​Berks County resident Brandon Moyer’s journey to entrepreneurship took a magical detour following his 2008 graduation from Governor Mifflin Highschool–he started working for Disney.

He took advantage of a special work experience program that Disney offers for recent highschool graduates, and started working as a housekeeper in common areas and inside one of their resorts.

“I worked in over 12 hotels on their property for 3.5-4 years,” Moyer said. “[Disney teaches] you courtesy; how to be respectful to guests. Other companies go to see how Disney does things [with their employees].”

Armed with the education in superior customer service that he learned during his time at Disney, Moyer returned to Berks County from Florida seven years ago with the dream of starting his own business.

“I had $1000 in my pocket, and said ‘I’m going to try something I’ve never done before,” he said. Moyer started his own cleaning business, Homecare Solutions LLC, in 2014.

“The first year, you really don’t know what you’re doing–you learn as you go,” Moyer said in regards to starting a business.

“Life is scary being an entrepreneur, you don’t know what your day to day is going to be life. People like to be in that comfortable 9-5 job bubble and know what tomorrow is going to bring. For me, life is too short and I want to indulge in that adventurous mode all the time.”

Homecare Solutions LLC–which originally consisted of Moyer and his cousin Lindsey as the sole employees–grew so successful over the last seven years that they were able to acquire former cleaning company Sweep, Sparkle, and Shine in 2019.

From the original $1000 that Moyer invested in his fledgling business upon his return from Florida, Homecare Solutions LLC now has over half a million dollars in revenue as a company.

“Berks County is so unique that word of mouth really helped my business in the beginning,” Moyer said gratefully. “Change is opportunity!”

In addition to owning Homecare Solutions LLC, Moyer is also on the Kenhorst Zoning Board, and has experience creating unique haunted houses in Berks County.

​Dylan Shively’s journey to becoming an entrepreneur was an unconventional one. An East Stroudsburg native, he shared that he was a troubled and highly unmotivated teen.

“I wasn’t the greatest student,” he said. “I wasn’t the kid getting straight A’s or [the] teacher’s pet, I got suspended all the time, I didn’t do the work…I barely graduated.”

Shively shared that a teacher told him and his parents to their faces that he wouldn’t amount to much in life, and that–at best–he could hope to obtain a manual labor job post-graduation. Those harsh words changed Shively’s life.

​Instead of continuing to be a self-proclaimed “disappointment” to his parents and to himself, Shively decided to take a sharp 180 on the road of life. He built a moral and ethical network around himself, primarily on social media, and this eventually led him to start working for Verizon. “I was taught that you wanted long-term, not short-terms gain,” he said.

​In December of 2017, Shively felt called to give back to his community. “I was saving money, and I wanted to do something good,” he said.

“I saw a post on Facebook that said how cool it would be to help kids pay off school lunch debt. I created a Facebook fundraiser and offered to match dollar for dollar what I raised…I raised over $4000, and went back to my old highschool and paid off lunch debts for every single student in grades 9-12.”

This act of generosity gave Shively the opportunity to come face to face with his former teacher who once said he would never amount to anything. That teacher was suitably shocked.

​Shively’s journey from businessman to entrepreneur followed this act of generosity. After purchasing his own Verizon store turned out not to offer the freedom as a business owner he had hoped for, he started a part-time credit repair company. He eventually left Verizon completely to focus on his company.

“[That’s what it means to be a] true entrepreneur,” he said. “[You] leave guaranteed money to take a chance.”

​After relocating to Berks County, Shively began traveling to schools and delivering motivational speeches to high school students–many of them troubled teens, like he once was himself. His biggest message to students? Focus on the power of your circle of influence.

“It is so important to have the right people around you,” said Shively. “When it comes to [asking for] advice, look at the person you are talking to. Are they currently where you want to be? Most times, you will find that answer is no…audit [your ] conversations, and who you talk to everyday.”

​When it comes to innovative website design, FXV Digital Design owner Freddy Vasquez has a consistent message for his clients: “Let’s make something awesome today!”

​A New York native, Vasquez entered the world of marketing and design purely by chance–his band at the time needed creative promotional flyers, and he decided that he was the man for the job.

“We had to make flyers,” he said, “and I was the only person who could do it.” Originally in the music business professionally, Vasquez eventually branched into retail. When a career relocation to Florida didn’t pan out, Vasquez’s wife took a telemarketing job to keep the family afloat financially while he focused on creating a web design business.

​“We took advantage of Myspace at the time,” said Vasquez, noting the popularity of the pioneering social media platform with musicians and artists. “We started doing band profiles, like a customizable Facebook page [is today],” he added, noting that his wife would pitch his work to bands over the phone.

Business was slow…until his wife convinced Five Finger Death Punch to let them design their page. “That was it,” said Vasquez, “Bands responded because of that one profile. That was the beginning.”

​Vasquez eventually branched from his original medium to Facebook and full website design, noting that he enjoys changing with the times and getting close to his clients to make sure they receive exactly the branding they want and need.

“Internet and marketing changes constantly,” he said, “but the way that society handles it is different.” Vasquez shared that he tries to build websites that get people’s attention in a matter of seconds. “Attention spans have grown shorter, so the uniqueness [of the websites] has to be better.”

​To those who are just starting out building a website and social media content for their business, Vasquez gave this advice: focus on a blog to keep your content current. “The biggest thing is blogging and social media,” he said.

“Branding is huge.” For those who want a professional to design their website and marketing content, you can rest assured that choosing FXV Digital Designs means that your website and social media accounts will have the unique twist they need in order to be successful. “People think good enough is good enough,” said Vasquez. “To me, good enough [means] fail. We are here to take your website/business to a whole new level.”

Interest in weather since the age of six when an F3 Tornado struck near his home in Lyons, PA, Justin Selig has always been fascinated by weather. Selig is now an Advanced Severe Weather Spotter/Storm Chaser for the National Weather Service and a National Severe Weather Media Stringer for Live Storms Media and has had his work featured on The Weather Channel, 69 News WFMZ, and The Morning Call.

How did you get into Storm Chasing? Weather for me at all started when I was probably 6 years old May 31st 1998. There’s a town in eastern Berks County, Lyons, Pennsylvania, and that date they were actually impacted by a large EF3 tornado. I remember that night clearly, the power going out and the crazy storm.

I ended up Googling storm chasing teams in Pennsylvania, and they’re obviously wasn’t much, it’s not as mainstream as it is now and I found somebody up in Scranton Wilkes-Barre area. Her name is Matrona Brand and she runs Storm Stalkers Club.

Every time we get a storm. I would just call her up on the phone and then, learning things along the way. Then when I was finally old enough, I took a Skywarn class with the National Weather Service.

What do you have to do to make a career out of weather chasing? Education and a basic understanding of how weather works, and a good understanding of geography and stuff and where things are, knowing where roads are where you live.

There’s many tools that I use. The average person may only see the Radar. So I’d say if you really want to get into this, talking with a storm chaser or contacting your local National Weather Service Office would be a good place to start.

So what kind of seasons are you looking for? I really go by the trends honestly, and progressively each year of the weather has gotten a lot worse. We’re seeing temperatures rise, that significant weather is becoming more and more of a factor in the eastern United States.

You do more than just your weather chasing. You recently visited NASA? I got to see the launch of The Atlas rocket. I went down unfortunately it was it was canceled. I got to meet the scientist behind it.

I got to see where they actually launch from range control, and got the commanders of the chief officers and then to the hanger to see all their aircraft.

Keystone Mesonet. How does that help you do what you do? It’s group of weather stations that are scattered across Pennsylvania and key areas. So they’re along highways are at airports and then there at like big businesses and maintained by the Department of Transportation.

When I see wind gusts of 70 mile per hour in Lebanon County. I can kind of pre-planned position myself to where the storms going to be in anticipation of those events.