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Colorado Safety Supply

Starting out as a dream in 2012, Valerie Boyd developed her knowledge and contacts within the safety equipment industry to move forward with confidence in 2014. Valerie started to make the dream a reality. Coming from a family working in the structural steel industry, Valerie’s top priority is to keep families safe by keeping workers safe. Colorado Safety Supply does just that, providing safety training and equipment for construction job sites.

Located in Aurora, Colorado Safety Supply sells a variety of safety products, from fall protection to ladder climbing systems, from roofing kits to rescue and recovery devices. Colorado Safety Supply’s online store makes it convenient to find the right product for the job, and pride in customer service is the hallmark for every product sold and every training experience.

Valerie grew the business by 50% in sales between 2014 and 2015, then by 200% the next year. Valerie was able to grow the company on the profits. Now, in 2017, Colorado Safety Supply works with companies of all sizes and is growing to the point of needing more space to hold both a retail store and training facilities.

The new Aurora facility is under construction near the current location and expected to be completed in 2018. The office site will include a retail store, a supply warehouse and safety training facility for contractors and their employees. She has added an administrative staff member, an internal sales representative, two outside sales reps, and contracted providers for bookkeeping, marketing and web design. Working together, sales have increased by 67% over the past year, obtaining government contracts and increasing her product line.

Starting from scratch with personal funds and a line of credit, how did Valerie go from the start-up to expansion phase in just three years? She explains. “As a small business, I met with consultants at the Aurora-South Metro SBDC and was offered guidance in not only starting my business but giving me direction to grow my business. I attended the LEADING EDGETM Strategic Planning Series in the spring of 2015 and completed my business plan. By doing so, I realized the tremendous opportunity for expansion. The greatest challenge at this time is to complete the new facility from which we can provide more services in safety training and equipment rentals and sales.”

Colorado Safety Supply Company is 100% woman owned, with WBE, DBE, SBE, WOSB certifications. Although not veteran-owned, Colorado Safety Supply Company has tremendous respect and passion for veterans, working with many companies who employ and focus on the growth of veterans who are becoming educated in this industry through training and job exploration. Visit her updated secure website, https://coloradosafetysupply.com, for both products and classes.

ContractsRx

ContractsRx is on a mission to make legal contracting seamless, accessible and repeatable.  Shannon Leonard and Ramon Rhymes, co-founders, make it their aim to reduce the time, cost and risk associated with business contracting and business outcomes. The abrupt uncertainty that COVID-19 brought to ContractsRx and other small businesses resulted in an overnight shift from the known to the unknown.  While Shannon and Ramon are fortunate to be in a technology industrywith the tools in place to work at home, they

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Fortified Development Trucking

Fortified Development Trucking strives to be an innovative and solutions-driven minority-owned trucking company, challenging their drivers to provide reliable and excellent customer service while balancing their career and family.  Their mission is to become the transporter of choice for construction hauling and short- and long-hauling from coast to coast.  With the byline “Realizing Potential at Every Level in the Trucking Industry”, Fortified Development Trucking offers reliable, safe, timely delivery that is the most cost-effective trucking

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grandmas
Grandma’s Rockin’ Rolls

It was Laura Neilson’s grandmother who spent hours teaching her children and grandchildren how to bake – while sharing life lessons and family stories. Grandma and her sister-in-law sold cinnamon rolls ‘in town’ to help supplement the farming income. Can you image the commute on horseback during the depression in a Minnesota winter?! Laura had been making Grandma’s rolls and giving them as gifts and holiday treats for over 30 years. But as Laura’s career

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cranellis
Cranelli’s Italian Restaurant

In the restaurant world a successful business often begins with family. When Cranelli’s Italian Restaurant, a new hotspot in Lone Tree, opened, the whole family pitched in to help owners Jim and Lasinda Crane make their dreams come true. Hours after the ink was dry on the restaurant lease, the couple began updating the décor and kitchen with the help of friends and family. Lasinda’s father David, a retired electrician, helped build a bar and

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GradePower Learning

Robert and Olga Mead, the owners of GradePower Learning, started out with a vision to help build children’s confidence and self-esteem. They found an opportunity to do that not only through tutoring students, but also in teaching them how to learn. The LEADING EDGETM Strategic Planning Series was the perfect tool for Olga to test her business model. She graduated from LEADING EDGETM in 2015 and continued on as a client at the Aurora-South Metro

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Leatherneck Precision Machine

Leatherneck Precision Machine is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business that specializes in precision machined components for the aerospace, defense, medical, dental, injection molding and other commercial industries that need precision machined parts for their product lines.  Sometimes people’s lives depend on special machine parts, such as aircraft structures, automobiles, and human-rated spacecrafts, and Leatherneck is an AS9100D- and ISO9001-certified company able to do that technical work.  He also has SDVOSB and SDVBE certifications (for small

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