Category Archives: Entrepreneurial Women

By Christine Graf

After two decades of working in the non-profit sector, Schenectady native Sabrina Houser established Capital CFO+ in 2017. The Saratoga Springs-based company provides business management solutions to companies and non-profits of all sizes. 

“We focus on five key areas–accounting, marketing, administrative services, business management services, and non-profit management services,” said Houser. “Our services include human resources, payroll, recruitment, grant writing, and leadership training.” 

Prior to opening her own company, Houser was the CEO and CFO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region. It was while working there that she came up with the idea of opening her own business. 

During the past seven years, Capital CFO+ has experienced rapid growth. Houser now has 40 employees, all of whom work remotely as well as on-site with clients. Her staff includes five directors, each director responsible for one of the five services the company offers. 

According to Houser, Capital CFO+ has a diverse client base, one that is split equally between companies and non-profits.

“Our clients include doctors, lawyers, construction companies, and property management companies. On the non-profit side, we have youth organizations, historic organizations, and foundations. We also have a couple of universities that partner with us for their foundations.”

By Ann Donnelly

Paula Traina, a dedicated State Farm agent with offices in Queensbury and Glens Falls, has built a thriving business rooted in community involvement and a passion for helping others. With a strong foundation in the insurance industry and a commitment to personal and professional growth, Traina has positioned herself as a trusted advisor and a valuable asset to the local community.

Traina’s journey with State Farm began in the corporate offices, where she gained a deep understanding of the company’s operations and the insurance industry as a whole. Her experience in various departments gave her a well-rounded perspective that has been instrumental in her success as an agent. She spent most of her career in the Claims area, with the last few in Corporate Learning and Development, which involved a lot of travel.

Driven by a desire for greater autonomy and a desire to impact her community significantly, Traina opened her first State Farm agency in Queensbury in 2018. 

“I was all over the country helping roll out different initiatives and training employees to learn those initiatives. It just became a lot from a family perspective, so I started to explore opportunities and see what I could do that would keep me home,” said Traina. “State Farm approached me. They planned to put a brand new agent here and asked if I was interested.”

Starting an agency was a big transition, but Traina’s dedication and strategic approach quickly led to growth and success. 

By Ann Donnelly

Lourene Bouffard, the founder of Every Penny Bookkeeping & Business Services, is a passionate entrepreneur on a mission to empower business owners with financial clarity and confidence. With decades of experience, Bouffard offers a unique blend of expertise beyond traditional bookkeeping.

“I’ve found that bookkeeping is the starting point, but we do much more than bookkeeping. When you delve into the numbers, you gain a deeper understanding of the business,” Bouffard explained.

Bouffard’s journey began with a desire to become a CPA. However, after witnessing the struggles of small business owners firsthand, she made a bold decision. 

“After about 20 years or so working in different industries and having various roles in management, payroll, and business advising, I decided that I wanted to go off on my own and do more for businesses that are struggling.”

She realized many businesses lacked the foundational knowledge and systems to achieve financial stability and growth. Seeing this frustration fueled her desire to help bridge this gap and allow business owners to take control of their finances. 

“There are so many people who have great business ideas, but they are not sure how to run a business, don’t know how to watch their finances, don’t know what they’re looking for, don’t have the right processes, or the right people needed for their business to succeed financially,” she said.

By Jill Nagy

Floral Divine, Mindy Ryzuk’s shop at 21 Cooper Street in Glens Falls, focuses on preparing floral arrangements for wedding and other events. She is just coming off her busiest wedding season, from April to October, when she decorates between 10 and 18 weddings.

Ryzuk has been a floral designer for 30 years, mostly with a florist in Allendale, New Jersey, and has had her own business for four and a half years. 

Floral design is almost a sideline for Ryzuk. She is also a massage therapist. In fact, her space in the Shirt Factory is divided in two by curtains and a large cooler for flowers. On the other side of the cooler is the massage studio.

For weddings, Ryzuk can provide the whole package: bridal bouquet, table pieces, candles, arches and other large structures. She begins by consulting with the bridal couple. She finds that some people know exactly what they want; others have a color scheme and budget in mind and they work from there. 

Most of the flowers come from a distributor in Albany. She also buys flowers from local growers when they are in season. 

By Christine Graf

Since launching The Mobile Meditation Studio in September 2022, owner Kayla Craft has been travelling to schools and businesses throughout the Capital Region in a school bus that she transformed into a meditation studio.  She recently partnered with Crossroads Way, Inc., a non-profit with a mission of “Helping Kids Along the Way.” Tax-deductible donations made through the non-profit will be used offset the cost of bringing the bus to high schools in underserved communities.

According to Craft, the partnership with Crossroads Way materialized after Katie MacDougall established the Glens Falls non-profit earlier this year.

“We teamed up with them to be able to identify school districts that may not have the funds to have the bus come to them. We want to make the bus accessible to schools that don’t have the resources. This is a way for local businesses and the community to help more kids have access to these services.”

To date, The Mobile Meditation Studio has visited high schools in numerous school districts including Gloversville, Hudson Falls, and South Glens Falls. It has also been utilized by BOCES and SUNY Adirondack.

In 1986, Dennis Hunt started Hunt Construction Services in Argyle, N.Y., locally constructing residential and light commercial projects. When Hunt’s daughter, Amie, was old enough to get her work permit, she started working in the office with her mother, Cindy Hunt. She also spent evenings working alongside her father, watching and asking questions, learning how to read plans and skills needed in the building industry. Now, Amie Gonzales is President of Hunt Companies, Inc. (HCI) and has received several awards and recognition for her work leading that company.

After high school, Gonzales received an Associate’s Degree in Photographic Technology from Herkimer Community College. She returned to the family business. managing more minor projects. She was approached by an Army recruiter. After some thought, she enlisted in the Navy, where her father had served. She wanted the challenge that the service would bring. “I understood that they need to break you to build you up. I had always wondered if I could do it,” she says.

As a Mass Communications Specialist, Gonzales managed teams in the daily production of multimedia news stories. Her final deployment involved documenting counter illicit trafficking operations with 25 news stories and over 900 photographs. Her work then being published in more than 12 media outlets within the Department of Defense and external media outlets. While excelling at her position, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree through Excelsior University.

Early in her Naval career, she met and married Juan Gonzales. The couple spent much time apart, with each deployed at different times. After eight years of service, having achieved the rank of First Class Petty Officer, she left to create more stability for her family, which now included a young son, Ethan. They lived in Tampa, Florida, where Juan was stationed. Amie worked remotely for the family business while using the GI Bill to get an MBA in Project Management from Strayer University.

By Christine Graf

Local artist Sally Strasser has a collection of over 10,000 LP vinyl records and enjoys listening to music so much that she designed her own speakers. 

“I believe my speaker design is unique on the planet,” said Strasser. “It employs the Fibonacci number sequence in the internal configuration of the cabinet. Every single musical tone on planet earth falls on the Fibonacci number sequence. Because of that, I thought it made sense to design speaker so that it favored and emphasized and perfectly reproduced all of those numbers when you translated them into the sequences of musical tones. And it works.”

The Fibonacci number sequence is a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two that proceed it.

When designing the speakers, Strasser, made certain that “everything inside of the cabinet is designed to fall on that sequence—the area, height, width, length. It truly makes a difference,” she said. 

Strasser designs and builds all of her speaker cabinets herself. She developed a love for woodworking while in shop class at Lake George High School. 

By Susan Elise Campbell

A series of fortunate and unfortunate events culminated in an opportunity for Warrensburg native Stacey Webster to open the lunch and dinner restaurant she has always wanted to operate.

According to Webster, the newly opened Stace’s Place on 3897 Main St. is her way to give back to her community while honoring her family.

“My husband and I were always on the go to flea markets, camping and fishing as a family,” said Webster. “For 20 years there was no time nor opportunity to begin a business.”

Webster’s husband passed away in 2020. She said she took a full year to “get situated and then started to do something totally different. My mother and grandparents instilled in me that whatever I do, I should enjoy it and give back to the community,” she said. “My family goes back many generations in Warrensburg.”

“They would tell me to feed the customers with love and make sure the food is good,” said Webster. 

Webster knew she did not want to buy real estate.  As she started researching concepts and locations for her restaurant, she was talking to a friend whose uncle owned a building on Main Street. She contacted him and soon became the new tenant.

By Paul Post

While many people were at the beach or enjoying backyard barbecues, Rachel McDermott spent Fourth of July weekend harvesting barley for her new craft brewery.

Ninety percent of Dancing Grain Brewery’s ingredients are raised in fields surrounding the farm-based business, located at 180 Old West Road in Moreau, just south of Northway Exit 17.

“This is all hand-selected intentionally to give you something you can’t get somewhere else, from people who have painstakingly suffered all the trials and tribulations to make it possible,” McDermott said. “I want to grow really good crops. I want to share that story with people who come here to enjoy good beer. This is the first brewery I know of where a grain farm is taking on this production aspect of beer.”

Raised in Schaghticoke on her family’s West Wind Ag farm, McDermott studied applied economics and management at Cornell University en route to an exciting investment banker’s career with firms in Houston and New York City.

But upon turning 30, she took inventory of her life’s goals and gave it all up to come back home and help out on the farm.

By Christine Graf

After MT Returnables owner Bob Ball died in a motorcycle accident in August 2020, his oldest daughter, Jade Eddy, spent the next eight months working to reopen the business.

Because Ball had no will and operated his business as a sole proprietorship, the company’s bottle and can redemption centers in Corinth and Queensbury were forced to close.

Ball established MT Returnables in Corinth in 2005 after a 20-year career with International Paper. When the paper company closed, he began collecting bottles and cans to earn money. At the time, bottle redemption centers were a new concept.

“He had a difficult time finding a job,” said Eddy. “He started driving around town and collecting bottles and cans from people and sorting them in the garage. We started calling him a professional hobo. My senior year in high school, he got a building in Corinth, and I thought he had lost his mind.”

Eddy, a Lake Luzerne native, started working part-time for her father when he opened the business. After graduating from high school, she continued to work part-time while enrolled in the business program at Adirondack Community College. At the time, she dreamed of opening her own clothing store. After discovering that she didn’t enjoy working in retail, she decided to work full-time at MT Returnables. In 2012, after Ball became overwhelmed by the administrative side of operations, he put her in charge of the business.