Page 7 - BusinessWest October 17, 2022

From left, Jose Hernandez, restaurant coach; Deborah Roque, accounting coach; Adriano Vaccaro; workforce training coach; Gilberto Amador, professional- development coach; Jesse Santos, finance and loan coach; Andrew Melendez; and Dr. Edna Rodriguez, mental-wellness coach.
“I’ve taken dozens of people through the doors — people from Boston, Holyoke, Spring- field, all over,” he said. “They’ve seen incubators with various businesses ... but to walk in, and right where you walk in, there’s a marketing agen- cy; an accountant; a psychologist; a professional- development trainer on safety; a professional- development trainer on diversity, equity, and inclusion; someone who can write a loan for you from beginning to end for free and send it to our partner banks ... they haven’t seen that before.”
This is the essence of the LEDC, which Melen- dez likened to a credit union that doesn’t exclude anyone from membership. And the heart of the agency is its coaches, 28 of them at last count.
Staff Photo
People like Rodriguez, the mental-wellness coach; Gilberto Amador, president of the Mass 2 Miami Consultant Group and professional devel- opment coach for the LEDC; Deborah Roque, owner of Affordable Accounting Services & Tax Preparation and an accounting coach for the agency; Jose Hernandez, owner of Palete Latin Cuisine in Springfield and the restaurant coach for the LEDC; Carlos DeLeon, a financial advisor with Ameriprise Financial, who provides guid- ance on personal finance; and Jesse Santos, a business finance and loan coach and officer with Latin Financial.
They and many others offer specific areas of expertise and, more importantly, a willingness to
share it, that Amador summed up this way: “we bring something important to the table — experi- ence, drive, and vision. And with the young peo- ple today, there’s going to be a generational gap if we don’t bring this information to them.”
Getting a Leg Up
Like Melendez and others we spoke with, Santos said capital is obviously critical to the
My role is to individually help “
people understand how they can care for themselves, how they can find balance, and how to
communicate their needs in an assertive way to both the people around them and the people who can help them.”
advancement of any business venture, and is also an area many need help navigating, which is why he is now part of the coaching lineup at the
LEDC.
“I’m here to guide those in the Latino commu-
nity, and others as well, to get alternative fund- ing, equipment financing, lines of credit — just help them get some funding,” he explained. “If the conventional banking system doesn’t help them or the rates are not to their favor or what
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FEATURE
OCTOBER 17, 2022 7