Brinn Gammer and Starling Reyes were recently recognized as winners of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce’s Young Innovator of the Year award for 2020 and 2021, respectively. The award is sponsored by CAN DO’s entrepreneurial arm, the CAN BE Innovation Center.
The CAN BE Innovation Center has a reputation for being dedicated to helping local and regional entrepreneurs launch their businesses. Now, the facility is gaining some international attention.
Construction software company build.works, which launched three years ago in Tallinn, Estonia by a group of SAP software consultants, recently moved into the CAN BE Innovation Center and plans to use its office space there to start the firm’s U.S. operations. The company provides a strategic cloud solution for Building Information Modeling (BIM)-based resource planning, scheduling, budgeting, procurement, manufacturing and construction of buildings.
Carolina Polanco and her husband, Jose Alberto, wanted to start Alpaca Distribution to serve a need in the Hazleton area. That desire to serve came full circle for the couple when CAN DO was there to support their needs as they started their new venture.
Alpaca Distribution is one of several new clients to move into the CAN BE Innovation Center in the Valmont Industrial Park in the last few months. Alpaca – a name created by the combination of letters from the names of Jose Alberto, his daughter, Paola, and Carolina – is a wholesale food distributor of dry goods and supplies for restaurants and supermarkets. The company sells an extensive list of name-brand products throughout Greater Hazleton, including brands like Kraft, Sara Lee, Goya, and more.
CAN DO, along with other members of The Hazleton Innovation Collaborative (THInC) including the Wilkes University Small Business Development Center and the Hazleton Launchbox Powered by Pasco L. Schiavo, is partnering with Luzerne County Community College to hold a Virtual Entrepreneurship Week May 3-7.
