Meet the 24-year-old Canisius grads turned manufacturers
Two 24-year-old former Division I lacrosse players are behind a fast-growing manufacturer off Route 5.
Rich Stapleton started GrowTech Industries in 2015 while still an entrepreneurship major at Canisius College.
He is a native of Rome, N.Y., and said he learned technical skills as a teenager working for his father’s company, Deployed Resources.
As GrowTech Industries began to mature following Stapleton’s graduation in 2016, he called on his former teammate, Williamsville native William Jacobbi, to help lead the business. Jacobbi majored in finance at Canisius College and heads business development efforts for GrowTech.
The company now operates under two branded segments: CannaBox Containers, highly specialized containers used by commercial cannabis growers; and GTI Fabrication, which focuses on more general modular building contracts across North America.
Together, Stapleton and Jacobbi have bootstrapped a diverse modular building manufacturer and builder with a huge opportunity going forward.
The company recently took 40,000 square feet at 3100 Lakeshore Road in Hamburg, and the team has grown from 10 to 25 employees in the last few months. They plan to take another 40,000 square feet in the building and surpass 40 full-time workers this year.
Stapleton said the company’s natural aptitude for high-quality modular buildings has met with a massive market in several industries.
In the meantime, the former defenseman and member of the 2016 MAAC All-Tournament team said entrepreneurship is simply part of his makeup.
“I’ve always wanted to build my own business,” Stapleton said. “I don’t like relying on people and I don’t like being given things; I prefer to do it myself.”
Following a brief foray into vertical farming units, the company’s first and most successful focus has been the cannabis industry under CannaBox Containers. Buoyed by marijuana legalization efforts in Canada and the United States, the company is hired to manufacture and then construct large facilities with specific requirements regarding electricity, plumbing, heating and ventilation.
Larger corporations have begun paying attention to the cannabis industry, but Stapleton said CannaBox has established its niche and is developing new processes that will enable the company to bid on larger jobs.
GTI looks to capitalize on the broader boom in the industry, with the modular construction now being applied to everything from commercial office buildings to homes to shopping malls.
The duo said business has picked up considerably in the last half-year or so, indicating that they’re just scratching the surface of their company’s potential.
“We would like to be one of the premier modular building companies in the country,” Stapleton said.
Source:
https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/..._news_headline
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