Collaborative collisions: Entrepreneurs ‘Reach Forward’ to find new opportunities and connections in Kalamazoo

KALAMAZOO, MI — Relationships are a big deal for small businesses.

A new contact or key information could provide the solution to a major problem or the chance to compete for a better opportunity.

So when entrepreneurs bump into someone who addresses their needs or speaks their language, it’s a good day.

The Reach Forward Conversations Event on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in downtown Kalamazoo was intended to cause “intentional collisions” among small business people.

A single contact can lead to a contract that moves the needle for a local business, says Marcel Fable Price, director of Platform and Programming for capital investment firm Kalamazoo Forward Ventures.

“If we have companies like Midtown Fresh here. And they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re looking for companies to source locally and to have on all of our (supermarket) end caps,'” Price says, “these are direct conversations that we can create that will move the needle economically in our community. That’s the goal today. That’s what the Reach Forward Conversations Event is about.”

With an eye toward consumer-packaged goods, the Reach Forward Conversations Event attracted about three dozen product sellers and small business advocates, allowing them to “collide” with one another, as well as several product buyers. 

The gathering was held at The Foundry Corporate Office and Event Space at 600 E. Michigan Ave. The buyers included Gordon Food Service, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Landscape Forms, Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo County, and Midtown Fresh/Park Street Market.

Host organization Kalamazoo Forward Ventures is a $50 million capital investment firm that worked with Southwest Michigan First and others to stage the networking opportunity. It is looking to invest in unique growth-oriented businesses run by individuals who banks and other lenders may have overlooked.

Former Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell, a partner with Kalamazoo Forward Ventures, facilitated conversations during an open conference segment of the event, asking individuals about their greatest business challenges and allowing others to offer advice. Among other things, the conversation included: getting out of the way of your own production; relaxing your perfectionist grip on products and operations; and realizing that a small company has to be ready to up-scale quickly to accommodate the sometimes ruthless demands of large buyers.

Price marveled at how the local economy can be positively affected when a large buyer contracts with a seller. He mentioned local roaster Factory Coffee, which benefits from being sourced by Bell’s Brewery and Landscape Forms. The latter is a large maker of outdoor furniture and lighting for urban green spaces, campuses, amusement parks, river walks, and athletic venues across the country. And while Factory Coffee Owner Dan Kastner says his coffee company now has four locations, it is struggling to make its products more visible throughout the region.

“If we can get companies to even promise that 2 percent of their local buying power will stay local,” Price asks, “how much capital can we continue to have to push local businesses forward? And that’s the goal.”

Kalamazoo Mayor David Anderson says, “I’m here to support that effort. It’s critically important for the City of Kalamazoo to support people here in town who want to start their own businesses.”

Sarah Drumm, who was named economic mobility manager for Kalamazoo County less than two months ago, says she attended the Reach Forward event to connect with people working with small businesses and to possibly help them find resources.

“Mobility is really just upward mobility,” Drumm says. “It’s the ability to pull yourself up out of your situation. My parents were born in 1939. In their generation, 90 percent of those children were able to do better than their parents. In this current generation of youth right now, my children, only about 50 percent of those kiddos will be able to do better than their parents.”

So she is keen on the idea of helping the next generation do better for themselves, “whatever that looks like,” she says. “Whether that’s to own a home or to NOT have to pay off student loans over 40 years.”

What attracted entrepreneurs?

Doreen Gardner continues to nurture and grow the business she started in 2021, using a family recipe for peanut, pecan, and cashew brittle. The founder and owner of Papa’s Brittle says, “I’m here because I think it’s good to always come and to find different resources, to meet different people. And this is a good branding opportunity because what I find is there are a lot of people in Kalamazoo that have not tried or tasted Papa’s Brittle.” 

In Kalamazoo, the treat is sold at Midtown Fresh, Park Street Market, Spirit of Kalamazoo, Rocket Fizz, Heilman’s Nuts & Confections, and other locations. “But we’re in more and more stores outside of the Kalamazoo area,” she says. “So my real goal is to increase our visibility in our own local market.”

Papa’s Brittle is also sold at locations in Grand Rapids, Lansing, Detroit, and Chattanooga, Tenn.

Stanley Steppes’ interest in starting a restaurant over the last two years led him to the creation of Phence & Post, a catering business that features southern-inspired cuisine, and KatchaSteak, a cheesesteak company. The catering business does onsite events for companies like PNC, Bronson Methodist Hospital, and Southwest Michigan First, but Steppes expects it to soon become the in-house caterer for the Kalamazoo City Centre and to establish a regular brick-and-mortar location. KatchaSteak sells cheesesteaks at special events. Both endeavors benefit from the skills of Chef Khalil Benn, who relocated here in 2025 from the Philadelphia area.

Bryan Carter and Jessica Hance were looking to connect with growing companies that need transportation and warehousing services. Carter is director of sales and marketing for Ralph Moyle, Inc., a 60-year-old Mattawan-based regional transportation and warehousing company. Hance is a sales associate for the company, which has 65 trucks and a 500,000-square-foot warehouse in Paw Paw.

Carter says, “We want to make local connections with the small, growing companies because we’ve found in the history of our business, that’s how we’ve grown our business —  to get connected and then grow with companies.”

Small businesses may not get the attention they need from large distributors or suppliers, he says, “But we’re also a smaller, family-run company. So we latch onto each other, make a partnership, and grow together.”

Harvin Sandhu, owner of Five Rivers Real Estate, Development, and Property Management, attended the Reach Forward event to meet new people. He and his family purchased the City Centre Events venue at 125 S.Kalamazoo Mall in October of 2025. He says he is looking to bring more businesses back into the downtown and to fill the property.

“The opportunity came up for that building,” says Sandhu, who evolved to buy and manage residential properties after helping his family operate two local convenience stores. “I grew up in the area, and I grew up going to the City Centre building (and) going to the Rave Theater right behind it.”

The 2018 graduate of Portage Central High School says his company has owned rental property for the past six years in the Vine Street and Western Michigan University campus areas. About a year ago, he purchased the building that houses Benny DiCarta’s pizzeria at 232 E. Michigan Ave. 

Speaking of buying the City Centre building, he says, “When the opportunity came up, the timing was right. I was like, you can’t pass up this historic building on the Kalamazoo Mall. This is too cool of an opportunity to be able to take this over and manage it and kind of bring it back to life.”

Although he did not name them, he says, “I have a few different businesses coming in. I have a few that I’m owning myself in there.”

Among other entrepreneurs looking for opportunities at Reach Forward to collaborate, share information, and expand were: DeMargeo White of Huey D’s Goodies; Nicole Triplett of Twine Urban Winery; Noreen Garrido of Kalamazoo Latino Specialties; Michael Murray of West Michigan Provisions Inc.; and Kristi Potts of Kzoo Cream.

Another opportunity to connect

The first-quarter Black & Brown Connect Mixer was set for 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 5, at City Centre Events, 125 S. Kalamazoo Mall. Hosted by the Southwest Michigan First Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Stryker Corp., the event is an opportunity for professionals of color to meet, share, and connect with people from a spectrum of industries, as well as community leaders, educators, and entrepreneurs.

According to Chamber Director Clarence Lloyd, this installment of the quarterly event series is intended to highlight Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, the effort by Kalamazoo Forward Ventures to retain and build wealth in the Kalamazoo community by connecting retiring business owners with prospective new owners. Doing so, according to the Chamber, is helping to transfer companies “to the next generation of owners as Baby Boomers retire in record numbers.”

Kalamazoo Forward Ventures is promoting a 12- to 16-week intensive training program in mid-April for those interested in becoming business owners. Called the Tsunami Lab, in reference to the anticipated wave of businesses that may close if retiring owners fail to develop succession plans, applications for the program are being taken through March 31. More information is available HERE.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of Momentum: The people and companies shaping what’s next, a weekly series that explores new ventures, founder support, and the resources powering entrepreneurship and small businesses across seven counties in Southwest Michigan. This project is sponsored by Southwest Michigan First.