Author: Live Love Delaware

Science and Tech Professionals Make Their Mark in Delaware

As one of the fastest-growing science and technology hubs in the MidAtlantic, a diverse group of science and tech professionals are making their mark in Delaware, with some real standout performers. From technology leaders in IT education and coding to gaming companies looking to give back and even a learning center striving to promote diversity and technology in the workplace, Delaware has produced some truly innovative leaders in the STEM space.

Does Your Future Begin in Delaware?

As a science or technology professional, imagine finding a place where you can realize career goals, surround yourself with movers and shakers in your field, and live in a community you love.

Meet Tech Professionals Thriving in Delaware

Let’s take a look at two Delaware tech professionals who are capitalizing on all Delaware has to offer and finding real success with their inventive offerings.

Code Differently with Stephanie Eldridge

Stephanie Eldridge is the CEO of Code Differently, a learning center designed to have a direct impact on increasing diversity and technology in the workplace. The center comprises a student population that is 98% black and Latino, 40% who are female. Diversity and inclusion have been part of Code Differently’s mission statement from the outset. Eldridge says that Delaware was the perfect location for their business, stating “I don’t know another location where you are one person, one degree of separation, away from any need.” Her business is having a positive impact on the State with seven of last year’s students relocating to Delaware after realizing the opportunities on offer to tech professionals here.

Esport Industry Leader Stephen Sye

CEO of Futures First Gaming, Stephen Sye is focused on growing and cultivating the Esports community and industry in Delaware. His venture takes a range of different approaches to achieve its goal of nurturing the next generation’s wishes to enter into the Esports industry. Through hosting competitive and recreational gaming events, advocating growth for the existing Esports industry in Delaware and holding educational sessions with a focus on workplace development, and working with schools to encourage Esports they hope to change the culture around gaming. Reaching students through their love for gaming can bring about more opportunities for the next generation in the STEM industry.

Choose Delaware for Your Science or Tech Venture

Delaware offers businesses an affordable location to conduct business and a robust, exciting environment in which to move your business forward. Catering to a range of different industries, Delaware provides the perfect setting for businesses to establish their brand through countless opportunities to network with a dynamic professional community, connect with leading Universities and R&D facilities and hire from a rich talent pool of IT talent and coders, spanning a range of different industries.

Delaware continues to shine as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly for science, IT, and tech professionals. Offering the ideal environment for businesses and individuals to work, live and enjoy a vibrant life, Delaware is the perfect destination for anyone seeking to begin or develop their career in the STEM industry on the East Coast or Mid-Atlantic region. With its unique location, impressive talent pool, innovative climate, and diverse range of industry-leading STEM businesses, Delaware is where you need to be if you are a science or tech professional.

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Delaware’s IT Market is Booming

Delaware’s IT Market is Booming Across All Industry Sectors

For those in science, technology, and IT, Delaware is the ideal location to grow your career. Here’s why your IT future belongs in Delaware.

  • Delaware’s concentration of IT employment is 6 percent higher than the national average.
  • Recent growth in IT occupations in the state has outpaced overall state job growth by 77%
  • Two-thirds of jobs in the IT market are found outside the traditional “tech” sector in areas of finance, healthcare, manufacturing, education, and more.
  • Delaware’s concentration of IT jobs in the finance sector is more than three time the national average.

And you can get anywhere from Delaware; its central location along the Northeast corridor, easy access to international airports and a major Amtrak transit rail hub make it an ideal location. When you compare the cost of living in Delaware, you will quickly discover it is more affordable than neighboring states and what’s not to like about NO sales tax?

IT Job Opportunities at Three Delaware Companies

With an innovative climate and a diverse range of STEM industry leaders pioneering, creating, and inventing new ideas all the time, there are countless opportunities for IT jobs in Delaware. Offering some of the best IT jobs, across all levels, are three Delaware employers, providing exciting opportunities to tech professionals in areas like software, cybersecurity, tech support, networking, data management, and other areas of the tech spectrum.

Continue reading to learn more about these key employers in the IT market offering a diverse range of jobs for tech professionals at all career stages.

Bank of America

Bank of America (BofA) is one of the largest financial services organization in the world. An industry leader with forward-thinking solutions, BofA’s high-tech, high-touch approach helps millions of individuals, companies and institutional investors reach their financial goals every year. Employees at BofA enjoy a welcoming and diverse environment were building a fulfilling career and making a difference matters. Bank of America is one of Delaware’s key employers with technology positions available for a variety of skillsets in IT.

CompassRed

If you have a passion for data and how it is impacting every aspect of our lives, CompassRed may have the perfect career opportunity for you. CompassRed is a data analytics and artificial intelligence company using data science, AI, and predictive science to maximize outcomes for businesses and home of the Delaware Data Innovation Lab (DDIL). Through DDIL, CompassRed partners with universities, governments, corporations and healthcare organizations to use data analytics, artificial intelligence and augmented reality to “see” data and uncover solutions that will help Delaware, and the rest of the world, address COVID-19 and other pressing problems.

With a growing team of data analysts, data scientists, data visualization experts and technologists, it’s an exciting time to work with CompassRed with openings for a Data Engineer and Technical Project Manager, as well as two Summer Internships. With plans for continued growth, it’s an exciting time to be a part of one of Inc. magazine’s 2020 fastest growing companies.

CSC

CSC® is the world’s leading provider of business, legal, tax, and digital brand services for 90% of the Fortune 500®, more than 65% of the Best Global Brands (Interbrand®), nearly 10,000 law firms and more than 3,000 financial organizations around the globe. From keeping businesses in compliance and streamlining operations, to protecting and promoting brands online, CSC uses its collective expertise and personal approach to help businesses run smoother. CSC is the business behind business®. CSC offers the best tools, beautiful working environments and challenging work. You’ll collaborate with highly capable people and have the freedom and support to turn your ideas into action. CSC employees work with the latest technology products and have access to training and coaching so they can innovate. CSC hires collaborative technology experts with an entrepreneurial mindset and challenges them to build solutions that influence the way business gets done. At more than 120 years old, few companies can match CSC’s stability and reputation for exceeding customers’ needs. The company recognizes that people who work well together can accomplish amazing things, and it’s no secret that people make CSC a great place to work. Valuing service, teamwork, tenacity, agility and being genuine, CSC continuously strives to be a great, enduring, profitable company that earns the complete trust and respect of its customers and all who come to experience CSC. Learn more about why CSC has been named a Top Workplace 14 years running at cscglobal.com/careers.

The Perfect Tech Opportunity Is Waiting for You in Delaware

Whether you are just starting out in your tech career or you are a seasoned leader looking to grow with a new opportunity, Delaware’s IT market is the ideal place to find it. With countless IT, coding, and tech-driven companies, there is no shortage of jobs in the STEM field for those looking to learn more about this area. Technology jobs encompass many diverse industries in Delaware making it a great place to build, grow or expand your IT career in STEM fields on the East Coast or Mid-Atlantic region. To learn more about the Delaware IT market explore some of the featured employers on LiveLoveDelaware.com.

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Alexis Huttie

Second Grade Teacher, Spanish Emersion Program

Alexis Huttie loves Delaware

Alexis Huttie

Second grade proved to be a pivotal grade for Alexis Huttie. When she was in second grade, she ended up taking “a year of growth”. And then she would find herself experiencing that grade many times over but in a very different way.

Huttie’s return to 2nd grade would become the seed that inspired her to become a teacher. “I wasn’t the strongest reader, and I wasn’t the most confident student in the world. Taking that year off was a difficult decision that my parents, who are both teachers, allowed me to make.” Huttie worked to repeat a lot of the skills she had struggled with to become a more independent learner.

She excelled in school from thereon. She graduated from Dover High School and received a full scholarship to Delaware State University through the Scholar Teach Educators Program (STEP) to pursue a degree in Education.

In her senior year at Dover High, Huttie did an internship at Fairview Elementary school with Susan Adams, her old kindergarten teacher. The first day of her internship was September 11, 2001. “Seeing how much of a difference the educators made that day solidified that this is what I want to do.”

Huttie returned to teaching with a position at South Dover Elementary School. At 600 students, South Dover has one of the largest and most diverse elementary student populations in the state. After six years at South Dover, Huttie was nominated for Capital School District Teacher of the year in 2018 and won. “It was one of my most humbling experiences ever. I am my biggest critic.”

“I believe that school should be a memorable and meaningful experience. It’s not just about the numbers or shoving knowledge into the students’ brains. It is about understanding the whole child. So I often wear some kind of crazy costume or Wonder Woman outfit — my alter ego. Everything in my classroom is superheroes.”

Huttie is currently teaching the English side of the second-grade Spanish Immersion program. “My two children are in the program and now they are more fluent in Spanish than I am!” Looking forward, Huttie is interested in developing her own education even further. “Ultimately I want to teach teachers to be good teachers. There really isn’t anyone who can prepare you unless they have actually been in the trenches.”

With a constantly evolving curriculum, more interactions with the community are proving to be helpful. “We’ve recently had them at the Hispanic Festival at Holy Cross, we have a district fiesta where they sing and dance and recite poems to show their skills. We do a field trip to local restaurants where the students interact with the staff and each other entirely in Spanish.”

“Delaware had and continues to have everything I need to be successful and flourish in my profession including competitive salaries for educators and opportunities for continued education.”


Collaborations and relationships with local colleges and businesses have been key in helping the program extend beyond what is typical for a school district. The BRINC consortium (a collaboration between Brandywine, Indian River, New Castle County Vocational Technical, and Colonial School Districts) is working to integrate the Blended Learning Initiative throughout the combined districts.

“We do a lot of work with the United Way, they give books out to the students every month. We have partnerships with Wesley College, Delaware State University, Wilmington University. Anytime we need volunteers for activities that we are doing they are more than willing to send students, football and basketball players, which is a great experience for our students.”

Huttie has worked with Shore United Bank’s local outreach nights which provide materials and raffle baskets for the students. “Last year they bought us school supplies and bought us gift cards to be sued for additional school needs.”

 

When asked about her connection to the state, Huttie was clear. “For college, I chose Delaware State University to take advantage of the STEP program. From being in this program, and being in my hometown, I was able to network and create partnerships that I still have and value today. I knew what I wanted to do for my career. I wanted to make a difference as so many educators, including my mom, had made for me. My path was clear. Honestly there was no other option. Delaware had and continues to have everything I need to be successful and flourish in my profession including competitive salaries for educators and opportunities for continued education.”

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Stephen Sye

CEO, Futures First Gaming

Stephen Sye loves Delaware

Stephen Sye

Gaming Their Way to Prosperity

Futures First Gaming looks to create Esports industry pipeline in Delaware

If Stephen Sye, CEO of Futures First Gaming, has his way, his company will have planted the seed that germinates the entire Delmarva region Esports industry. Esports, or electronic sports, is a style of competitive sports played through the medium of video games – particularly multiplayer games played by professionals as individuals or part of a team.

“We’re a STEM.org Accredited™ Esports and educational organization focused on growing and cultivating the Esports community and industry in the region,” said Sye. “With the exception of the University of Delaware, the state itself has only a small underground scene right now as it relates to gaming culture – especially in comparison to other places like Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York City.”

The organization, which launched in February, is taking several approaches to its mission simultaneously. Futures First Gaming’s business model rests on four pillars, said Sye. The first is to advocate growth in the state’s existing Esports industry; the second is personally host competitive and recreational events to create opportunities for involvement; the third is to hold educational programs focusing on workforce development and the fourth pillar is to work with schools and universities to launch their own Esports teams to engage in tournaments.

Though their goals are ambitious, Sye believes now, more than ever, is the time for this effort. Gaming has long suffered from a perception problem – but that’s on the cusp of changing in a big way, he says.

“For a long time a good portion of the population has felt that playing video games is a waste of time, but this industry is growing by leaps and bounds and the opportunities for lucrative careers and entrepreneurship are growing every year,” said Sye. “Look at it this way; there was a League of Legends Championship in 2018 that had more than 200 million viewers tune in. That was more viewership than the Super Bowl, NBA finals and Major League baseball game seven had that year combined. There are gaming events in this space that are selling out venues like the Staples Center in 12 minutes.”

Perhaps a function of changing tastes, it’s been long predicted that Esports will supplant traditional sports in popularity. Sye says that ever since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the time window this was expected to happen has shortened.

“Viewership of Esports was already expected to eclipse that of traditional sports by 2022 – but now with COVID limiting audiences and introducing a lot of unknowns in terms of schedule, Esports has a huge advantage,” he said. “Esports is projected to be a $300 billion global industry by 2025. That’s huge. And, it comes with an enormous amount of opportunity and career pathways.”

Gaming Camp

Hoping to nurture the next generation’s desire to enter the Esports industry, Sye says the company held its inaugural Futures First Camp this past summer.

“Looking at the landscape, 83% of black teens game, but only about 9% of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) professionals are black.”


“It was a virtual summer camp this year, but it was 100 hours total,” said Sye. “Our Futures First Program focuses on Esports, coding, gaming, and entrepreneurship. Over four weeks, our team worked with students from 8th to 12th grade for five hours per day. Two hours were devoted to coding and game design – with the help of our partners Coderrific Academy and Code Differently. Then there’s one-hour for entrepreneurship where we cover things like starting a business, marketing, promoting, starting a website, Esport monetization and live streaming. Then the last two hours is basically gameplay. Gamers worked on communication, teamwork, strategy, and gaming skills development.”

There were 10 graduating students in the first class over the summer. Sye says it was a great proof of concept. The class’s final project was evidence of that.

“Over the last two weeks, the campers were tasked with a hands-on collaborative project to produce and host their own online Esports event,” he said. “They hosted a Brawlhalla tournament. They ended up having great participation and the event was flawless – it was an awesome learning experience.”

Futures First Gaming will be bringing the program back next summer and will shoot for an even larger class, but Sye hopes to push the program as a regular course in local high and middle schools to expose students to the available career paths.

“We’ll really be able to educate students on the possibilities if we can meet them where they are – we have commitment from two Delaware school districts pending funding and have had conversations about our program with Departments of Education in several states,” he said.

Equal Opportunity

Although not an exclusive organization, a fundamental goal of Futures First Gaming is to help expose minority students to the prospect of a career in the gaming industry, notes Sye.

“Looking at the landscape, 83% of black teens game, but only about 9% of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) professionals are black,” said Sye. “We really want to change that. We feel that the discrepancy exists because of lack of awareness and opportunity. Our program works to correct this by reaching out to students through their interest in gaming, but teaching them about the business side in the process. That way they can imagine a future where they make a living doing what they love. In our concept of STEM, E stands for entrepreneurship.”

To support this goal, Futures First Gaming has started to reach out to HBCUs (Historically black colleges and universities) to assist them in launching their own competitive Esports teams. Sye is a strong believer that the opportunities in the Esports industry will continue to proliferate and offer opportunity to people of all kinds of backgrounds and interests.

“There really is a spiderweb of careers cropping up to support gaming,” he said. “For example, last year’s Fortnite world cup winner, a 16-year-old named Kyle Giersdorf, won $3 million. He’s a millionaire now. He’s going to need an Esports specific attorney. There are gaming company’s that want to create game characters with his likeness and image, so he needs to negotiate that. He’ll need an accountant. He’ll even need a personal trainer to work on stamina and hand-eye coordination. The web of opportunity keeps spreading. When students come to us, we can work on where their interests lie and steer them toward a great career opportunity.”

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Dr. Annie Norman

State Librarian and Director, Delaware Division of Libraries

Dr. Annie Norman loves Delaware

Dr. Annie Norman

“I have always believed children should be in book floods, not book deserts.” For Dr. Annie Norman, the State Librarian and Director of the Delaware Division of Libraries, the goal has always been to help a small state make a large impact.

Norman was born in Maryland, with a family ancestry in the state dating back to the 1600s. She knew Delaware from a young age, spending time at her family’s summer place in Fenwick Island as a teenager. She later moved to Dover in 1982 and commuted to Salisbury State College (now Salisbury University) to get her bachelor’s degree. After three years of college, and throughout her first pregnancy, her husband told her “you’ve gotta get a job closer to home,” so Norman took an entry-level job at Delaware Division of Libraries.

“I started at Libraries for the Blind and Physically handicapped,” Norman said. “It was a very chaotic time there, and they kept promoting me– I had four promotions in four years by four different supervisors.”

Norman knew she would eventually need a master’s degree to become a librarian, but waited for the right opportunity. “I would learn as much as I could and make myself useful. I think I got so many of the promotions because it was clear I was interested in it as a career. I actually made it to administrative librarian before I had my master’s degree.” Norman eventually got her master’s at Drexel University.

It was at this point that Norman started to craft a vision for the future of Delaware Libraries. “One thing unique about Delaware is that we have to wear a lot of hats as part of a smaller agency. Unlike larger states, this helps us see a lot of connections between the different programs we provide, and there is a lot of value to that.”

Norman has been State Librarian and Director of the Delaware Division of Libraries since 2002. She considers the statewide Delaware Library Catalog to be their biggest achievement so far. “In a state this size with limited resources, I wanted to make sure we had the depth and breadth of content to support all of Delaware’s brainpower. So I knew we had to somehow pool our resources.”

The statewide Delaware Library Catalog includes all 33 public libraries and a total of 70 libraries if you include the academic libraries in the system. A diverse shared catalog of over two and a half million items including; e-books, audiobooks, etc., instantly gave Delawareans options that even the largest states do not have access to. Even in 2020, Delaware is one of a handful of states with a connected statewide catalog.

Just as important was the access to live data this framework created. It allowed their teams to focus on places they could make an impact, and hyperfocus on patron’s needs. This data would lay the groundwork for Norman’s vision and the Delaware Libraries’ successes into the present.

“Delaware is a great place to be able to make a difference. It’s a great place to experiment. Our success is really a testament to all of the libraries working together.”


“We have been reading ‘Palaces for the People’ by Eric Klinenberg. This book talks about how libraries are a key part of the social infrastructure. We are providing a diverse set of resources and opportunities for communities and individuals to achieve their full potential. And live data is a critical tool for this.”

The access to data immediately led to an increase in partnerships with other state agencies, and it became clear that libraries were a unique solution to a lot of statewide challenges. They worked with the Department of Labor to place employment specialists physically in the libraries. They created substantial relationships with Delaware Health and Social Services to connect social workers to patrons who needed them. And they received funding from Delaware Division of the Arts for two arts performers to travel to every library throughout the summer.

The expansion of partnerships was created out of a need to help connect underrepresented people to job opportunities during the last recession. “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation connected us to a grant to allow us to put job centers in the libraries as well as wireless. From there we realized the depth of needs and how libraries were positioned to create solutions. From there STEM arrived and connected us to schools and had us put 3D printers in the libraries and technologies that couldn’t be experienced otherwise.”

With Governor Carney’s election and First Lady Tracey Quillen Carney’s focus on literacy, Norman sought solutions that combined relationships with existing opportunities. “We are using ‘Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library,’ which provides books through the mail every month for children from birth up to age five, to partner with Delaware Pediatricians’ ‘Reach Out and Read’ Program. This helped extend their budget.”

Historically, libraries have been involved with helping learners, and not as much with supporting basic needs. Developing the tools and processes necessary to affect change was a unique challenge for Delaware Libraries. “We worked on the creation of a Basic Needs Chart to help make sure we are providing Delawareans with the right referrals to our partners, to make sure we are sending them in the right direction, and make sure they get what they need.”

In her spare time, Norman still loves a good book. “I do read for fun. I have my business books and my evening books.” She also enjoys going to local yard sales and is an avid collector of World’s Fair memorabilia. But after almost 20 years as director, it is clear that her mind is always on processes and systems.

“Delaware is a great place to be able to make a difference. It’s a great place to experiment. Our success is really a testament to all of the libraries working together.”

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Drexel Davison

Owner, Bad Hair Day? Salon

Lewis Drexel Davison loves Delaware

Lewis Drexel Davison

Lewis “Drexel” Davison, owner of Rehoboth’s renowned salon/spa and hot spot Bad Hair Day? has been through many emotional extremes throughout the history of his business, which is now entering its 28th year. For example, after 10 weeks of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, he was eager to reopen.

“We were excited to be moving back to 30 percent of our fire marshal capacity,” he says. “And we have really taken a lot of precautions. I can’t put myself in jeopardy — I take care of my 83-year old mom.”

Davison’s roots — “I am really a waiter at heart,” he says — brought him indirectly to his current career. He began waiting tables and catering in New York City, and then ended up helping create a restaurant in Kent Island, Maryland, called Sunsets on the Bay. There he met two hair stylists from Annapolis who encouraged him that his personality was perfect for the hair styling business. 

“I was initially excited about it, but after finishing hairdresser school decided it was not for me,” he recalls. “So I moved back home to my favorite place in Delaware, the most gay-friendly place in Delaware, which is Rehoboth.”

While waiting tables at a Rehoboth restaurant, Davison was given a unique opportunity when the building next door became available. “There was another waiter there who had a hair license,” he says. “And the owner said, ‘Why don’t you two open a salon there for the summer?’”

The partners branded themselves on the look of the place, with vibrantly painted walls and flowers lifted from the gardens of strangers and parks.

“We were originally going to call it Metamorphosis, but I never could remember that name and I still can’t spell it today,” Davison says. “I had a hat that I liked to wear that said ‘Bad Hair Day,’ so at the end of it all I said, ‘Let’s call it Bad Hair Day, with a question mark at the end.’”

“I love that it’s a small state and that it’s the first state. I love that it’s a community, small enough that we can know each other.”


The name was easy to remember, made people laugh, and Davison’s parents hated it. “They said, ‘Why would you use a negative name for your business?’ But it ended up being a great name.”

Bad Hair Day? had a rocky start. When Davison’s business partner quickly realized he was doing much better as a waiter than by doing $25 haircuts all day, he decided to leave. Significant money losses associated with the building’s ownership complicated things further. But Davison took over the business and ran with it.

“I was fueled by anger and determined to succeed to show them that I could make it work,” he says. “And that’s really the energy that has motivated me these last 27 years.”

Those early challenges prepared Davison for the day-to-day challenges of running a salon, which now has over 75 employees.

“It fuels me to move through the challenging times, like now,” he says. “‘Tubthumping’ (by Chumbawamba) has always been my theme song — ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again.’”

Early in the business, Davison worked nights at the Cultured Pearl to pay bills.

“It was especially challenging in the winter,” he recalls. “Sometimes I would have one client a day, and I would make her wear a coat because I couldn’t afford to turn on the heat.”

In his time in Rehoboth, Davison has experienced much of the city’s dramatic growth.

“There were a lot of us who are still here — Sam Calagione (of Dogfish Head) used to wait tables at Arena’s,” Davison says. “We both started our businesses in the same year. We were all lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”

Davison credits Joyce Felton, owner of Blue Moon and a number of other restaurants, with putting the gay community on the map in Rehoboth.

“The Moon was always the center of gay life here,” he says. “The ‘straights’ loved a good meal and what the gays had created here in general in Rehoboth. It was very shabby chic, and the gays were a big part of that.”

Davison says recently elected Mayor Paul Kuhns supports both the business and the gay communities in Rehoboth.

“We have a really good, progressive guy in there,” Davison says. “He’s smart.”

Bad Hair Day? has engaged in several memorable Delaware partnerships over the last 27 years — such as always having Dolle’s Salt Water Taffy in the shop, color-coordinated with each season. Other standout partnerships are those Davison has with Dogfish Head and Surf Bagel. 

“Early on, I would make body scrubs and masks out of the Aprihop beer ingredients,” he says. “And you could always have a Dogfish beer poured over your head as a shampoo bowl. We also serve beer in the shop, but we don’t call it ‘beer.’ We say, ‘Would you like a Dogfish?’”

Surf Bagel’s coffee and bagels are served at the salon when it is safe to serve food there. Bad Hair Day? also has begun a collaboration with Surf Bagel and the new Sussex County Consortium School, which aims to open satellite businesses attached to the schools to give students actual business experiences.

“We were set to open a little salon next to Surf Bagel (at the Consortium), when along came COVID,” Davison says.

The connection with Delaware has always been palpable for Davison.

“It’s home, first and foremost,” he says. “It’s accessible — you can find yourself at a red light next to the governor. I love that it’s a small state and that it’s the first state. I love that it’s a community, small enough that we can know each other.” 

On top of such connections being possible in such a small state, Davison loves that each of the state’s three counties has its own flavor.

“New Castle County has corporate and banking, but it also has the richness and splendor of the du Ponts who were such awesome stewards of their wealth,” he says. “Kent County has a richness of colonialism, the John Dickinson Mansion and the signing of the Constitution and The Green and the maypole dancing. Sussex County is like the little beach resort Riviera of the state, with its own culture and influx from all of the surrounding cities beyond Delaware. Throw in the cultural experiences we’ve had here, which we’ve always had in the north of the state, but now we also have in the Biggs Museum in Dover and the Freeman Stage in Selbyville.”

Bad Hair Day? moved to an immense new building in Rehoboth in 2016, with 16 stations almost always booked. The moment the full COVID-19 lockdown on salons was lifted, Drexel’s phone began to explode.

“The first text I got was from Mariah Calagione,” he says, “and then they just kept coming.”

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Michele Xiques-Arnold

Owner, First State Dance
Academy

Michele Xiques-Arnold loves Delaware

Michele Xiques-Arnold

A CNN “Great Big Story” film crew is set up inside the First State Dance Academy in Milford, Delaware. Michele Xiques-Arnold, once a professional dancer herself, marvels at the cameras rotating throughout the space she took over almost 20 years ago and the places it has taken both herself and her students. 

For Xiques-Arnold it all started as a child falling in love with ballet in South Carolina and finding out her father, who was in the Air Force at the time, had been transferred to Dover, Delaware. Her mother hunted around and discovered the Marion Tracy Dance studio, a connection that would unknowingly set the rest of her life in motion.

“I started training at Marion Tracy in Dover when I was 12,” she recalls. “Then it was on to North Carolina School of the Arts, Joffrey Ballet School in New York City and then my first professional work came in Pittsburgh at Civic Light Opera.” 

She found herself working with Meredith Baxter (from the TV show “Family Ties”) and aiming toward a Broadway career. “I soon found that I would make it through the dance auditions, but once I sang, they were like, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’” Following her struggle to make it on Broadway, Xiques-Arnold then did a season at the Shea Theater for Empire State Ballet in Buffalo and was later offered a contract to dance with the Atlanta Ballet.

An ankle injury brought Xiques-Arnold back home to Delaware in 2001. A string of occupations ranging from firefighter to EMT to nursing student pushed her further and further away from the magic that had driven her since childhood. 

Out of the blue, friend Maria Fry, who also danced at Marion Tracy Dance Studio, made an offer that would change her life. Fry was running a studio in Milford called A Dance Class and offered to hand it over to Xiques-Arnold, even though she had no business experience at all and was afraid to fail at something Fry had worked so hard to create. But Fry offered to mentor Xiques-Arnold for a year as well as help teach and First State Dance Academy was born.

“Next year will be my 20th year in business.” Xiques-Arnold estimates there have been around 1800 students who have spun through her studio at that time. “The opportunities we have made for the kids, and their parents— some of the kids have taken their parents to places they would never have gone, out of the country for performances or on tours. Often these are people who don’t like to leave their state or home, who have to go outside of their comfort zone to support their kids. And they were able to share something they would have never have.”

When asked about the challenge of going from dancer to instructor, Xiques-Arnold is clear. “When you are directing, and not on the other end anymore, it’s hard not to miss it. It’s almost like a drug, a healthy drug being on the stage, doing something you’ve strived for. It takes years to get over, the performance high and the rollover coaster of it. But I am really happy to have done it, and to have kids who I can work with to produce what is in my mind on a stage.”

“It’s my dream to have access to a performance arts center in or near Milford that has all that is required to put on a proper ballet.”


“Next year will be my 20th year in business,” Xiques-Arnold notes, estimating there have been around 1,800 students who have spun through her studio in the last two decades. “The opportunities we have made for the kids and their parents — some of the kids have taken their parents to places they would never have gone, out of the country for performances or on tours. Often these are people who don’t like to leave their state or home, who have to go outside of their comfort zone to support their kids. And they were able to share something they never would have.” 

When asked about the challenge of going from dancer to instructor, Xiques-Arnold is clear.

“When you are directing, and not on the other end anymore, it’s hard not to miss it,” she says. “It’s almost like a drug, a healthy drug, being on the stage, doing something you’ve strived for. It takes years to get over, the performance high and the rollercoaster of it. But I am really happy to have done it and to have kids who I can work with to produce what is in my mind on a stage.”

Xiques-Arnold has many student highlights, but one of the most memorable is Anna Edmondson.

“I saw something in her and let her parents know she might want to consider going somewhere year-round,” Xiques-Arnold recalls. “She was that rare combination of the right body type for ballet and had boundless passion. Sure enough, she was accepted into the Kirov Academy of Ballet in D.C., where she studied for four years and then ended up at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was the only American at the time, and she came from Delaware!”

Another student of Xiques-Arnold’s, Jayna Ledford, is featured in the CNN “Great Big Story” documentary (https://youtu.be/fD_3lUpCTM0) recently filmed at the studio. Ledford is a transgender woman who was at Kirov Academy before coming out as female and came back to train with Xiques-Arnold afterward.

“It’s created some amazing conversations,” Xiques-Arnold says. “This a public dance school, and it’s open for anyone and everyone.” 

The business challenges of running a dance studio have pushed Xiques-Arnold to innovate. She’s currently working on Wizarding World of Ballet — the first ballet built around a Harry Potter theme. This is part of a series of ballets that she has coined as Cinemaballet (https://www.facebook.com/cinemaballet/).

“I wanted to create something with a hook outside of ballet to entice people to check out a show,” she says. “I started with ‘Twilight,’ which was a huge success. Then ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’ ‘Annie the Ballet,’ ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Duke Ellington’s Jazz Nutcracker’ at the Schwartz Center in Dover.

“I am always working on the business, right up until I go to sleep.”

Xiques-Arnold says the largest challenges are production costs and having to rely so much on volunteers, both things that having a proper venue locally would fix.

“It’s my dream to have access to a performance arts center in or near Milford that has all that is required to put on a proper ballet,” she says. “It would be a bigger draw for us. Something with professional lighting, sound, dressing rooms and location support.”

“It’s actually a real opportunity for a growing state, and I think it would be embraced. It would also mean is more professionals coming out of Delaware, more Delaware students getting scholarships and opportunities that they would not have otherwise. And that’s just for what we do. Imagine the ability to bring in larger music acts, comedians, etc. to the area. It would be a great draw for whatever town is able to have the vision.”

Xiques-Arnold was Delaware Division of the Arts (DDOA) Individual Artist Fellowship winner as an Emerging Artist in 2014. She recently received a 2020 DDOA Fellowship, this time as an Established Professional.

“There have been so many challenges, and you can take that in a number of directions,” she says. “I like to think it has driven me to make this better and reinvent.”

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Mike Pfeifer

Filmmaker, 1440 Film Co.

Mike Pfeifer

Mike Pfeifer

“Speak to the heart to encourage the mind.”

This is the mantra of Mike Pfeifer, the owner of 1440 Film Co. The Wilmington-based video production firm has been in business for just over a year but has already completed projects for the American Heart Association, the Ronald McDonald House and the University of Delaware.

Pfeifer arrived in Delaware during his freshman year at Christiana High School, to move closer to a job his father had gotten at the nearby Chrysler plant. He received his degree in Community and Organization Leadership at the University of Delaware, which became useful with the technical aspects of running a business.

The business degree was a strategic decision for Pfeifer when considering his career. “Growing up I always had a camera around my neck. I would talk my teachers into letting me do a video for a project because I hated writing. It didn’t hit me until I graduated from UD that it was a viable skillset and people would actually pay me to do something I enjoy doing,” Pfeifer said. “I never thought in a million years I’d be able to do this for a living.”

Delaware has provided a great balance for Pfeifer. “I love the quality of life I get living and working here in Delaware. We can be at the beaches or the mountains in about an hour. I do a little bit of traveling for shoots, but most of my work is here in Delaware,” Pfeifer said. He doesn’t hesitate when considering the alternatives. “Sure I could go to New York and hunt down some of the bigger agencies but I’m perfectly happy telling the stories of the people and brands in our state.”

Last year was intense for Pfeifer — building the business, managing both the creative and logistics for complex shoots and doing the networking required to make them happen. On top of that, he is a dad to a 2-year-old daughter. “I get to drop my daughter off in the morning and kiss her goodnight at bedtime which is the most important thing to me.”

For Pfeifer, strategic networking has been critical to 1440’s strong start. “There are also incredible resources for making connections to the larger businesses in the state — Delaware State Chamber, Delaware Decision Makers run by Dave Tiberi, Leadership Delaware led by Terry Strine, and the new Delaware Small Business Administration- they have a great speed networking event that has gotten me connections to a number of banks. I’ve gotten major national clients through this kind of networking,” Pfeifer said.

He credits Delaware for this access, “I don’t know if other states operate like that, but you hear this time and time again with Delaware being so small, and if you put in the time, all of those things are possible here.”

“I love the quality of life I get living and working here in Delaware. We can be at the beaches or the mountains in about an hour.”


Connections are also key in helping him match the right teams to the projects that come in, many of them diverse and hyper-focused on a certain style. “Making large production work here is primarily relationship-based. I am responsible for most of the creative development, but I am surrounded by a really talented group of people in this area,” Pfeifer said.

“Filmmaking is the greatest team sport there is. I have a sports background — you can only do so much yourself, and only carry [yourself] so far.”

1440 was not just a random number for Pfeifer, it was something he spent a lot of time crafting, until he was sure he had the right fit. “Names are challenging and every dot-com is taken. You want the name to be meaningful and represent you in some way.” In brainstorming a unique name Pfeifer focused on lacrosse, as it has always been a big part of his life and something he and his father shared.

“14 was one of my numbers, 40 was his. He passed away from cancer five years ago.” When looking into the use of the number “1440” for his business, Pfeifer discovered that there are 1440 minutes in each day. “I knew it was right — that it is about making minutes count.”

Making an impact and speaking to the heart to encourage the mind is the core mission that drives all of 1440’s work. “In any career, people want to do things that make a difference. Sure I could sell 10 million batteries for Duracell but I would much rather make an impact somewhere.” So Pfeifer started Project Give Back, where a percentage of every project goes in a pot. At the end of the year, that money is used to fund a pro bono piece designed to do something meaningful.

Project Give Back for 2019 made a big impact. Focusing on Teen Sharp, a Delaware non-profit that helps underrepresented students get into college, Pfeifer decided to film the students opening their college acceptance letters. “We shot it at DeTV’s studio. We put them under the lights and then surprised them by bringing out their parents from behind the curtain to talk about what all of their efforts meant to them. That despite whatever the letter says, they are still champions.

Pfeifer then takes a deep breath recalling the moment. “Then we brought out one of their Teen Sharp mentors, who had worked with them for 5 years. And then, right after all of that, we had a representative from one of the colleges on the phone. We hand the phone over to the students and it’s someone from the university telling them ‘we would love to have you.’ And everyone there just melts. It was such a powerful moment. And now Teen Sharp has… they have lightning in a bottle,” Pfeifer said.

“They have the most rewarding thing I’ve ever shot. If I could do one project like that a year, for the remainder of my career, that would be a success for me.”

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Wilmington Brew Works

Wilmington Brew Works

Wilmington Brew Works enters Third Year with Glasses Raised

Earlier this year, as they were approaching just their second anniversary, CEO Craig Wensell, CFO Keith Hughes and VP of Marketing John Fusco of Wilmington Brew Works holed up in their expansive Miller Road location to discuss the state’s then-recently announced phased re-opening. Their navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic since then has been both successful and a testament to the partners’ collaboration and the strategic partnerships they have created along the way.

“We were almost dead in the water there for a little bit,” Hughes recalls. “There was a national shortage of crowlers and growlers, and there was nowhere to put the beer we were making. It seemed like every day there for a while, something would happen that had us trying to figure out how to keep the lights on.”

Throughout the pandemic, local breweries, along with the Delaware Brewers’ Guild, have worked to keep breweries up to date with changing restrictions. They also have come together to help each other out when supplies have run short.

“We put out a call because we were very low on crowlers,” Wensell says. “And, lo and behold, Drew [Rutherford] from Stitch House reached out right away and helped us out.”

Pivoting quickly also helped.

“On the weekend of March 13, I was on the computer all weekend building a website to allow us to take online orders for pickup,” Fusco says. “We were able to launch that the day the government shut us down. At the end of that week, we could not believe how much business we had done.”

The three actually have been together for a long time, working as very early collaborating partners on Bellefonte Brewing Company. Fusco did the logo and design work for that, Hughes put the business plan together, and Wensell brewed the beer.

“Building a good team is very hard,” Hughes says. “[It is often important] to understand when not to get involved in something. We are all very Type A here, which is usually a tough situation to have, that many opinions. You have to respect the person and their role, which I think we do a good job with here.”

The combination of this niche community, great beer, a convenient location and a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere makes Wilmington Brew Works unique to the region.


Hughes and Fusco originally connected with Wensell as homebrewers.

“[Ed Mulvihill] at Peco’s Liquor told me there was someone I should meet who was creating great beer,” Hughes remembers. “I was involved early on with some of the financial parts of Bellefonte, and when this came around I was excited to be a part of it.”

The trio, Fusco says, developed their own design ethos for how they wanted to do everything. For example, he says, the naming convention for their brews.

“[That] came from the very first beer that we ever put out called Superfluous Nomenclature, Fusco says. “We wanted something

difficult to read, with long words that could introduce people to new vocabulary. We have a big list of weird words that we collect and try to match with each other.”

“Our most recent beer, Sartorial Absence, came from a podcast I was listening to about the history of clothing. The word ‘sartorial’ kept coming up and making me laugh. We then had Dave Sanchez [from Spaceboy Clothing] design our label for that, which was a lot of fun.”

Sartorial Absence also brought a bit of notoriety to Wilmington Brew Works with a Facebook post that was posed to look like Wensell was brewing beer without clothing. That, Wensell reassures, was “all staged.”

Wilmington Brew Works’ first collaboration had occurred when Wensell was approached by Herb Inden, Wilmington’s director of Planning and Development, with a conveniently located spot just off Interstate 95. The location had been empty for close to 20 years, Wensell says, and the city did an “incredible” job preparing it for the new brewery.

The building itself was created by Francis Irénée du Pont after he left the DuPont Company in 1917. The long, winding Spanish Mission style was unique for this region. Blueprints from some of du Pont’s many patents, which include the first steam-powered car, a liquid vending machine and a steam power plant, all hang inside the brewery.

Another of Wilmington Brew Works’ many collaborations, the on-site addition of La Pizzeria Metro, has arguably been the most valuable. Metro is one of the hottest restaurants in the city, and the Wilmington Brew Works trash cans typically are piled high with pizza boxes at the end of each night.

“I spent four months in Naples,” Fusco says, “and Metro and Pizzeria Vetri in Philly are the only things close.”

Wensell calls this collaboration “perfect from the start” as the Wilmington Brew Works team never sought to be a brewpub or enter the actual restaurant business.

Wilmington Brew Works attributes a lot of its pre-pandemic success to the multipurpose Alamo Room, which is physically connected to La Pizzeria Metro. The Alamo has hosted parties, concerts, plays, games and even yoga.

“We’ve had so many people tell us, ‘We’d never been here before. This place is wonderful. We’re coming back,’” Hughes says. “Or we’d get calls on Monday from people who were at parties wanting to schedule their own.”

Wensell notes that among the range of activities taking place in the Alamo Room, one in particular has been a specialty. Spoken word, he says, is a niche they have been able to fill.

“We’ve had comedy and Delaware Shakespeare,” he says. “The [Delaware Poet Laureates], the Twin Poets, played back there and were fantastic. And these things have consistently drawn a great response to the point that things sell out, and people call and harass me on the phone. They want to speak with the manager.”

The combination of this niche community, great beer, a convenient location and a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere makes Wilmington Brew Works unique to the region. Wensell notes that one of their most surprising demographics has been parents of young children and mothers with babies who are looking for somewhere they can be comfortable.

“We have these long tables because we want to encourage people to come, hang out and meet strangers,” he says. “So many people have met friends here for the first time.”

The hyper-focused local approach has been a win for Wilmington Brew Works, creating a microcosm of a small town in its offerings.

“It’s allowed us to really focus on what we do – it’s like we are not really competing with other breweries so much as ourselves,” Wensell says. “Ultimately, the COVID shutdown was a fantastic opportunity for us.”

“Our team looked at it as the excuse we needed to take the steps we were going to have to make anyway.”

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