When Joseph Lepore came from Italy to Bayside in Queens at age 15, he quickly learned America was truly a land of opportunity.
After graduating from Bayside High School, Lepore set off for Queens Community College, but kept his own part-time cleaning business at a local nursing home going. Before long, he joined Marriott”™s facilities division, where he spent “a lot of time on the road ”¦ sometimes five days a week” as an associate director, working in Rochester and eventually in St. Agnes Hospital in White Plains.
Lepore and his family also bought a home in Dutchess County in 1990, leaving Queens behind. “We love it here,” says Lepore.
By 1999, after a decade with Marriott, Lepore decided to start his own commercial cleaning service, calling it LCS Facility Maintenance in Poughkeepsie. By 2000, the entrepreneur was ready to forge ahead and devote himself full time to his own business. “That made my family very happy,” said Lepore. “It”™s tough being away from home so much.”
Today, Lepore”™s original staff of five has grown to 60 employees and he recently started LCS Property Maintenance with his son, Joseph Jr. at the helm. “Basically,” said Lepore, “we now provide commercial cleaning and maintenance both inside and outside.”
And there is plenty of work in the Hudson Valley and neighboring Connecticut, allowing Lepore to be home for dinner instead of brown bagging it in his car in distant cities.
Joseph Bonura went to Fordham University and became an accountant, but somehow found the restaurant business more appealing, opening his first Perkins Restaurant in the late 1970s. From there, it just took off and he soon owned five more. He branched out into the catering business, opening Anthony”™s Pier 9, then partnering with Cosimo DiBrizzi to create the Poughkeepsie Grand. Bonura”™s most dazzling achievement to date is The Grandview and Shadows on the Hudson on the shores of the river in 2006. Like Lepore, Bonura”™s children have followed in dad”™s footsteps and entered the family business.
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Both men were honored by the Gateway to Entrepreneurial Tomorrows at a 100-person lunch program held last month at The Grandview in Poughkeepsie, with Bonura honored as corporate and Lepore as small-business entrepreneurs of the year. It was also an occasion to mark Gateway”™s second anniversary in helping minority business entrepreneurs learn how to start and succeed at business. Both Bonura and Lepore were “great examples of how hard work can make a successful entrepreneur,” said Rob Lunski, who founded the nonprofit program with help from Marist College and the Dyson Foundation.
With a new grant from the Orange County Industrial Development Agency, Lunski plans to open a Gateway office in Newburgh to help build its inner-city entrepreneur program. In addition to another round of Dyson funding, Lunski hopes to reach more new startup businesses and encourage local business people to step up and become Gateway mentors.
Bonura”™s advice to young entrepreneurs? “Honesty is really the best policy. If you can”™t pay your bills, call up your creditor and tell them you will pay them in thirty days. And then, do it. Not in 29 or 31, but in 30. If you”™re honest and work hard, you”™ll succeed.” Lepore added, “Have a passion for what you do and the patience, and you will succeed.”
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