Success Stories

Knight

SCORE guidance helps Cumberland firm thrive

In 1977, Herrick & White started as a two-man woodworking shop in a small garage.  Today the company occupies a fifty-five thousand square foot manufacturing facility, utilizing state of the art technology and employing more than one hundred people.  Having completed jobs as far away as London and Tokyo, the firm is widely recognized as one of the finest architectural millwork shops of its kind.

In fact, Herrick & White’s reputation is so well known that ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition reached out to them to help build a new home for a deserving Warwick family in 2008.  Naturally, Herrick & White rose to the challenge, with employees working around the clock to produce the millwork for a 3,000 square foot home that was entirely constructed in just seven days.

From heirloom quality furniture to exquisitely detailed cabinetry and millwork, Herrick & White’s creations can be... Read More

Lisa Matiello discusses wedding plans with clients

Lisa Mattiello started her business as a corner luncheonette in 1997.  It was the beginning of a lifelong ambition to own and operate a business.  From that humble beginning, Lisa opened a catering business that became very successful.  With growth the company’s name changed from Pranzi Catering to Pranzi Catering and Events.  Within five years the business developed into one of the premier catering and event planning firms in Southern New England.

 In 2013, the company, together with its team of 45  fulltime and more than 100 part time employees, hosted over 85 weddings and 3,700 corporate and social events.

 Mattiello studied culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University.  Prior to opening her business she managed an Emack & Bolio’s franchise for several years before managing the former Savories in Newport. Lisa then opened her business with the mission of always delivering personalized service.  As she enters her 17th year as a business owner, Mattiello’s... Read More

Brenda Brock, founder, formulator and CEO of Farmaesthetics, is the daughter of a seventh generation farming family from Texas with roots steeped in herbal traditions. Brenda capitalized on her experience and training to launch her company, which creates, designs, produces and wholesales 100 percent natural, fine herbal skincare products.

Brock’s technical background in chemistry stems from her pre-nursing studies and her employment while in school at the University of Texas at Austin.  Her love of folklore, storytelling and writing led to a change of majors and a move to New York City, where she studied and enjoyed a 10-year career as a produced playwright and actress.

If her name is familiar to some, it may be because she enjoyed a four-year role on the ABC-TV daytime drama One Life to Live. She was nominated twice for a Daytime Award as Best Actress.

Despite her acting success, Brenda longed for her rural roots.  She gave up acting, moved to Rhode Island,... Read More

Outstanding customer service puts Cheryl Snead and Banneker Industries in the national spotlight

     Vision.  Responsibility.  Inspiration.  Integrity.  Success.  Individually, these words can be applied to any number of different things and people.  Once in a great while, however, a person comes along that incorporates all these ideals not only into their own way of life, but into their business’ way of life, and its employees and their way of life too.  Such is the case with Cheryl Snead, President and CEO of Banneker Industries Inc.  Cheryl took over a small machine shop with a leaky roof in Lincoln, Rhode Island in 1991, and has since transformed it into a supply chain management power, now headquartered in North Smithfield, R.I., with facilities in 5 states. 

     Snead, the first African-American woman Mechanical Engineering graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, entered in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program and went to work obtaining government contracts that were sole-sourced to companies that were... Read More

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