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Granby Enterprise helps Annie’s Angels

Tonya Bina
tbina@skyhidailynews.com
Granby Enterprise Initiative board members Jynnifer Pierro, Kyle Harris and Marise Cipriani with Annie's Angels owner Annie Griifin and her employees. Byron Hetzler/Sky-Hi News
Byron Hetzler/Sky-Hi News | Sky-Hi News

GRANBY – It’s not considered a new business, but Granby Enterprise Initiative facilitator Patrick Brower calls it a “first success.”

Entrepreneur Annie Griffin sought help from Granby’s new private-public economic development program based on Sirolli Institute principles to “keep an existing business going,” Brower said.

The house cleaning and home watch business formerly known as House Angels is now Annie’s Angels.



“I purchased the business from my parents, Chuck and Pat Thorne, and I’ve changed the name of the business to reflect a new identity and renewed energy and excitement,” said Griffin, owner and operator of the business since her parents have retired and relocated.

With 12 employees in Grand County and more than 800 clients stretching from Winter Park to Kremmling, Annie’s Angels has a renewed commitment to high quality and personalized house cleaning and home watch services in the county, Griffin said.



The transition got some valuable help from the Granby Enterprise Initiative, an effort launched in the Granby area recently to help with economic development. In the case of Annie’s Angels, the facilitation resulted in a small business expansion, according to Brower.

Enterprise facilitator Brower offers free and confidential business management coaching in the Granby area.

As of May 16, he said, as many as 23 individuals, each with ideas for a businesses, have contacted him. Of those, there are about seven “active” business pursuits, Brower said.

Brower’s assistance is not based on doling out funds, but is based on nurturing business ideas and finding the assistance potential entrepreneurs may need in turning their ideas into realities.

As a way to spread the word to individuals who may be sitting on business ideas, Brower had made 495 personal introductions in the Granby area as of mid-May. It is then up to individuals to contact Brower for facilitation of those ideas.

The Granby Enterprise Initiative started with Granby Ranch owner Marise Cipriani, who put up $65,000 to attract the program and train an economic facilitator; the town of Granby budgeted $40,000 to help pay the facilitator salary, along with Grand County government, which contributed $15,000.

A management board of five people includes representatives of original investors in the Enterprise Initiative, and a community board of 20 to 30 people has formed to be the support behind the facilitator.


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