Ted Teele
CEO
SnapRetail
SnapRetail was founded in 2010 when CEO Ted Teele and a team of experienced retail industry and technology professionals saw the need for retailers to compete better with big-box stores online. Today, thousands of retailers across the U.S. use SnapRetail to take marketing to the next level.
SnapRetail helps the cornerstones of these local communities compete with their big box competitors in a variety of ways. First, it provides an easy-to-use, affordable, Web-based solution for marketing automation, making it fast and simple for retailers to connect with customers and promote their products and stores.
Second, all customers have dedicated marketing specialists who provide guidance with the SnapRetail product, and with retail marketing in general.
SnapRetail also provides more than 100 educational seminars and webinars each year. More than 20,000 retailers attend the company’s free educational programs.
SnapRetail has provided its clients more time, more traffic and more sales.
Pete Tsudis
President and CEO
TruFoodMfg
As a family-owned company led by President and CEO Pete Tsudis, TruFoodMfg has experienced significant growth in the past 10 years, prompting it to rebrand itself in 2013. From its headquarters in Pittsburgh, TruFoodMfg has grown into a leading contract manufacturer of snack food products.
Growing steadily each quarter, the company is on track to produce more than 40 million pounds of nutrition and confection product — a 100 percent increase from the previous year.
What many companies achieve over several years, TruFoodMfg has experienced in two short years with sales increasing 100 percent each year. This growth also includes adding 300 employees and taking over a 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility across from its original 97,800-square-foot plant.
While growth has been the primary theme at TruFoodMfg, leadership has stayed true to the company’s core values — honesty and integrity — which are the cornerstone of TruFoodMfg and the inspiration for its new brand.
Henry Wang
CEO
TMD Holdings LLC
Henry Wang saw a new China emerging and a global market that was becoming increasingly reliant upon China for manufacturing. He decided to combine his heritage and entrepreneurial skills to create a new company that would provide companies around the globe with a one-stop approach to the production of consumer goods.
TMD Holdings LLC, the company Wang and his brother built, has emerged as a leading supplier of garden implements to Lowe’s, household goods for Target and many other specialty items that the TMD team designs and affordably produces in comparatively rapid fashion, sometimes as little as a few weeks from inspiration to production.
Wang has spearheaded the organization of the company as CEO, including its internal design department, which works closely with buyers at large retail chains to solve problems rather than simply produce products. Because of the company’s unique focus and its nimble approach to business, it has recorded double-digit growth each year of its existence.
Bill Wolfe
Executive director
Homeless Children’s Education Fund
Through countless networking events, fundraisers and everyday meetings, Bill Wolfe has shared the mission of the Homeless Children’s Education Fund all over town to not only spread awareness for the issue but also raise funds for an issue near to his heart.
Since he took the position of executive director, HCEF has increased the number of homeless shelters it serves from 17 to 25.
Additionally, HCEF has continuously served more than 2,500 children annually through its Gear for Grades backpack and school supply program, more than 1,000 children annually through after school and enrichment programming, and has added a scholarship program for homeless youth who are heading into secondary education.
Wolfe orchestrates a staff of six who reach thousands of children experiencing homelessness every year, and in 2012, he helped HCEF create Homeless Children’s Awareness Week to spread awareness throughout the Pittsburgh community about the issues children face in homelessness.
Jason Wolfe
President and CEO
GiftCards.com
Jason Wolfe, a self-made, serial entrepreneur, has continuously built, sold and re-built companies over the past 20 years, including his latest venture, GiftCards.com, where he is president and CEO.
Wolfe focuses on three key areas to run his companies: strategy, people and execution. At GiftCards.com, he’s created a company that displays the stability of an established firm and the growth and culture of a startup.
The company is leading the way in the gift card industry by migrating from plastics to e-gifting. GiftCards.com is developing innovative apps and application programming interfaces to empower multiple commerce sites to offer online gift cards within their environments.
One of the firm’s most promising innovations is its patented gift credit app, GiftYaTM, which is a gift credit that is applied to the recipient’s debit or credit card. GiftCards.com believes GiftYaTM will eventually replace plastic gift cards because it is easy to use, customizable and can be used at any merchant worldwide.
