PAGE 4 | Loudoun Business
JULY 2012
30 UNDER 30 ABIGAIL GRIBBIN, 18 PRESIDENT EDUCATION FOR SAN PABLO
When Hurricane Stan hit Guatemala in 2005, Abigail Gribbin was able to witness the devastation firsthand and make the move to provide relief for the locals. At the time, Gribbin was in seventh grade living in Guatemala with her family. Six years later—at the age of 17—she started the nonprofit organization called Education for San Pablo, which provides education scholarships for Guatemalan children in need. Immediately after seeing the destruction, Gribbin and her family began delivering food and relief packages to the villages around San Pablo. The transition from providing food to funding education, however, came from a simple question. “My dad asked the town leader what else they needed,” she said. The answer was education scholarships. In 2011, the idea to take a year off after graduating from Loudoun County High School and start the organization arose. Gribbin said the decision was easy to make considering she was already a year ahead in school. Aside from a delay with the organization’s tax exemption status, everything has gone pretty smoothly, Gribbin said. Today, there are 40 children enrolled in the program striving for a higher education and a better way of life. One of the women in the program is even going to become a social worker after her education is complete. The future seems to be pretty bright for Gribbin’s business, as well. “We want to get a health clinic built,” she mentioned. Plans for this are expected to take place within the next six to eight months. In addition to these future plans, Education for San Pablo also runs a housing program for widows. Although Gribbin is going to Virginia Tech in the fall to pursue a degree in chemistry, she wants to remain fairly engaged with the organization as well as continuing to take trips to San Pablo. “I don’t want to ever have to stop giving funds to this town [San Pablo],” Gribbin said. Her aspirations for the organization are a prosperous future through the help of much-needed attention from anyone and everyone. ~ Patrick Szabo
AMY PHELPS, 26 DISPATCHER LOUDOUN COUNTY FIRE-RECUE
Amy Phelps was working as a volun-
teer emergency medical technician in West Virginia when she found her love for firerescue services. “I had a knack for staying calm in emergency situations,” Phelps said. “Dispatch appealed to me because it was something I had never done before. It was the other side of the coin. All the action starts with me.” Phelps has worked in Loudoun County Fire-Rescue for four years—one as a call taker and three as a dispatcher, handling the calls that come into 9-1-1, whether they are dispatched to Loudoun County Fire-Rescue, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, the Leesburg Police Department, Virginia State Police or the airport police. “You have to be on your game 100 percent of the time,” Phelps said of the highdemand job. “The person on the other end of the phone needs you on the top of your game. “At the end of the day, to know I made a difference in someone’s life. That at a moment when somebody needed someone, I was there,” she said, noting despite all the training she went through, and continues to go through, not everything about being a dispatcher can be taught. “I believe you have to naturally have something to be able to have that sixth sense about what people need,” she said. “You can learn the skills, but being in that moment and being able to handle it, and then not only at that time but afterwards—you can’t learn that.” In addition to working as a dispatcher, Phelps has dug into many other aspects of work at Loudoun County Fire-Rescue. She is working on the first-ever annual report about the communication division, its work and accomplishments. She is also helping with the purchase of a new computer-aided dispatch system, a side project that has taken her to conferences outside of Loudoun to learn about the newest technologies and programs. “I am trying to absorb everything,” she said. “If I am going to be here, this is the system I am going to be using, so I want to know everything about it.” Phelps is getting her master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in dispatch management through the county’s tuition reimbursement program, and she says she has a goal of one day heading the dispatch center. “I really want to be the person who brings all the goals of this division together.” ~ Erika Jacobson Moore
ASHLEY KENNEDY, 25 FOUNDER AND OWNER THE RUN AROUND HOUND
Ashley Kennedy has clothed a dog in pajamas before bedtime and said a prayer with another canine before dinnertime— these are just the little tasks she does to keep her customers happy. Kennedy is the founder and owner of The Run Around Hound, a full-service pet concierge that caters to animals of all breeds and species. The list of services Runaround Hound offers is endless as well, as Kennedy said she dedicates herself to every pet owner’s individual needs. “We do daily dog walks, in-home pet sitting, pet taxi to take a dog to the groomer or vet, we run pet errands to pick up food, prescriptions or treats—anything that is related to pet services we can definitely cater to,” she said. “We are also a 24-hour service company, so we are always working around the clock.” Devoting herself to the lives of animals wasn’t Kennedy’s initial plan for herself. After high school, she worked in a number of corporate offices as a receptionist, but quickly realized she needed to make a career change. “I wasn’t happy and didn’t feel like I was fulfilling what I was supposed to be doing,” she said. “I gave dog walking a try, and I was a dog walker for about two to three years. Ever since that first day of dog walking, I knew it was a lifetime thing. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else except being around pets—it is so rewarding.” In August 2010, Kennedy officially
opened The Run Around Hound—which is based out of her Ashburn home—expanding on the idea of dog walking. For now, she only has two people working for her. However, she would like to expand the company in the future to target Fairfax County, Reston, McLean and Great Falls instead of just Loudoun, specifically the Ashburn, Sterling and Leesburg areas. But for now, Kennedy is focusing on juggling the business mainly on her own, as what she calls “The Pack Leader.” ~ Lindsey Brookbank
BROOKE WALDRON, 28 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SPROUT THERAPEUTIC AND RIDING CENTER
Brooke Waldron was all set to be an equine vet. She had grown up riding hunter/jumpers in McLean and went on to ride for the equestiran team at the University of Delaware, where she graduated with a degree in pre-veterinary medicine. That's when her professional journey took a detour. “I ended up deciding I really liked to teach so I kind of just changed things in the midst of my college career and ended up getting my master's in education,” she said. She helped open Stone Hill Middle School as a seventh grade life science teacher and became head of the science department. “I loved every minute of it,” she said, but life would again take her on a new professional path when her cousins called to offer her the opportunity to build a therapeutic riding center on a 27-acre soybean farm in Aldie. “I thought about it for a brief moment Loudoun Business welcomes Letters to the Editor. Letters must be signed and include the writer’s name, address and daytime phone number.
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