Start-Up Incubator Reopens in New Space

Penn State’s Mon Valley LaunchBox has room for more businesses to grow

By Jason Togyer
The Tube City Almanac
October 13, 2023
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News

Eric Ewell, director of continuing education at Penn State’s Greater Allegheny Campus, welcomes visitors to the opening of the new Mon Valley LaunchBox on Fifth Avenue, Downtown. Also shown are business owner Shalay Williams, founder of Care Heart CPR, and state Rep. Matt Gergely. (Special to Tube City Almanac)

Even after a devastating explosion wrecked the building where Penn State University’s Mon Valley LaunchBox was located, the small-business incubator never stopped operating — and growing.

Since 2019, more than a dozen businesses have now gotten their start through the Mon Valley LaunchBox, and with the formal opening on Thursday of its new location Downtown, there’s more room to grow, said Eric Ewell, director of continuing education at Greater Allegheny Campus.

“We’ve never stopped,” Ewell said. “We had two networking events this year that we had 60 people registered for. We just didn't have the coworking space. But even then, we offered people who were paying members at the time space on campus.”

Ewell and Megan Nagel, Greater Allegheny interim chancellor, joined State Sen. Jim Brewster, State Rep. Matt Gergely, McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko and other community leaders to celebrate the LaunchBox’s new location in the former First Commonwealth Bank at 225 Fifth Ave.

The facility was donated to the city in 2021 for redevelopment purposes and has now been renovated by Penn State.

Work continued literally up until 11 p.m. Wednesday night. Nagel credited Ewell and other Penn State staff for getting the former bank open on-time.

“To walk in here today and see his vision as a reality is just phenomenal,” she said.

Nagel also welcomed the entreprenuers who have been launching their businesses with coaching and mentoring from the Penn State LaunchBox.

“We are committed to ensuring that this center is accessible to all,” she said. “This is not a Penn State-only venture. These doors are open to every member of our community, regardless of background or circumstance. It’s an investment in those dreams of every McKeesport resident and a declaration that no dream is too small and no vision is too big.”

Mayor Michael Cherepko speaks to the audience at the opening of the Mon Valley LaunchBox. (Special to Tube City Almanac)

Six business owners were in attendance on Thursday, including Shalay Williams, founder of Care Heart CPR, which opened at the former Mon Valley LaunchBox site, located at the former YWCA of McKeesport on Ninth Avenue, in July 2021.

One year later, on Aug. 2, 2022, the facility was gutted by a natural-gas explosion, seriously injuring two construction workers. The building remains closed.

Williams called the explosion and its aftermath “devastating” and said she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to continue her business after she lost thousands of dollars in training material and equipment.

“But I knew I wanted to,” she said. “And the Penn State LaunchBox program made it really easy for me to just keep going and transition. They immediately jumped in and allowed me to continue my training classes at the Greater Allegheny campus. And then of course, they also helped me recover some of the equipment that I’d lost.”

Being back together with other small-business start-ups is important, Williams said.

“It is a space for me to continue working on my journey as an entrepreneur,” she said. “It is a space that is now going to bring myself back together as well as the other entrepreneurs that were displaced on Aug. 2nd when the explosion happened. We’re all going to be back together again, back together to network, back together to collaborate and work on our dreams. So I’m very happy to be here.”

Cherepko said that the Mon Valley LaunchBox has been one of “McKeesport’s best-kept secrets,” and that he hoped in the new space, it wouldn’t be a secret much longer.

The explosion at the Ninth Avenue site “was absolutely horrible,” he said. “But one of the goals was always to put the LaunchBox right here on Fifth Avenue from day one. So through this whole ordeal, and unfortunately what happened, here we are now, on Fifth Avenue, so that Penn State Greater Allegheny and the LaunchBox program can have a true presence in Downtown McKeesport.”

It wasn’t the way that anyone envisioned the program moving, Cherepko said, “but fortunately, it all worked out — and we’re very grateful for that.”

Megan Nagel, interim chancellor and chief academic officer of Penn State Greater Allegheny in McKeesport. (Special to Tube City Almanac)

In addition to meeting and co-working space, Ewell said, the biggest service provided by the LaunchBox is one-on-one coaching for new business owners. Although there are other small-business development centers in the area, such as one at Duquesne University, they don’t offer that initial step.

“We don’t want to duplicate services,” Ewell said. “So we do the one-on-one coaching. You can come to us with your fears, your trepidations, and your concerns. If you don’t know how to do marketing, we have professionals who do that. If you don’t know how to do accounting, we have professionals who do that. If you need legal advice, we have professionals who do that.”

Once a business is ready to look for financing, they are referred to a small-business development center that can help, Ewell said.

The LaunchBox can accommodate up to 20 entrepreneurs at a time, he said. The current fee for use of the space is $175 per month, and business owners can obtain 24-hour access to the offices. The fee will be increasing soon to $225 per month, Ewell said.

One of the newest businesses at the LaunchBox is ThinKing Apparel, founded just a few months ago by three long-time friends to sell custom-designed athletic wear. Two of the partners, Desmond Stanford of McKeesport and Jaison Cook of Duquesne, said they’re looking forward to using the LaunchBox to help grow the business.

“Whatever God has for us to do with it, we’ll be able to utilize it,” Cook said. “All and all, we definitely look forward to being able to collaborate with other entrepreneurs and being able to just network. I think that’s going to be big for everybody, whether they recognize it or not. I think anybody who comes in here for their own personal gain will  come to find out that this is the best thing that you could possibly do for yourself is building community.”

Several businesses that got their start at the Mon Valley LaunchBox have moved into leased space in other Downtown buildings, including the Executive Building in the 300 block of Fifth Avenue.

Ewell said that he thinks the new location — centrally located and just steps from the city’s two main Downtown thoroughfares, Walnut Street and Lysle Boulevard — is going to provide real benefit to entrepreneurs as their businesses grow.

“We’re good partners with Jon Stark,” who owns the Executive Building and the old People’s Bank Building, Ewell said. “We’ve moved people out of our space into his space three times.”

(Special to Tube City Almanac)

Originally published October 13, 2023.

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