Aiesha D. Little, Communications Maestro

Last April, Kira Fluker-Burch decided to make her sweet tooth her business and launched Kandi Artisan Candy Clouds. “I loved cotton candy growing up,” says the preschool teacher and freelance artist. “A memory of sweet cotton candy with family at a fair or circus event is something that stays in your mind forever. I want to be that. I want to give that.”

Cathy Bernardino Bailey started her career at the EPA, and now she keeps our water system clean and safe as the first woman to serve as Executive Director of Greater Cincinnati Water Works. She offers a behind-the-scenes look at her role for our February 2021 Cincinnati At Work issue.

Nathanael Nunemaker’s dreams of being a self-sufficient homesteader recently yielded a “hot” idea. “I started growing fruits and veggies in the middle of Covington, and one thing just led to another,” says the Union, Kentucky, native. “I had bundles of jalapeño peppers that I grew and wanted to find the best way to preserve them, so we decided on hot sauce for our preservation method.” The result is Farmer Nate’s Hot Sauce.

Breathing fire is just part of the gig for Travis and Susan Fessler of PB and J Circus. They share how the pandemic has impacted their work and the worst and best parts of performing for our February 2021 “Cincinnati At Work” issue.

When Rachel DesRochers launched her first company, Grateful Grahams, in 2010, she quickly noticed that she didn’t have a peer group of like-minded business owners that she could tap into to share experiences. “As we kept growing, I saw there was no real space or community for food entrepreneurs,” says DesRochers, who founded the Incubator Kitchen Collective (IKC), a shared-use commercial kitchen space that supports small food businesses, in 2013. “Looking back on the past 11 years, I realize it takes a community of passionate people who show up every day and work hard to make dreams come true.” Kroger helped those dreams along when its Cincinnati/Dayton Division partnered with Incubator Kitchen Collective to offer grants to local food entrepreneurs.

As the pandemic drags on, artists and theatergoers alike are adapting to seeing works of theater produced for their computer screens instead of live audiences. And Roger Collins is in the thick of it. The O’Bryonville resident’s latest play Trading Places premieres this week as part of Gallery Players’ 24th annual Black Box New Play Festival in Brooklyn. It’s the tale of a father and his teenage daughter, separated in cyberspace, debating the merits of bringing a loved one back from the dead.

You may not know the name LifeFormations, but odds are you’ve probably seen the company’s work. From Germany’s Europa Park to the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, this design and fabrication firm has created sculpted and mechanical elements for amusement parks, movie studios, museums, and other themed attractions around the world. “I, like many of our team, came into this business wanting to build experiences that ‘wowed’ visitors as they walked past or through our projects,” says Rodney Heiligmann, the company’s president. “So a maquette in Times Square, a theme park attraction in Asia, a museum here in the Midwest—wherever our work is located, we wanted to engage people in the space so we could entertain or teach them something.”

When Michael Weirich’s research position at Vanderbilt University went belly up last summer because of the pandemic, he had to find something else to do with his time. Knowing of his love of cooking, his mother joked that he should create a “restaurant out of our house,” and the aspiring entrepreneur was off and running. In July, Weirich launched Restaurant Confluence, a month-long pop-up dining experience at his parents’ home. This month, he’s back with a new winter menu and weekly takeout options.

When you think about the smoothest, coolest brass sections of funk and soul bands from the 1970s and ’80s, Ohio shows up front and center. Bands like Ohio Players, Slave, and Lakeside all came out of Dayton while Bootsy’s Rubber Band grew up right here in the Queen City. Trumpeter Mike Wade is continuing that tradition with the debut release of the eponymously titled Mike Wade & the Nasty NATI Brass Band.

During the tech recession of the early 2000s, the CEO of the company Alex Yastrebenetsky worked for flew into Cincinnati to announce that more than 200 of its employees were being laid off. At the time, he considered himself one of the lucky ones to still have a job at the end of the meeting. “It took me quite a few years afterwards to figure out what I wanted to do but, looking back, that was the day I realized I wanted to run my own business,” says Yastrebenetsky, founder and CEO of the digital analytics consulting, data governance, and technology company InfoTrust.

Ricardo “Rico” Grant is no stranger to entrepreneurial culture. A long-time startup mentor with the nonprofit Cintrifuse, he founded CrownMob for the Black haircare marketplace in 2017. The mobile platform attracted 46,000 users in its two years and spawned a three-day conference/festival called Paloozanoire in 2019. Grant then took his startup know-how to Northern Kentucky University’s Institute for Health Innovation to help launch SoCap Accelerate, a new accelerator focusing on the healthcare industry.

When Hyde Park resident Lauren Barker lost her second job as server earlier this year because of the pandemic, she decided to use her love of cheese as a creative way to make up for the lost income. “I’m very passionate about cheese,” she says. “I decided, What better time to invest in myself than when the world is shut down and I have nothing to distract me? So I spent a couple months researching, making a business plan, and building my site and I went for it.” The result is Cheese Garden, a custom charcuterie board business, which Barker officially launched this summer.

Food insecurity is a major concern in “normal” times, but in a year like this one when COVID-19 has upended every facet of life? Well, let’s just say the Freestore Foodbank has its work cut out for it this Thanksgiving and Christmas.

When Asian Food Fest was canceled earlier this year due to the pandemic, the Asian American Cultural Association of Cincinnati still wanted to do something to celebrate Asian food culture. The result was last week’s Asian Food Week and the recent launch of Asianati.com, which “celebrates Asian food culture through stories, news, and an ever-growing directory of Asian restaurants, food trucks, markets, bakeries, and more.”

Drive past the No Pork On My Fork food trailer in Bond Hill on any given day and you’ll see a line of customers. Owner Willie “Wil” Hearn knows that when you try his breakfast and brunch specials, you’ll be happy to stand in that line, too. We spoke to Hearn about how he got started, how he made a name for himself at Cincy Soul: The Black Taste festival, and how he’s getting his business through the pandemic.

As COVID-19 cases spiked across the country, research facilities and pharmaceutical companies ramped up efforts to create a vaccine that will stop the virus’s spread. In the spring, St. Elizabeth Healthcare became the first U.S. site to participate in a Food and Drug Administration-approved Phase-2 clinical trial of the drug PUL-042, which boosts natural immunity in the lungs.

There’s a reason why Perfetti Van Melle employees and executives refer to the company’s 10-month-old warehouse and distribution center as “The Showcase.” It’s the former location of Erlanger Showcase Cinemas. Quite apropos for the makers of Airheads, Chupa Chups, Mentos, and other fine movie-appropriate candies. Perfetti is one of the world’s largest confectionery groups, manufacturing and distributing sugar confectionery and chewing gum products in more than 150 countries.

If you’re in the business of startups in the Midwest, you’ve probably come across Candice Matthews Brackeen. As co-founder and executive director of Hillman Accelerator, the University of Cincinnati graduate has spent the last three and a half years making sure her investment company provides underrepresented tech-enabled startups with the mentorship, curriculum, investment, opportunities, and resources they need to scale, grow, and thrive.

A showcase of the best short films focused on improving towns and cities will make a stop in Cincinnati on Sept. 26 and Oct. 3. Hosted by Women in Film Cincinnati, the Better Cities Film Festival highlights 18 short clips on everything from sustainability to affordable housing.

On a recent crisp Saturday evening, the rich sound of JD Allen’s tenor saxophone is floating through the air around Campsite Sculpture Park in Camp Washington. A crowd of 25 or so jazz fans, masked up and social distancing, are out to listen to Allen’s tunes, including some from his new album release, Toys/Die Dreaming (High Note/Savant Records).