By Carol Ann Conover
A Tuesday for Melanie Fronhofer Weber might span a Glens Falls Business Improvement District board meeting, a toddler music class at her Exchange Street children’s store, (g)row, and a human resources issue at Common Roots Brewing Co. in South Glens Falls.
“I wear a lot of hats, and that’s how I thrive,” she said.
Weber chairs the EDC Warren County board, runs businesses and is raising three sons younger than 5. She describes entrepreneurship as something “almost always in my blood.”
Her father founded Fronhofer Tool in the family’s Washington County basement 11 years before she was born, attending night school and taking side jobs. He later bought a barn on Cossayuna Lake and built a machine and fabrication center. One of her brothers now runs the company, with another working alongside him.
Growing up inside it, she said, “prepares you for how hard it is.” Her parents made every sports game, but “my dad might not come home for a week because he was working around the clock.”
Weber built experience in events, operations and human resources. At Gannett, she helped open USA Today Sports Media Group’s New York City office. In Washington, D.C., she launched Eleven Eleven Events for weddings and private parties, then planned medical education conferences for the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“As I moved along my path in corporate roles, I always sort of was still doing this startup mode, even though they were big companies,” she said.
At the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, she worked on City Awake, an initiative to retain young graduates. Her three-person team became the chamber’s economic development arm, connecting her with entrepreneurs and small business owners.
“Everything was so siloed,” she said. “There needed to be a voice of collaboration.”
She values that experience. “It is a strength of mine that I have been in so many different roles and experienced so many different types of business,” she said. “I love that I can bring those bits and pieces back to Glens Falls.”
Back home, she worked with her father and brother at Fronhofer Design, the family’s brewing equipment business. She also married into a second family enterprise: Common Roots, owned by the Weber family, which includes Bert and Robin Weber and their son Christian, her husband. She now works primarily as the brewery’s business and human resources manager and co-owns (g)row with Hillary Williams.
Her rule for family businesses is simple. “Don’t go into business with someone that you don’t trust blindly,” she said.
At Common Roots, Weber and Christian joke to their sons that “they will be keg washers first.” The brewery also promotes employees outside the family: Dishwashers hired when its kitchen opened in 2020 have become line cooks and supervisors.
“We want people to feel like they have a path forward here,” she said.
Weber joined the EDC board in 2023 after meeting EDC President and CEO Jim Siplon at a Common Roots beer dinner. Among executives from the county’s largest employers, “I think I was definitely the only person representing retail,” she said. Women leaders on the board mentored her, and a leadership transition brought her into the chair sooner than she expected.
“You could have asked me back then if I would ever be the chair of that board, and there was not a chance,” she said.
A small shop’s voice, she said, “is still just as important in our business community as any other that might be sitting at the table on the EDC board.”
Among the EDC luncheon themes of talent, innovation and place, Weber chose “place by far” as the county’s greatest strength. Making Warren County workable for families begins with child care, she said.
“It’s a huge barrier, and it’s a huge problem,” she said, adding that it is “a workforce problem and not just an in-home problem.”
A February 2025 state comptroller’s report classified 55% of Capital Region census tracts, which includes Warren County, as child care deserts. Outside Glens Falls, Queensbury and Lake George, Weber said, “beyond just the expense of it, it’s that it just doesn’t exist.” The EDC and partners are developing a regional child care capacity grant. “We need to make it so that they can come to work,” she said.
Housing and living costs create additional hurdles. “We want to do everything we can to make people feel like Warren County is their home,” she said.
As of January, the EDC tracked more than $400 million in announced private development across Warren County, including an estimated $85 million to $110 million downtown in Glens Falls. Weber sees cross-community cooperation as the greatest opportunity. “I don’t think that business success ends at a boundary,” she said.
Downtown, she sees new South Street shops drawing customers who might also visit Exchange Street. “No one goes to a wine country to go to one winery,” she said.
Weber points aspiring women entrepreneurs toward local female leaders while acknowledging child care and living-cost barriers. “I hope that people, women, can see themselves as accepted and respected here,” she said.
In her businesses, Weber favors collaboration over competition.
“I don’t think it’s the norm in business,” she said. “And we can change that.”