The state’s economic development arm and a regional private-sector partner have teamed to lend $600,000 to a quintet of southeastern Connecticut small businesses, authorities say.
The Southeastern CT Enterprise Region (seCTer) and the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) Small Business Express Loan program announced Thursday loans totaling to three existing and two new ones in the region: Marty Gilman Inc. doing business as Gilman Gear of Bozrah; Seconn Fabrication of Waterford; StoryForge Labs LLC, d/b/a Killer Minnow of New London; AgroSci of New York, preparing to relocate to Colchester; and Mystic Cheese Co. of Franklin.
Loan sums for each firm wasn’t specified.
Marty Gilman was founded in 1929 by the former All-American guard on UConn’s football squad to market patented football-field equipment. The company has 42 full-time employees.
It will use its loans hire three, upgrade its Web site and boost domestic and overseas sales, officials said.
Seconn is a six-year-old manufacturer offering custom cutting, fabrication, assembly, powder coating and recently, screen printing (with the acquisition of Solar Fabricators LLC). It has 74 full- and part-time workers.
Proceeds will expand its services and shorten lead times for production with new machining equipment and hire two more machinists.
StoryForge Labs, in business since 2011, has seven employees at the conceptual design, animation and visual effects studio. It will use its loan to buy extra computers and software, expand their space in the historic Dewart Building, and to hire additional staff.
AgroSci is a green–technology vendor of underground plant irrigation systems and other products. Its funds will be used to move its warehouse, assembly, distribution and administrative operations of the company from Stephenville, N.Y., to Colchester, and for product marketing. It plans to hire five college- and five high-school degreed workers in the next two years, authorities said.
Mystic Cheese, founded by Salem native Brian Civitello, will use a combination of seCTer funds, the state loan and private equity to build a cheese-making facility in Franklin, at the Hill Top Flex Park.
