Three Toledo-area businesses are thriving today, thanks in part to SCORE's free advising, mentoring, and tutoring.
Founded in 1964 by an act of Congress as the volunteer arm of the Small Business Administration, SCORE was initially an acronym for Service Corps of Retired Executives. As the organization matured, it ceased being an acronym and became known simply as SCORE in order to reflect the fact that nearly half of its volunteer mentors are actively working.
The organization has helped over 17 million entrepreneurs start or grow a business or nonprofit. In 2023, SCORE facilitated the start of 31,167 new businesses and the creation of 120,948 nonowner jobs.
People who want to start a business or a nonprofit can fill out a form on the SCORE website. They are matched with a volunteer mentor. The two can then set up mutually convenient times to meet virtually or in person. The mentor will usually ask questions about the business founder’s ideas, goals, progress, and difficulties and offer advice, resources, contacts, and insights.
All communications between the mentor and the aspiring small business owner are confidential, and all sessions are completely free of charge.
Pam and Dave Mills create a wedding destination
When Pam and David Mills’ third child was planning to get married, they couldn’t find a suitable location for the ceremony. So they decided to build one. But they quickly realized that they would need help realizing their dream.
“I had attended some business classes SCORE had put together and was impressed by the organization,” Mrs. Mills said. “They connected me with Mike Messmer, who became our SCORE mentor.”
That January, 2021, phone call was the first of many Mr. and Mrs. Davis would have with Mr. Messmer. They soon learned that he was no ordinary mentor. He is, in fact, the chairman of SCORE’s northwest Ohio chapter and a veteran executive with 48 years of experience with the Toledo-area business community.
“Mike steered us to the right people. He gave us the framework we used to do our competitive analysis,” Mrs. Mills remembers. “We ended up writing one that was 109 pages long and looked at wedding venues in nine counties in Michigan and Ohio. We had to set our price so that we were the most attractive of all the other venues for what we were offering.”
Mr. Messmer also provided the Millses with much-needed contacts. He referred them to the Toledo Lucas County Port Authority, which gave them a loan for the purchase of equipment. And perhaps, most importantly, he gave them the name of Kevin Romanko, who became their general contractor on the wedding venue construction project.
Mr. and Mrs. Mills drew on their retirement savings to help fund the purchase of the land and the construction of the buildings.
“All our friends told us that we were absolutely nuts to do that at our age,” said Mrs. Mills.
The venue, which was christened Birchwood Meadow, opened for its first wedding on July 8, 2023. The main building is an 8,000-square-foot “big timber” barn that can accommodate 300 people. It was the first new commercial building to be constructed in Swanton in 20 years.
Since that time, Birchwood Meadow has hosted 68 weddings of both opposite-sex and same-sex couples of all faiths and is hosting three weddings every weekend. The facility is now completely booked for 2025 and is taking reservations for 2026.
Swanton Mayor Neil Toeppe, who had been a SCORE volunteer himself, thinks that what Mr. and Mrs. Mills have created is incredible.
“Birchwood Meadow has become a point of pride for the community, a big, lavish, elegant venue,” he said. “It attracts people from all over — not just from Swanton or Fulton County. Every weekend we see their parking lot packed with vehicles. It’s created a lot of positive buzz about Swanton.”
“We would never have gotten this far without Mike Messmer’s help,” said Mrs. Mills. “We didn’t know a whole lot of people in the business world. Once you start to get to know people, you’re in, but we wouldn’t have gotten those contacts without Mike.”
Eric Thompson becomes a condiment-maker
During the coronavirus pandemic, Eric Thompson had what he calls his “lightbulb moment.”
Furloughed from his job as a sales manager at Value City Furniture, he had some time on his hands, so he turned to cooking as a creative outlet.
“One day in late 2020, I wanted to do something different. I had a fridge full of condiments, but nothing looked good to me. I had a bag of apples and wondered whether I could make a tasty condiment out of them. That was how my business, Feez Fusions, began.”
Mr. Thompson began getting feedback from family and friends, who encouraged him to turn his idea into a business. To do that, he connected with SCORE mentor John Bodner.
“I met with John for the first time on January 8, 2021,” Mr. Thompson said. “Since then, I’ve met with him five or six times. He was really persistent, calling me every week and sending emails once or twice a week that gave me a lot of information on how to win at business, how to handle the numbers side of things, how to get business insurance, and how to scale up my project. He came to the farmers markets where I sell my products.”
Today, Feez Fusions condiments are sold at Food Town on Central Avenue, at Sautter’s Market in Sylvania, Monnette’s Market on Secor, and the Seaway Marketplace on Cherry Street. They can also be purchased directly from Mr. Thompson at the Perrysburg Farmers Market. He has recently added two new flavors to his product line: Forbidden Fruit (an extra-spicy condiment) and Honey Mustard.
In February, Mr. Thompson went to a food industry convention and met with buyers from major companies who were interested in his unique condiments.
“I got a lot of great positive feedback and interest in distribution,” he said. “Now I have to figure out how to mass-produce my products. The only thing that’s preventing that from exploding in a good way is a lack of capital. But I’m working on that.”
Throughout the business’s growth, John Bodner encouraged Mr. Thompson to believe in his business.
“John was awesome,” Mr. Thompson said. “He provided a lot of information I needed about where to seek out grants. He said, ‘I love your story. You’re onto something. Make sure you hang on to it.’”
Mr. Bodner is a veteran SCORE volunteer and has counseled close to 1,000 aspiring business and nonprofit ventures. He holds an MBA in finance and a master’s in chemical engineering. After working for DuPont and O-I, he set up a business consultancy.
“In 2009 I started to wonder what I want to do with my life after retirement. I tried a lot of volunteer experiences and found that I got more emotional resonance working with SCORE than anything else. When I retired in 2017, I devoted my time to SCORE. We all have a certain amount of knowledge that others don’t have. I decided that I would use mine to give back and help other people.”
David Overholt sets up an ice cream shop
David Overholt has lived in Walbridge for 63 years. An artist who specializes in sfumato, which involves underpainting with your fingers in order to achieve a better transition between colors, he hoped to teach painting in his hometown, but soon learned that the region was considered “an arts desert” by the Ohio Arts Council.
He eventually founded a nonprofit organization called Northwest Ohio Rural Arts and held classes at Lake Township Hall and a Walbridge VFW post. But he dreamed of having a dedicated space where artists in and around Walbridge could work — “like a maker space for art,” he said.
He envisions a 15-acre compound with studio space for painters and a glass workshop. But finding the money to launch such an ambitious project proved difficult.
Then, about three years ago, he hit upon the idea of funding NORA by starting a business that Walbridge lacked: an ice cream shop. But he knew he’d need some help.
“I had heard about SCORE several years ago, so I said, ‘Why not? Let’s try it.’ I picked John Guinivere because he was the youngest one and would understand what I was trying to do. He has so much experience building different restaurants in Las Vegas and in this area. He knows where to turn every time I have a problem.”
With Mr. Guinivere’s assistance, Pinky’s Scoop Shack opened in July, 2023, in a small 1950s brick building on Main Street. The business was named for Mr. Overholt’s mother, whose nickname is Pinky. Now 87 years old, Pinky works behind the counter at the shop as an unpaid volunteer.
Mr. Guinivere has been a SCORE mentor since 2020.
“I knew about SCORE because my dad had been a mentor about 30 years ago. I’ve had 42 clients and am still in contact with five of them,” he said.
After obtaining a culinary degree, working for one of the first cellular phone companies, and traveling extensively, Mr. Guinivere returned to the U.S. and did restaurant and catering work. He eventually moved to northwest Ohio to Perrysburg to be near his mother.
During the pandemic, he found he had extra time on his hands and applied to be a SCORE mentor.
“I do a fair amount of consulting anyway, so I looked at it as a way of adding to my skills,” he said. “And I like the variety of job ideas I come across.”
“I first met David in December, 2020,” Mr. Guinivere said. “Going through the process of setting up the ice cream store gives him street cred as a businessperson. Funders really like people with that kind of track record.”
Reflecting on his relationship with his SCORE mentor, Mr. Overholt was unequivocal: “The business wouldn’t be at where it is now without John’s help.”
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