Home 40 Under 40 Archive by category The Class of 2017 (Page 2)

The Class of 2017

Molly MacMunn

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40 Under 40 The Class of 2017

Special Events & Tourism Planner, Yankee Candle Village; Age 34

Molly MacMunn

Molly MacMunn

Molly MacMunn often finds it difficult to attend events.

That’s because staging events for Yankee Candle is what she does for a living. It’s not a job, really, but a passion. So when she’s merely attending a gathering, she’s usually not focused on enjoying herself; instead, she’s observing, taking mental notes, and gauging what works and what doesn’t, always with an eye toward making her next event better.

It will be the same at the Log Cabin on June 22 when she accepts her 40 Under Forty award, but she vows to allow herself to have a good time.

“Events can be hard for me because I’m always looking at things from a different perspective,” said MacMunn, who noted that events are big part of the experience at the Yankee Candle complex in South Deerfield. They occur year-round, but the pace picks up when the leaves start to turn, and it stays that way through the holidays.

“Early fall … that’s when we put our running shoes on,” said MacMunn, who must wear them almost all day those months, because she is now a marathoner — she’s competed in several to date — and member of a Deerfield-based running club called Wicked Early.

By running in the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis, Tenn., she has even managed to meld this new interest with yet another passion, giving back to the community — work that takes many forms, from staging events for Franklin County Young Professionals to judging the spelling bee at her daughter’s school.

In many ways, MacMunn said, it is her daughter Isabelle’s autism — or, more specifically, the manner in which many have helped her cope with this challenge — that has inspired her work within the community.

“I was a really young single mom, I was in college, I was working … I just felt lost,” she explained. “My sister, whom I’m very close to, said, ‘you’ll never be given more than you can handle, but that doesn’t mean you have to handle it alone.’ And I took that to heart.

“I found myself in a vulnerable position, and I relied on my community of friends and family,” she went on. “Now that my daughter is much older and I’m in a better place in my life, I feel there are many people who are given a lot to handle, and I would like to be part of the solution.”

Needless to say, she has succeeded in that quest.

—George O’Brien

Jessica Dupuis

By
40 Under 40 The Class of 2017

Founder and CEO, Olive Natural Beauty; Age 28

Jessica Dupuis

Jessica Dupuis

When Jessica Dupuis was selling cosmetics in a Boston apothecary in 2008, she began researching the ingredients they contained. The products aren’t regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and her concern about customer safety grew when she discovered more than 1,500 ingredients known to cause health problems are banned in Europe but haven’t been eliminated in the U.S.

Dupuis felt the marketing was misleading, there was no transparency, and manufacturing benefited companies rather than consumers. So she began making soap and other products in her kitchen and giving samples to friends and relatives.

“I wanted to do something good for women that wouldn’t damage their health or the environment,” she said. “These products are being washed down the drain and are affecting the planet.”

She moved back to Amherst in 2010 and decided the following year to market her products to retail stores. She was working as an assistant to Tom Horton of Sustainable Resources, and his wife introduced her to people at Joia Beauty in Northampton, and they sold out of her products in weeks.

She continued to sell her product line, and in 2012, with help from fiancé (now husband) Graham Immerman, Dupuis launched a campaign and raised more than $7,000 on Indiegogo to donate safe skin-care products to women in need.

That same year, Horton introduced her to Paul Silva at Valley Venture Mentors (VVM). In 2015, Olive Natural Beauty won the first VVM Accelerator program for startups in Springfield. She and her team of 10 per-diem workers prepared and packaged 300,000 units of products and generated $250,000 in revenue by the end of that year, and she gave the keynote speech at the 2015 Grinspoon, Garvey & Young Entrepreneurship Conference.

Last year, Dupuis hired 13 local women to help fulfill orders and was featured multiple times on ipsy, the largest beauty-product sampling program in the world. Since then, 200,000 ‘ipsters’ have been introduced to her safe skin care, and she has mentored many VVM entrepreneurs seeking help with their startups.

“I dreamed about having my company become successful, but never thought this would happen,” she told BusinessWest. “It has been a very humbling experience, and I am not only proud but very grateful to people who have helped me.”

—Kathleen Mitchell

Michael Marcoux

By
40 Under 40 The Class of 2017

Co-owner, Iron Duke Brewing; Age 34

Michael Marcoux

Michael Marcoux

Michael Marcoux never intended to go into the craft-beer business. He was actually working for the Pert Group, a marketing research company, when a beer-brewing friend, Nick Morin, asked him to look over his new business plan.

Marcoux liked it — a lot. Soon, the two were partners in a Ludlow-based venture called Iron Duke Brewing.

Marcoux says their philosophy is a celebration of hard work, which applies to both themselves and their customers. “Ludlow is an area where people know how to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty,” he said. “So our whole premise is celebrating a hard day of work by sitting down at the end of the day and having a pint.”

Customers visit the brewery’s taproom for those pints, but can also buy Iron Duke beer at more than 60 area bars and about 15 package stores — impressive distribution for an outfit that officially launched just two and a half years ago. But they don’t intend to grow too quickly. “The big thing for us is consistency — making sure we’re not putting out products that taste different four weeks later.”

Iron Duke keeps about eight styles in production at any given time, from light to dark brews, from smooth to hoppy; its flagship beer is a dark Irish porter. “I don’t think we realized how varied people’s tastes are, but that’s great for us; we get to experiment.”

That sense of experimentation has driven the craft-beer industry, which claims countless enthusiasts willing to travel to search out new styles. “People have had the chance to experience beer outside regular domestics — ‘what’s new? What’s different? What haven’t I tried?’” Marcoux said. “That’s the new mentality.”

He and Morin employ four full-time employees and four part-time bar staff, with plans to hire two more full-timers this year and perhaps reach 15 employees within five years. Meanwhile, they’re pouring their success into a number of nonprofits and community organizations, supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, St. Elizabeth Church, the Special Olympics, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and local youth sports teams, to name a few.

Now that he’s working for himself, Marcoux says there’s little about his job that he doesn’t find refreshing. “The weekend is my favorite part, when I can sit down in the taproom and talk to people about beer and their experiences — where they’ve been, where they’re going next … just sharing a mutual love for beer.”

—Joseph Bednar

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