of Delaware and Delaware County to help them secure clothing and fabric.

On Demo Day, UP Cycle received the Most Socially Responsible Award from the audience, who took a poll after the presentations. The Impact Potential Award went to COVIDVision.

Other honorees:

• Most Creative Award: PrintAble, which seeks to provide assistive technology so that people with disabilities or an injury and do everyday tasks.

• Most Promising Award: Oh-So Cycle, an indoor cycling studio that pivoted to offer at-home bike rentals and virtual classes.

• Most Interesting Award: Backyard Gig, a two-sided marketplace that connects students with individuals or businesses seeking help with outdoor tasks.

• Offers Unique Value Award: Alchemize Fightwear, an apparel company for women who compete in mixed martial arts.

• Most Motivated Award: Female Food Foundry, which provides a supportive community for female founders of consumer-packaged food and beverage products.

“What we try to be at Horn is all-inclusive,” DeFelice said. The student companies included services that had the potential to scale and create jobs as well as social ventures. There were students from a variety of colleges within the university system.

Boots on the Ground

Since its start, Summer Founders has launched 31 U.D. startups and raised more than 3.1 million in follow-up funding. But the program is not an accelerator, which offers investors an opportunity to provide funding.

“Some of the [companies] might launch,” DeFelice said of the teams presenting on Demo Day. “Some of them might not. But they’re here to be part of the community.”

Maya Nazareth started Alchemize Fightwear when she was just a sophomore. In the past six months, she’s brought the apparel company online with an image-heavy e-commerce platform.

Nazareth, who graduated with a degree in international business, plans to continue her company. Still, she’s accepted a job with the CEO branding company that mentored her during the Summer Founders program.

She said that Delaware is an excellent place for student entrepreneurs. “The community is small enough that I can have access to such a rich network of people who are creating change in Delaware and around the world,” she said. “I don’t think I would have had the same opportunity to connect with this caliber of people if I were in a larger state. So, I think that’s really special.”

Richard Hayburn and Amanda Zicherman, the founders of PrintAble, would agree. “We were provided with many valuable resources, including advising sessions and referrals to professionals and potential business connections,” said Hayburn, who graduated in spring with a degree in mechanical engineering.

They are expanding their network while continuing to refine their business model. As for Saponaro, he believes that Delaware is open to the artificial intelligence sector.

“I think there’s a huge opportunity for me, so I’m not leaving,” he said. “This is a wonderful place to be. We’re at the right time and the right place.”

For information on Horn Entrepreneurship, visit udel.edu/research-innovation/horn/.

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September 4, 2020 – 

World War II pilot Lt. Maxwell Honemond was in extreme danger as he flew his small, fabric-covered L-4 airplane over enemy lines. A well-aimed shot from an anti-aircraft gun would have brought him down in flames. Armed with only a primitive radio and .38 pistol, his job as an artillery spotter was to help finetune the artillery commander’s aim in real-time during bombardment. Who would have thought his career as a heroic aviator began at a humble college in Dover, Delaware?

Honemond, a Black pilot, began training to be a pilot at what was then called the State College for Colored Students in the late 1930s. In the 1940s, the United States Department of War consolidated some of its pilot training efforts to Tuskegee University in Alabama. Honemond went on to become one of the fabled Tuskegee Airmen. Although the DSU Aviation Program went through a number of changes throughout the decades, turning out top-level pilots is a proud tradition it carries on to this day.

According to current director of aviation, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Michael Hales, Delaware State University’s aviation program was restarted in earnest by Daniel Coons in 1987.

“He raised money, got donations and found some way to get aircraft,” said Hales. “Back then, he started with what we like to call the ‘magnificent seven’ students. Over the years, we kept building on our successes and morphed into what we are today. I’m proud to say that last fall we had 91 professional pilot majors and 36 students focusing on aviation management. We’re on course for even more growth this fall.”

It’s not just the number of students that’s increased. The number of aircraft owned by DSU Aviation has ballooned to 22 in recent years. So many, in fact, that they’ve outgrown the hangar in Delaware Airpark in Cheswold.

“We were one of the first historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to own its own fleet of aircraft, and now we’ve become by far the largest,” Hales noted.

Any program that’s thrived over decades will have faced its fair of trying times. However, DSU’s aviation program faces one of its most serious hurdles yet in the form of an economy reeling from COVID-19.

“Pre-COVID, we used to brag that 100 percent of our pilots are flying ‘right seat’ as a first officer at a regional airline within 12 months of graduation,” said Hales. “There was such a pilot shortage that you could almost hear a sucking sound as our graduates were scooped up by the industry.”

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, the bottom fell out. Since then, the commercial airline industry has shifted to trying to keep its current pilots rather than hire new ones.

“It happened overnight,” Hales said.

Although the future of the industry remains unclear, he finds plenty of reason for optimism.

“I would strongly encourage anyone interested in aviation to stay with it,” he said. “In some 

ways, there is opportunity in crisis. Cargo flights with FedEx, UPS and DHL aren’t having any issues. Those jobs were very competitive already, but there is also the military option. The U.S. military’s demand for pilots hasn’t diminished, and there are a lot of benefits in going that route, considering various scholarships and incentives.”

Hales said the shift in commercial travel has even made charter flights more competitive.

“The charter side of things is doing quite well,” he said. “For folks with a fair amount of money who still need to travel, some operators are making it very inexpensive to fill seats. They’re priced close to first class flights now. With that comes more demand for charter pilots. Either way, we will get through this. We’re hearing from the commercial airline industry that there is a pause on hiring right now, but things will pick back up, and they’ll start hiring again once it does.”   

Serving the Underprivileged

Although Delaware State University is “open to all,” Hales noted that graduating minorities and students from underserved or underprivileged backgrounds is something they take particular pride in. On average, a graduating class consists of about half minority students.

The recently passed FLIGHT Act may help drive the number of black pilots up further, Hales said. The National Defense Authorization Act bill provides new resources for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) students attending HBCUs.

“It’s a big deal,” Hales said. “An ROTC scholarship will now help pay the flight lab fees for HBCU students. These fees can be a big obstacle for underserved populations, so this really helps increase accessibility.”

However, when it comes to outreach, few activities are more important to Hales than his “discovery flights.” As one of the only aviation programs in a 150-mile radius, he believes the DSU program may be the only contact many locals ever have with the prospect of becoming a pilot.

“It’s so important for us to expose a potential student to aviation in any way, shape or form,” he added. “Especially with minority students, many will have never even learned enough about the field in the first place to opt out – many don’t realize that it might be an option for them.”

By taking kids, some as young as middle school-aged, up for a discovery flight in a small airplane, Hales believes he’s helping to “plant the seeds” of aviation in the next generation.

“We’re trying to capture their imagination early and show them what’s possible,” he said. “Get in touch with us or email us at aviation@desu.edu, and we’ll take you up for a flight.”

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