RISING STARS

Catch a glimpse of islanders following their dreams and passions into the stratosphere.

By Meghan Daniel Photos by Mark Stetler

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOE: ANN HUTSON AND KEVIN HARTLEY

People, planet, profit. These are the tenets of the triple bottom line framework that Isle of Palms residents and couple Ann Hutson and Kevin Hartley have built their business on. “The idea is, you still have to be in business and have to succeed or you can’t do any positive change,” says Hartley, co-founder of Cambio Roasters, purveyors of eco-friendly coffee pods for Keurig-style machines. “But you also keep an eye for the environment you’re creating for your employees, partners and for environmental stewardship. What Ann and I do is wrap that up in this really fun project.” Hartley, a former Chief Innovation and Product Oficer at Keurig, the company that made the coffee pod a household name, and wife Hutson, an avid community volunteer who traded her career in marketing and communications for a few thousand cups of coffee, launched Cambio Roasters in 2018. Their threefold business model—encapsulated in their mouthful of a motto: “eco-friendly, people-powered, profit-sharing coffee pods”—is what differentiates their roast and draws customers in, they say.

Cambio Roasters takes care of people by donating 20 percent of pro ts to Food 4 Farmers, a nongovernmental organization that helps coffee farmers and their families overcome food insecurities during seasons when farmers are neither growing nor harvesting and income is practically nonexistent. is partnership, Hutson explains, allows them to develop relationships with the farmers who make their business possible. e couple also say their company protects the planet because once you remove the patented easy-peel lid from their Cambio Roasters’ K-cup pods the whole coffee encasing pod is ready to head to the recycle bin. Hartley says “the environmental aspect was the centerpiece” of their idea. Currently the product is sold on the company’s website and on Amazon, but the goal is to have Cambio Roasters co ee stocked on retail shelves across the country—which will help increase pro ts and therefore the amount of money donated to Food 4 Farmers. e company’s name re ects the couples' personal and professional values. Like a perfect blend with all the right avor notes, “cambio,” Spanish for “change,” embodies what they aspire to be and do in one word. “We want to change the way business is done, one delicious cup at a time; to change people’s morning experience with our delicious small batch roast; to change the lives of farmers by giving back; and to change the number of pods in land fills,” says Hartley. The Spanish word in the business’ name is also a homage to the predominantly Spanish-speaking co ee farmers whose livelihoods consist of growing the fruit that yields the coffee bean that keeps customers caffeinated.

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Hartley and Hutson prioritized annual business trips to coffee regions like Colombia and Costa Rica, where they met the growers and saw firsthand the two-to-four acre plots, nestled precariously on the sides of mountains, where coffee crops are farmed year after year. The journey from bean to brew, the couple agrees, has been equally rewarding as it has been challenging. Ultimately, Hartley says of their approach, “We do try to think big in terms of impact in the world: start small and learn really fast.”

“We started this business as it was important for us to have great tasting, affordable coffee, to make it recyclable and to give back.

COMPANY Cambio Roasters ENTREPRENEURS Ann Hutson and Kevin Hartley

FOUNDED 2018

LOCATION Isle of Palms

PRODUCTS Eco-friendly, people-powered, profit-sharing coffee pods

WEBSITE cambioroasters.com

CARVING OUT A BUSINESS: WILLIAM ROCCO AND BROCK WEBB

Wood studs of various lengths, as well as their accompanying aromas, spill out of William Rocco’s garage on Sullivan's Island. Just last summer, he and long-time friend and fellow islander, Brock Webb, transformed the building in his family’s backyard from toolshed to the manufacturing headquarters of their growing business: Rock & Brock Woodworks. Webb and Rocco dabbled in woodworking prior to the COVID-19 outbreak primarily as a way to keep their hands busy. However, the onset of the pandemic presented an ideal opportunity for the industrious entrepreneurs to turn their hobby into a hustle. These circumstances, along with a growing woodpile and a menagerie of drills, saws and “lots of nail guns,” set the Island boys’ business into motion.

Although the pandemic took a toll on many businesses across the board, it sparked a significant uptick in production and sales for these two artisans. “During that time last summer,” Webb explains, “we didn’t really go o the island, so we had a lot of time for woodworking.” Rock & Brock Woodworks began with big projects. Tables, chairs —even a few neighborhood forts—were early testaments to their talent. When they began showing their work in local galleries, farmers’ markets and art shows, they learned it was their smaller creations—such as mountain landscapes set against a painted ombré sunset—that were the real moneymakers. “Our artwork started selling a lot more than the furniture,” Rocco says. To meet the growing demand for their signature art pieces: large geometric arrows, American ags and mountain sunsets, the men started ne-tuning their production. “Honing in on what we’re good at and replicating it is a good way to make money,” Rocco explains, though he adds that the well-oiled system they’ve developed, which allows them to cut, stain and paint wood for multiple iterations of the same template simultaneously, has begun to feel repetitive, lackluster. With hundreds of creations now in the portfolio he shares with Webb, Rocco has realized that he enjoys having the exibility to try new things. In their woodworking shop—a home office of sorts—mountain landscapes of varying dimensions and hues, as well as wood-paneled American flags of similarly staggered sizes, are propped up against corners and lined along Goodwill-sourced shelving. These almost-but-not-quite finished works take up whatever space isn’t occupied by paints and stains, blueprints for some of their staple designs, goggles, pencils, power tools and, of course, more wood than you could shake a stick at. “We put stuff where it’s convenient, not where it’s organized,” they say. Rocco and Webb are artists of opportunity. They learned the trade, Rocco says, “not through trial and error; it’s trial and success, and maybe an error.”

“It's trial and success, and maybe an error.

“We never really started doing it for profit; we just had a fun time when we started with the forts and people started liking our stuff,” Webb adds. Over the past few months, they’ve formed a habit of dedicating two to three hours a day to their trade, and sometimes a full day on the weekends. However, both are seniors in high school and plan to attend college in the fall. They expect that the distance between them and the adjustment to college will cause their business to dwindle, though they agree they’ll keep their passion for woodworking in their back pockets, ready to pull out and dust off when time avails itself.

- Meghan Daniel

COMPANY Rock & Brock Woodworks

ENTREPRENEUR William Rocco & Brock Webb

FOUNDED 2020

LOCATION Sullivan's Island

PRODUCTS Handcrafted woodwork

WEBSITE rockandbrockwoodworks.com

PROMISE FOR PUPS: AMY SCARELLA

“Don’t come back here with any babies or any dogs,” Amy Scarella’s dad admonished when she moved back in with her parents prior to moving from Connecticut to Isle of Palms three years ago. Soon after this reprimand, Scarella organized a doggy day care program that she operated out of her parents house and backyard. She says of this unforeseen series of events, “I couldn’t help it.” Doggy day care marked Scarella’s foray into the world of caring for (wo)man’s best friend. While living in Connecticut, she logged countless volunteer hours with various dog rescue programs and developed an informal mentorship with a veteran of the eld who had organized a system that brought dogs up to Connecticut to be rehomed from other regions of the country, where they’d been discarded and dismissed. During this time, Scarella also became a regular foster parent for dogs in her area. She was hooked.

However, it was a Facebook post that really did her in. While perusing one of the online rescue pages, she came across a post about Hunter, a black dog that had been hit by a car. Hunter’s misfortune piqued Scarella’s interest and prompted her to make a phone call to coordinate the logistics of bringing him up to her neck of the woods to heal and nd an adoptive family. She recalls the person she spoke with being surprised when she expressed a desire to help Hunter: “Oh, you take black dogs?” they said, “Nobody takes black dogs.” at fortuitous conversation brought Scarella up to speed on a phenomenon that’s been dubbed “black dog syndrome,” the result of a dangerous mix of ingrained superstition, subconscious associations between darker-colored dogs and aggression, and a lack of evident expressiveness—often equated to personality—of black dogs when photographed in poorly-lit shelters.

“Rescue is like the mafia. Once you’re in, you can’t get out.

Scarella founded Little Black Dog Rescue, the manifestation of her de ant stance against the perpetual problem that black dogs in shelters face in consequence of this syndrome: disproportionately being the last to be adopted and the rst to be euthanized. Now, eight years later, Little Black Dog Rescue is nothing if not the epitome of a labor of love. “Rescue’s like the mafia,” says Scarella. “Once you’re in, you can’t get out.” As the founder and primary point-person for the program, she has continued to execute her commitment to rescuing last-chance black dogs since moving to Isle of Palms. In fact, although most of the dogs she nds are still transported to rescues she has partnered with in Connecticut, many come from neighboring coastal counties, the Upstate and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. “I used to pull from these places when I was in Connecticut,” she explains, “Now living here, it’s fascinating to see where I’m actually pulling from.” Pups like Sadie, who came from a Berkeley shelter and was adopted by a woman who resides in Connecticut, even come to visit Scarella and her ve dogs on Isle of Palms. Scarella says of her commitment to Little Black Dog Rescue: “It’s 23 out of the 24 hours a day. It’s exhausting. You miss out on a lot of life, but it’s kind of like what you signed up for without knowing. I’ve had to cancel stu because I had to pick up a dog from transport. You couldn’t pay anybody enough to do this. It just has to be something that you’re passionate about.” In its inaugural year, Scarella’s program rescued 60 dogs. Now, she estimates that number has grown to 100 annually. Dogs who have come through her care now reside all over the country, as well as across the pond in England. When it comes to rescuing, fostering and volunteering to support shelters and rescue programs, her token of advice is: “You don’t have to do everything, but you can do something.”

ORGANIZATION Little Black Dog Rescue

ENTREPRENEUR Amy Scarella

FOUNDED 2013

LOCATION Isle of Palms

SERVICES Dog rescue program focusing on last chance dogs

WEBSITE littleblackdogrescue.org