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Caption: Clean Acres Farm Management (l-r) Ben Shelton, Pete O’Donnell and Rob Rizzo.
Clean Acres Farm was named winner of the 2013 Small Business Plan Competition. The annual competition was sponsored by Centralina Workforce Development Board, Iredell County Mitchell Community College, the Mooresville-South Iredell Chamber of Commerce, the NCCCS Small Business Center Network, the Statesville Chamber of Commerce, and 1400 WSIC.
Clean Acres Farm, which is creating a state of the art facility in northern Iredell County, is going to recycle waste products and convert them to a USDA certified organic compost. The company will have both a wholesale and retail lines to satisfy the needs of growers of every size. The management team consists of Dr. Ben Shelton, Pete O’Donnell, and Rob Rizzo.
“The team at Clean Acres Farm would like to thank Mitchell Community College and their sponsors for putting on this business plan competition,” said Pete O’Donnell. “We came into it with the goal to win and we succeeded. Mrs. Childers did a great job instructing this course, and we were able to take a lot away from it. We would encourage other business start-ups to consider taking this course next year.”
Judges were David Bradley, Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce; Heather Gray, PNC Bank; Robin McIntire, NC SBTDC; Kevin Nervegna, GCGWealth Management Inc.; Chris Nichols, Blue Harbor Bank; and Joe Vagnone, Carolina Business Associates.