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Coffee & Connections

Coffee & Connections

Wednesday, December 21, 2022 (8:00 AM - 9:00 AM) (EST)

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Start your day with a little morning networking at the Chamber of Commerce office! Our popular morning mixers offer the opportunity to hear about some exciting Chamber happenings. It's a great way to not only connect with fellow members, but to also touch base on ways you can benefit from your membership!


At Coffee and Connections, we celebrate Chamber members in a variety of ways! Every other month, we feature a Chamber member to speak about what their company does. We also have refreshments provided by a Mama's Biscuits Culinary Incubator tenant monthly! Coffee is provided by River Bottom Roasters. Lastly, we feature work from artists affiliated with the Washington County Arts Council for you to view at the mixer. Read about what this month's mixer will have in store for you.


Our featured Chamber member this month is Amy Mason, Benefits Account Executive at Bowers Insurance, Inc.! 


Amy's Bio:


There is an elephant in the room, and nobody wants to talk about it. Human resources and employee benefits (health insurance; benefit plans) How does a person spend ¾ of their working career in the field of HR health and benefits? Come find out how it all began for Amy on Wednesday December 21, 2022, at the Coffee and Connections. Amy E. Mason, CEBS Benefits Account Executive at Bowers Insurance will enlighten with fun facts, useful information (or not) and promises you will not read anything insurance related.


Our featured Incubator tenant is Mama's Biscuits! Owner, Lesley Riley has been featured on Good Morning America and is making it big with her biscuit company. 


Lesley's Bio:


An IT Project Manager by day, and a self-proclaimed gourmet biscuit baker at night. Lesley Riley, now affectionately goes by the name “Mama Biscuit” and is the nation’s first gourmet biscuit company where she’s “bringing a Northern flair to a Southern classic” with her gourmet biscuit line.

As a successful restaurant owner for many years, Riley earned the nickname “Ma Biscuit.” The nickname stuck, but she had not yet truly mastered the perfect biscuit. After a bit of encouragement from her family and friends to start living up to her nickname, she dusted off her grandmother’s cookbook and set out to make the perfect biscuit in the summer of 2014. During this same time period, she launched a blog and social media pages under the moniker “Mama Biscuit” and somehow still found time for a multi-round audition for the TV show Master Chef. As fate would have it, she did not make it to the final round of auditions for the show, but the support she received from her inner circle and social media followers only strengthened her resolve to get back into the kitchen and keep working on that perfect biscuit.


Eventually, Riley mastered her grandmother’s recipe and in 2014 created the perfect cream buttermilk biscuit. Not content with a simple, round cream buttermilk biscuit, she added her own flair by making her biscuits heart-shaped. This planted the seed to begin creating original recipes for gourmet flavored biscuits that come in over 50 different unique flavor combinations of sweet, savory, and certified vegan. The first gourmet biscuit was created on October 15, 2014. Less than ten days later, a local grocer was interested in selling her top biscuit flavors like Bananas Foster w/Salted Caramel, Chicken Pot Pie, Spiced Mango w/Tequila-Lime glaze, and Kahlua Stuffed Brie to name a few.


When you meet Lesley Riley, the first thing you notice is a warm smile that makes you feel like you are already her best friend. One taste of her gourmet biscuits and you are transported back to a time when southern women made every meal from scratch and the food on your plate was meant to nourish your soul as much as it was to calm your hunger. It is quite fitting that her signature line of gourmet biscuits is “always made with love.” Riley’s calm demeanor and delicious gourmet biscuits made with love should not fool you into believing she just swooped into the kitchen one morning and churned out a successful product. She is one of the hardest working entrepreneurs in the food industry and her journey has taken her from her native hometown in Pennsylvania to Fayetteville, North Carolina and now to the D.C. area, which serves as the headquarters for Mama’s Biscuits.


In less than a year and with the help of social media Mama’s Biscuits has a thriving online store, services local wineries and restaurants, and has hit the shelves of major grocery retailers in include Walmart, Target, Kroger, World Market, Public, Trader Joes, and Wegman’s to name a few. The clean label, pantry-friendly product contains no preservatives or artificial flavors. As demand would have it, Riley launched her biscuit mix and new flour line in 2022 to the market and the rest is history.




Beth's Bio:

I am an artist because it is my nature to be so. I make stuff, just can't help it. My infinity with nature began in childhood. My work uses several components intertwining images of nature & metal in a story as a piece of jewelry or jewelry series.

I taught art & studio jewelry classes for 22 years @ HCC & DAC. Fifteen years ago I met Sukey Rankin in my jewelry class. Sukey is a talented artist in many fields. We quickly became friends. This show represents Sukey's work, my work & my student's work from my teaching in Studio2bcj.


Sukey's Bio:

Sukey has always had the desire to create and explore different avenues of artistic expression. She finds so much joy when taking an empty palette and transforming it into something imaginative, whether it be with needle and threads in embroidery or with the brushes and inks of Japanese Calligraphy and Chinese brush painting. In her floral work she loves to play with texture, color, and design. A bare container becomes magical with stems of color artfully arranged.

As an Elementary Education teacher, she encouraged her students to dig into their artistic and creative skills. There is no greater joy for a teacher than to see students unleash their excitement in learning while using a creative approach for their projects. After retiring from teaching she wanted to recapture that zeal from an artistic and creative endeavor.

Her love for metalsmithing unfolded when she enrolled in a beginning jewelry class at Hagerstown Community College. A new passion was ignited. To further quench her passion with metalwork, she also enrolled in classes at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center in Frederick, MD., and at Studio 2 in Myersville, MD. Her studies continue.

She designs and creates her wearable art using the traditional metalsmithing fabrication techniques of fold-forming, piercing, texturing, forging, soldering, and stone setting. Although she enjoys working with all types of metal, she works primarily in sterling and fine silver with gemstones and pearls sprinkled in. Each piece of her art is handcrafted to possess its own personality.

Sukey has always enjoyed the challenge of taking an object and creating it into something unique. Her jewelry art is no different. She keeps a watchful eye to her surroundings for inspiration. Many of her designs are inspired by floral arrangements, Japanese Calligraphy, and children’s artwork.

She resides and works in Hagerstown, MD. Her other interests include gold and silk needlework, pulled thread embroidery, floral design, Japanese Calligraphy, ikebana, origami, Chinese brush painting, and digging in the dirt.


Thank you to the 19405 Emerald Sq. Edward Jones for sponsoring this event! 


Pricing:

Free for Chamber members

Just $10 for non-members!

Washington County Chamber of Commerce
1 S. Potomac St.
Hagerstown, MD 21740 United States
Event Contact
Maddie Monica
(301) 739-2015
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022 (8:00 AM - 9:00 AM) (EST)
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