DO.ERS

So far we’ve published 26 fabulous episodes of the DO.ERS podcast. The feedback has been awesome and I want to thank each and every one of you out there who listen to the show, and of course, all of our great guests whose stories it has been a true pleasure to help share. We have so much more to come.

And, we’re currently working behind the scenes on some improvements to the show that will help us continue to showcase the creators, innovators and entrepreneurs from here in Lancaster, and all around Central PA.

In the meantime, did you know that DO.ERS is part of the new DO. Media Network? And, I co-host another podcast on the network called “The Candy Factory 5BY5 Podcast” with my good buddy Diggs. Each week we welcome a very special guest to join us as my iPad, Frank, serves up 5 random topics that we chat about for 5 minutes each. It’s a bunch of fun and if you haven’t checked it out, head over to The Candy Factory website, CoworkingInLancaster.com and click the Podcasts menu at the top of the page.

Your feedback is always welcome by emailing me at [email protected] and don’t forget to checkout CoworkingInLancaster.com to learn all about The Candy Factory coworking community. If you’re an entrepreneur, remote worker, student, or just need an awesome place to work, you can schedule a tour on the website and come check it out. Always remember, work doesn’t have to suck. See you next time on the DO.ERS podcast.

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Tanay Lynn Harris is the founder of Tenacity Consulting, a people centered consulting firm that advances social impact and elevates goals to build and sustain transformative change through equity and justice. Her mission is to help folks think through and delve deeper into becoming more equitable.

Tanay works with a variety of organizations to examine how their existing systems may be causing unwanted harm to the people who are involved in the organization, or those that the organization serves. Her process looks at these ideas on personal, interpersonal, institutional and structural levels.

After graduation from Temple University, where Tanay began to get involved in politics and activism, she accepted a position at the NAACP Legal Defense Educational Fund, a job that took Tanay around the country working in criminal justice and educational justice. This experience gave her the skills to eventually start Tenacity Consulting, her launch in entrepreneurship, which allowed to her juggle motherhood, caring for family, and use her passion and skills to make a living wage.

Tenacity Consulting
WEB: https://www.tenacityconsulting.co (currently not available)
FB: https://www.facebook.com/TenacityConsulting
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tenacityconsulting

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 026 Working for social justice and equity with Tanay Lynn Harris appeared first on The Candy Factory.

It’s our second episode about the pivot to entrepreneurship with two Candy Factory members, Lucy Dowd and Bryan Coe. The pivot is that moment when someone finally decides to take the leap and start a business. Lucy Dowd is an estate planning attorney who started her own practice ten years ago. After law school Lucy worked at different practices until she began to realize how much more efficient a practice could be run by cutting down on overhead and utilizing technology and virtual administrative and paralegal services. Over a decade of running her own practice, Lucy has never looked back.

Bryan Coe is the owner of the marketing agency Blackbird e-Solutions. Blackbird helps companies get found online. Bryan took the leap to start his own company early in his career after spinning up a website for his father’s business and getting a taste of consulting. But life circumstances led Bryan on a journey back into the corporate world for a short time, before going back out on his own with Blackbird. Coming from a long line of entrepreneurs, Bryan has realized that it’s where he belongs.

Today it’s two conversations, with two entrepreneurs talking about their pivots to starting businesses.

Lucy Dowd Law
WEB: https://lucydowdlaw.com
FB: https://m.facebook.com/lucydowdlawpa
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-dowd-b098b627

Blackbird e-Solutions
WEB: https://blackbirdesolutions.com/
FB: http://www.facebook.com/Blackbird.eSolutions
LI: http://www.linkedin.com/company/blackbird-e-solutions

Check out the first Pivot episode (#10) here.

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 025 The pivot to entrepreneurship with Lucy Dowd and Bryan Coe appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Marquis Lupton is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Cultured Professional (TCP) Network and the Program Coordinator for the Crispus Attucks Community Center in Lancaster, PA.

The TCP Network is an independent multimedia network currently publishing thirteen shows through various online platforms. The network has a mission to showcase the voices of the disenfranchised and share the stories of marginalized people here in Central PA. They are telling the stories that would not otherwise be heard.

Marquis is the host of the flagship show called Hip Hop and Politics, where Marquis welcomes guests from both of those camps, like touring hip hop artists and the Mayor of Lancaster.

As the Program Coordinator of the Crispus Attucks Community Center, Marquis is helping that organization rebrand itself and reconnect with the Lancaster community. The center primarily serves people of color and Lancaster’s migrant population.

Marquis’ was born and raised here in Lancaster. He studied radio in his undergraduate program, followed by a master’s degree in television that landed him experience in production at CNN, and in the field as a news reporter for several TV stations around the Northeast. He returned to Lancaster a few years ago and launched the TCP Network.

TCP Network
WEB: https://www.thetcpnetwork.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheCulturedProfessional/
TW: https://twitter.com/TheCulturedPro1
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tcp_network/

Crispus Attucks Community Center
WEB: http://crispusattuckslanc.org/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/crispusattucks.commctr/

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 024 Highlighting the voices of the disenfranchised with Marquis Lupton appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Dr. Andrew Coco practiced medicine for thirty-four years before retiring at the end of 2019. The last twenty years of his career were spent with Lancaster General Health’s Comprehensive Care, a primary care practice for adults and children diagnosed with HIV as well as transgender individuals. Comprehensive Care was born out of federal legislation that was named after a teenage boy named Ryan White who was infected with HIV and diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 following a blood transfusion to treat hemophilia. In 1990, congress enacted the Ryan White CARE Act which provides funding for Comprehensive Care and programs like it around the country.

Dr. Coco joined Comprehensive Care shortly after it’s creation in the late 1990s, and has remained with the practice ever since. Additional physicians have been added along the way. All of the physicians are HIV specialists, but were also trained as family physicians. Beyond standard primary care, all aspects of the HIV virus are treated by Comprehensive Care.

While the social stigma of HIV remains and there has never been a cure for the virus, medication developed in the mid-90s have dramatically improved the quality of life for individuals who are HIV positive. The virus can be suppressed to the point where someone who is HIV positive will no longer be contagious.

Find out more online at at Lancaster General Health Comprehensive Care

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 023 Providing comprehensive care for HIV patients with Dr. Andrew Coco appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Karen Loftus is the founder of Women’s Adventure Travels (WAT), a boutique travel company that specializes in small, well-curated trips for women. There are three tenants to the business: community, empowerment, and story.

The trips organized by WAT include exotic places like Alaska, Peru, Zambia, and the Galapagos Islands. The adventures have a feminine thread with deep dives into the local cultures and time spent celebrating the women of influence and distinction in each location.

Karen incubated the idea for the business through many years working as a freelance travel writer and the connections she made along the way. Over the years, she visited 75 countries, 7 continents and personally traveled with the locals that she is coordinating with for each trip.

Karen is also launching a travel advisory service to customize similar trips for individuals, couples or small groups. But travel has been only one dimension of Karen’s life of adventure.

Karen was also a stand-up comedian for ten years, three of which she spent running a room in the New York City comedy scene. That experience lead to six years an internationally touring stand-up comic. Her first tour was abroad took her to three countries in the Middle East.

WEB: https://www.womensadventuretravels.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/WomensAdventureTravels
IG: https://www.instagram.com/womensadventuretravels

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 022 The wild and crazy adventures of Karen Loftus appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Chris Solt is the Executive Director of The Fair Trade Federation, a community of fair trade enterprises from the U.S. and Canada who are committed to fair practices across their organizations. These member organizations build equitable and sustainable trading partnerships that create opportunities to alleviate poverty with those who face barriers to participate in the global economy as equals.

Membership in the Fair Trade Federation means a commitment to fair trade practices across the entire organization, not just around an individual product. Members need to be able to demonstrate a systematic perspective on meeting the Federation’s principles.

The Federation not only helps to promote the work of its members, but also the general principles of fair trade, building awareness around the idea that our global economy can include concern for the well-being of people and the environment, not just increasing profit. Members of the Fair Trade Federation demonstrate that reality across the board.

Chris began this journey on a much different path, exploring his passion for music and sound production right out of high school. This experience led him to Cleveland where he was later introduced to Ten Thousand Villages, an organization based here in Lancaster County that has connections to the founding of the Fair Trade Federation decades ago. And recently the Federation moved their headquarters to Lancaster at The Candy Factory.

WEB: https://www.fairtradefederation.org/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/FTFederation
TW: https://twitter.com/ftfederation

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 021 All in on Fair Trade with Chris Solt appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Diane Dayton is a master communicator with a mission to help give voice to others. She’s the Executive Director of LCTV66, producer and host of the TV program called Behind the Lines, and a voice and presentation trainer located right here in Lancaster. Diane’s vast experience in media, training and consulting can be summed up in four words, “it’s all about voice”.

Over twenty years ago Diane launched a general interest interview based television program called Behind the Lines that continues to this day on LCTV66 here in Lancaster. In the late 1990s, she was working on a commercial at another local television station in the area when she was asked by the station manager if she’d be interested in hosting a show and Behind the Lines was born.

Giving others a voice in our community is a top priority for Diane and her work on Behind the Lines. Her antennae is always up looking for interesting stories to share. A simple conversation with someone can lead to an invitation to join Diane on the show.

Diane’s incredibly vast career began in radio, long before the Internet, when the format played a larger role in the dissemination of information to the community. She then spent many years exploring other related avenues like event production and voice and presentation training, but she always stayed close to broadcast media and her passion t o connect with the local community. In 2011, she helped launch Lancaster’s community TV station LCTV66, can be seen on the Lancaster Comcast package and online via YouTube and Facebook.

LCTV66
WEB: http://lctv66.org
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LCTV66
YT: https://www.youtube.com/user/LCTV66

Diane Dayton
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-dayton-4477361
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg2y8qFq292wIVFZNvsKabQ

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 020 Giving voice to others with Diane Dayton appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Nicole Vasquez is the founder of Nicole Taylor Boutique in Lancaster which focuses on ethically and sustainably made fashion and accessories for women, all sourced by designers who Nicole works with directly. She forms relationships with the designers she sells and makes sure she knows where and how the products are made.

Nicole recently teamed up with her fiance Jebron Taylor, along with partners Dustin and Heather Lewis to launch Blazin J’s, a specialty chicken restaurant just off the square in Lancaster City in November of 2019.

The restaurant is located on the same block as some of Lancaster’s premiere nightlife, so they set a goal to be open until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights. During their first month of business, their chicken was so popular that they sold out before closing time each weekend. Since we recorded this interview, Blazin’ J’s announced a second location at Park City Center in Lancaster, opening in January 2020.

Since her first job at age 14, Nicole saved her money, invested in real estate, and self funded her first ventures. She has a remarkable work ethic that has allowed her to lean into her passions, and love what she does.

Nicole Taylor Boutique
WEB: https://nicoletaylorboutique.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/NicoleTaylorBTQ
IG: https://www.instagram.com/nicoletaylorpa

Blazin’ J’s
WEB: https://blazinjs.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/blazinjs15
IG: https://www.instagram.com/Blazinjs_

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 019 Ethical clothes and blazin’ chicken with Nicole Vasquez appeared first on The Candy Factory.

Fran Rodriguez is a Senior Program Officer with the Lancaster County Community Foundation and the founder of the Latino Empowerment Project. Her passion and work building and serving community has driven her work for decades. 

The Latino Empowerment Project which facilitates a 10-week personal leadership program is held in Lancaster each spring. This premier training program has graduated more than 100 local Latino leaders with the mission to encourage thoughtful ways that Latinos can either create something or find their way to initiatives that they would like to be involved with.

Fran has also served as the president of the League of Women Voters for the past four years, and constantly strives to make a huge positive impact for the community through her work. Earlier this year Fran was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer. She is a survivor who credits her strength for recovery to a great network that she has built through her work and has leaned on for inspiration. She continues to work toward a better tomorrow for the Latino community and the Lancaster community at large.

Lancaster County Community Foundation
WEB: https://www.lancfound.org/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LancFound
WEB: https://www.extragive.org/

Latino Empowerment Project
WEB: https://www.latinoempowermentproject.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LatinoEmpowermentProject

The DO.ERS Podcast is produced by Jason Mundok at The Candy Factory. Email [email protected] if you have comments, questions, or feedback about the show. We’d love to hear from you!

The post DO.ERS 018 Building and serving community with Fran Rodriguez appeared first on The Candy Factory.