Darla Main-Schneider received the Small, Minority & Entrepreneurial Award for establishing Rising Sun Breads in May, 2009.

Main-Schneider had spent 25 years working in factories throughout the East Coast, “and saw one job after another disappear due to production being shifted overseas or slow economic times,” Heath said. Rather than pursuing another manufacturing job, Main-Schneider decided to create her own job, and received training through the EDC’s FastTrac NewVenture program and the French Culinary Institute in New York before opening the business which produces handcrafted breads.

Recipients of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. awards are (from left) John Parkinson, chief executive officer of Drake Extrusion; Jeanne Lawson and Carole Hussey of Hussey and Lawson Therapies Inc., trading as Therapy Direct; Donna Martin and George Roden of Monogram Snacks Martinsville; Gray Ramsey, general manager of the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative; Mark Heath, president and chief executive officer of the EDC; Darla Main-Scheider, Rising Sun Breads; and Pat Ross, director of the Bassett Historical Center. (Photo by Steve Sheppard)