Welcome to the Empowering Entrepreneurship in Racine County event landing page, hosted by the Racine County Economic Development Corporation. This event is designed to spark conversations among entrepreneurs, small business owners, and community members, who are eager to understand the latest trends, existing resources, and opportunities to strengthen the entrepreneurial environment throughout Racine County.
- Tuesday, July 11, 2023
- 7:30 a.m.
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SC Johnson iMet Center
Gateway Technical College
2320 Renaissance Blvd
Sturtevant, WI 53177 - Register Now
RCEDC hosted the July Leadership Council, a quarterly event, on Tuesday, July 11th at the SC Johnson Gateway Technical College iMet Center in Sturtevant, WI. The event focused on entrepreneurship. Panelists were a mix of entrepreneurs and resource providers
Yolanda Coleman, the owner of Plush Clothing, spoke about her persistence to make her business thrive during obstacles like cancer and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Eric Dogan, owner of 2SWIFTSUITS, is passionate about quality clothing and wanted to fill the gap in the City of Racine for menswear.
“Being different makes all the difference,” said Dogan. “As an entrepreneur, you have to be all in and love what you do to survive and have a successful business.”
As the owner of Domina Consulting Amanda Roman is both an entrepreneur and a service provider. She and her team provide services like business plan assistance, Disenfranchised Business Enterprise (DBE) Certification, Market Assessment Studies and much more.
Panelist Patrick Snyder, president of BizStarts passion for entrepreneurship was heavily reflected in his ramrks. His philosophy is to support the locals. He washes his hair with shampoo from one of his clients and walks his dog with a leash made by another client.
“Differentiation is key,” said Snyder. “Entrepreneurs should be ruthless in making sure you are better than your competitors.”
This event helped everyone discover the need to connect entrepreneurs with Racine County resources to help them get started, grow their businesses, and continue to stay innovative.
RCEDC has created a resource guide to help make those connections, which can be accessed here: https://rcedc.org/bre/starting-a-business/
MEET THE PANELISTS
Founder and CEO
Yolanda, is the founder and CEO of PLUSH, a lifestyle brand that inspires women through clothing to be Pretty Lovely Unique Sexy and most importantly happy.
Yolanda opened Plush Clothing, a Boutique that caters to the full-figured woman, in 2019. With the success of Plush Clothing, Yolanda started BePlush, an entrepreneurial hub that offers space for other women owned small businesses. “I want to empower women to be their best by looking their best. I want women to know too they too can be PLUSH.”
Owner
Eric P Dogans Sr. is the owner/operator of 2SWIFTSUITS LLC, located at 411 Main Street, Suite #1, in Racine, Wis. 2SWIFTSUITS is a men’s boutique clothing store, specializing in men’s suits and accessories! Dogan’s passion is for wearing suits and wanting to see men/youth dress to their best potential. Their slogan is: “When being different, makes all the difference!” Dogan believes that when a man looks good, it can boost one’s confidence.
President
Amanda Roman is the owner and CEO of Domina Consulting – a consulting agency, servicing the Kenosha, Racine, and Milwaukee areas. Born and raised in Racine, Roman is the mother of five boys. She has eight years of banking experience and four years of human resources and payroll experience. Roman also stays involved with many non-profits.
Chief Marketing Officer
Mark McCleary is the SCORE Racine/Kenosha Leader and a SCORE Certified Mentor with expertise in strategic planning, marketing, sales, and business management who is skilled at driving small business growth in revenue, profit, new markets, and new products. He also has a diverse industry experience including family business, non-profits, private equity, B2B, consumer products, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and professional services.
President
Patrick Snyder has tremendous experience running social and for-profit ventures. His largest wins are in the area of organizational GROWTH. At the age of 27 Patrick started, grew and sold Shoreline Magazine. The publication went from having two to 20 employees in roughly three years with Patrick as Founder and CEO. As Executive Director, He transformed The Illinois Travel and Tourism Association, Visit Illinois, from a 30-member club into a federation of Illinois Tourism Associations with a membership in the 100s-of-thousands while increasing the budget by a factor of 6!
Patrick has excellent consulting and operations experience. While working with Billionaire, Best Selling Author Steve Kaplan, Patrick and Steve focused on “Consulting for Growth” for small to mid-size companies, associations and chambers of commerce–Patrick also performed Big Client Sales and Customer Service Training Events and consulting for companies like Panasonic, AT&T, Frito Lay and Oracle.
Patrick is a former Adjunct Professor at Kendall College, and Roosevelt University. As an educator, he is constantly searching for ways to enrich the lives of students. Patrick is also a published contributing author in the highly acclaimed book, The Start-up Student and has served on the Advisory Boards of several companies.
Patrick served as Executive Director of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship for 5 years, where he grew reserves from 28K to over 500K during that time! Currently, Patrick is the President of BizStarts and the Founder of BizStarts Community Market and BizStarts Institute. BizStarts supports Entrepreneurship in underserved communities and provides education, training, one-on-one coaching and connections to resources. All services are free of charge. Revenues and impact have tripled at BizStarts since Patrick took over.
Patrick has BA in Communications from Eastern Illinois University, an IOM designation from the US Chamber’s Institute for Organizational Management at the University of Notre Dame and holds a graduate certificate in leadership from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
