Head Of Orthopedic And Spine Physical Therapy Doesn’t Shy Away From A Challenge

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Denise Buher is the owner of Orthopedic and Spine Physical Therapy PC which has locations in Queensbury and Moreau. She has been in operation for 21 years.

By Maureen Werther

With 21 years under her belt as owner of Orthopedic and Spine Physical Therapy PC, one of the biggest differences owner Denise Buher sees is how increasingly complicated it has become to spend more time with patients and less time with paperwork.

Despite those challenges, Buher, who is a certified therapist in mechanical diagnosis and therapy of the spine from the McKenie Institute, is still happy with the decision she made more than 20 years ago to go out on her own.

Buher began her career as a senior therapist on the staff of Glens Falls Hospital, where she said people automatically mistook her for a supervisor.

“That’s probably because I always acted like one,” she said.

Buher started out as a solo practitioner, hiring a physical therapy assistant the following year.

Gradually, she added more employees and now she manages a staff of 15, including four full-time and two part-time physical therapists, one full-time and two part-time PT assistants, and six administrative and support staff.

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Kathleen Kelly Established Thriving Business With Queensbury Cigar & Pipe On Route 9

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Kathleen Kelly moved to the area 24 years ago and opened a coffee shop. She has since expanded, running Queensbury Cigar & Pipe, where customers can get a cigar, coffee, wine and beer.

By Jennifer Farnsworth

Having a strong work ethic, along with perseverance, are two things many small business owners say are part being successful.

Kathleen Kelly, owner and CEO of cupojoes.com and Queensbury Cigar & Pipe, may be the perfect example of this mantra. From selling her first cup of coffee 23 years ago, to now, Kelly is making her mark in the business.

Kelly moved to Lake George from Long Island 24 years ago, after having a hard time finding work. While still in Long Island, she was selling electrical supplies and had a moment where she decided to make a change.

“I decided to make things happen for me. To me it’s all about hard work and never giving up, trusting your gut. In 1994, I decided to open a coffee shop in the village called Cup O’ Joes. I remember making $11 on my first day and being so excited,” said Kelly.

Kelly said that first year was during what was she called the “cigar boom.” She said noticed many people seemed to be looking for a quality cigar. After her first year in business with the coffee shop, she purchased a small cabinet humidor and stocked cigars, eventually adding some pipes to the shop.

She said during this time the internet came about, so she began an e-commerce web site, cupojoes.com. Eventually, Kelly moved the business to Queensbury, becoming Queensbury Cigar & Pipe.

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Premier Plus Travel & Tours Moves Office From Queensbury To Warren Street In Glens Falls

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Dawn Biddiscombe, owner and operator of Premier Plus Travel & Tours, along with her son Matt Colucci, poses next to the company’s executive-style Mercedes tour van.

By Margaret McDonald

Premier Plus Travel & Tours, an independent travel and tour agency, recently opened a new office on Warren Street in Glens Falls.

Run by mother-and-son team of Dawn Biddiscombe and Matthew Colucci, the company aims to provide safe and reliable transportation to all. Transportation is offered for jaunts like New York City shopping tours, pub crawls, weddings, proms and runs to the airport.

Originally from Vermont, Biddiscombe maintained a travel hobby for 15 years before opening her part-time business three years ago booking travel and group deals.

She said she loves helping people find the most cost-efficient trips and is especially familiar with the Caribbean and Mexico.

After 13 years as a paralegal for AngioDynamics, Biddiscombe left her corporate job to devote herself entirely to the travel company. She described the decision as a turning point that enabled her to fully pursue her passion.

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Development Officials In Glens Falls Region Await State Decision On Grant Spending Plan

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Ed Bartholomew, president of EDC Warren County.Courtesy EDC Warren County

By Jill Nagy

Glens Falls planners and city officials have had the job for the last few months of deciding how to spend $10 million. The money comes in the form of a grant from the state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

They came up with more than a dozen programs and initiatives ranging from a year-round farmers’ market to a “race for space” contest.

Plans were presented to the public at a Feb. 23 meeting. The final wish list will be reviewed by a statewide committee and then passed along to the governor, according to Ed Bartholomew, president of EDC Warren County.

Each proposed project will be reviewed. Bartholomew said the proposals total more than $10 million. If all 14 of them are approved, the city will seek other funding to make up the difference.

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Washington County Local Development Corp. Has 42 Active Loans, $1M Available To Loan

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Deanna Derway, president, Washington County Local Development Corp.

By Jill Nagy

With a $5 million loan portfolio to administer, the Washington County Local Development Corp. helps to foster a vibrant small business community in a largely rural county. Deanna Derway, president, executive director and the only employee of the corporation, “wears lots and lots of hats” keeping things going.

According to Derway, there are currently 42 active loans and she just made two more. Some $1 million is available for new loans.

The nonprofit corporation began in the 1970s with money from federal Community Development Block Grants. Aside from $80,000 a year from the county, interest, fees, and repayments of the loans made from those early grants sustain the organization.

Any business in Washington County is eligible to apply for a loan, she said. Applicants must be for-profit businesses and job creation is a criteria. (The unemployment rate in Washington County was 4.9 percent at the end of 2016, slightly above state and national averages).

The varied loan portfolio includes farms, restaurants, energy transport companies, cleaning services, delis and breweries. Typically, the corporation lends to businesses with some risk, “stuff banks may not want to lend to,” she said.

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2017 The Hyde Exhibitions Include Abstract, Contemporary, Watercolor And Photography

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This painting is part of an upcoming exhibition at the Hyde Museum of the works of Allen Blagden, renowned for his paintings of birds, animals and scenes of the Adirondacks.

Officials at the Hyde Museum are looking for a strong 2017, with an exhibition schedule that includes one of the country’s greatest living watercolorists, an innovative contemporary artist, the most influential abstract artist of the postwar era, the annual Juried High School Show, and a massive exhibition of American folk art.

Featured exhibits this year include:

• Lorna Bieber: Forces of Nature, through May 14

The photo murals and montages of Bieber will be featured in the Hoopes Gallery. The artist manipulates stock media photography in scale and medium, reinterpreting the natural world, and evoking a sense of collective memory. Her works re-create nature as an idyllic and poetic world of familiar images. Bieber was trained as a painter, but turned her attention to photography while working for magazines. Her subject matter includes natural elements such as trees, flowers, and animals, as well as figurative subjects, sometimes with references to art history.

• Marking the Moment: The Art of Allen Blagden, Feb. 12 to April 16.

Blagden is a distinguished contemporary realist with longtime ties to the Adirondacks. He is well known for his paintings of animals, birds, landscapes, and people in the style of Winslow. His love of wildlife and birds stems from an internship illustrating for Serengeti National Park in Kenya, working for the Department of Ornithology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and summers spent in the Adirondacks.

Marking the Moment features 62 works by Blagden and is curated by Caroline Welsh, art historian and director emerita of the Adirondack Museum.

• The Juried High School Show, May 6 to May 28.

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Family Makes $1 Million Donation Toward The Upgrading Of Local Hospital Birthing Unit

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A $1 million donation from the Bill and Joanne Stock Foundation will go toward the renovation project underway at The Snuggery family-centered birthing unit at Glens Falls Hospital.Courtesy Glens Falls Hospital

In her 30-plus years living in Glens Falls, the late Joyce Stock served as a nurse at Glens Falls Hospital, built a popular restaurant and raised three sons who share her philanthropic generosity.

In January, her eldest son, Bill, returned to Glens Falls to honor his mother’s memory and with one of the largest philanthropic gifts in Glens Falls Hospital history in the form of a $1 million donation from the Bill and Joanne Stock Foundation.

The money will go toward a $5 million renovation project underway at The Snuggery family-centered birthing unit at the hospital.

The hospital announced that the birthing unit will now be known as The Joyce Stock Snuggery at Glens Falls Hospital.

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