CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Lehigh Valley LaunchBox continues its educational event series focusing on the unique challenges and victories of female entrepreneurs called “LaunchBox Ladies: From Passion to Profit” with a program on Thursday, June 6. This event "toasts" three of the female Lehigh Valley LaunchBox grant recipients, who will share with students and community guests their personal entrepreneurial journey. 

A donation will be requested at the door. The event is open to the public on a limited first-come, first-served basis. Networking and the program will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Penn State Lehigh Valley campus. Light fare will be provided, and wine toast will be provided by Black River Farms.

The June event features the following speakers:

Thursday, June 6

Speaker
Tai-Yin Huang
Founder and owner of Andromeda LED Lighting LLC
Professor of physics, Penn State Lehigh Valley

Huang founded Andromeda LED Lighting LLC with the goal of making the world a greener place by switching to LED lighting. She owns several patents on LED innovations. At Penn State Lehigh Valley, Huang founded the Integrated Energy Solutions for Entrepreneurs program, which provides a platform for interdisciplinary faculty and students to collaborate on finding innovative solutions to address real-world problems in the areas of green energy and LED lighting applications. She is an inventor, a professor of physics with research grants from the National Science Foundation, and a two-time Outstanding Research Award winner at Penn State Lehigh Valley.

Speaker
Lisa Petrocelli
Co-founder of Your Words Your Story LLC

Petrocelli is a co-founder of Your Words Your Story LLC, a memoir-creation business. Your Words Your Story follows the premise that everyone has a story to tell and that preserving life stories should be fun, easy and affordable. Petrocelli firmly believes that the key to a successful interview is an easy, relaxed conversation. Her professional interviewing skills developed in her more than 25 years of interviewing, writing and project management experiences across a variety of industries, including travel, finance, consumer affairs, and health care.

Speaker
Shannon Varcoe
ZYX Sticks (Troublemaker LLC)

Varcoe is the founder of TroubleMaker LLC, a children’s education company that promotes gender inclusivity and collaboration through exploration and open-ended play. Her first product, ZYX Sticks, is a wooden building set and learning tool used to create abstract structures without instructions. ZYX are made of high-quality maple with notched joints cut into the sides, making three-dimensional building possible. Varcoe has experience in education and child care, as well as in design, engineering and business development through her master of engineering degree in technical entrepreneurship and bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and product design, both from Lehigh University. 

To register, visit the LaunchBox Ladies website. For more information on LaunchBox Ladies, email LVLaunchBox@psu.edu or call 610-285-5208.

Lehigh Valley LaunchBox is an early-stage business accelerator program for entrepreneurs. As a signature program of Invent Penn State, Lehigh Valley LaunchBox works with a network of community and university partners to offer continuing support to small business owners and guides them through every step of their startup journey.