Welcome to Canopy Growth Corporation, where exponential growth has framed the future of what started as a small start-up and has since grown into a multibillion dollar, TSX-listed company. Headquartered in the town of Smiths Falls’ iconic industrial building, the former Hershey Chocolate factory,  Canopy Growth and its first national cannabis brand, Tweed, have  established a cutting-edge business that is shaping the future of the marijuana industry in Canada and around the world.

As entrepreneurs go, Shahram Yousefi is something of a paradox – a “black sheep,” as he puts it. Most entrepreneurs hope to strike it rich. Not that he’d mind, probably, but first and foremost, the professor in Queen’s department of electrical and computer engineering is looking for solutions to problems. Entrepreneurs are single-minded. Once they have an idea, they clamp on like an angry pit bull, to the exclusion of everything else. He has not one but two seemingly different ideas, both of which he is passionate about. And, in a world where new ideas and products are hailed for their “disruptive” potential, he says that, at the root of what he does is “my passion for harmony.” Speaking by phone from California where he is currently on sabbatical, the passion of his work comes through. And Innovation Park is helping him realize it.

ATHENS - Farmersville Community Abattoir (FCA) couldn't be more central and convenient within Leeds Grenville. Located at 63 Addison Road just minutes from Athens, the newly opened abattoir is doing a lot of business. FCA is a not-for-profit corporation conceived in February 2016 to address an urgent need in Leeds and Grenville for livestock slaughter services to local farmers.

A mouth-watering destination in Lennox and Addington County. Entrepreneurship is all about combining passion with opportunity and demand. Throw in a lot of hard work, persistence and a desire to please your clients and customers and you have the recipe for a successful business enterprise. For Trever and Donna Abrams, ‘recipe’ could not be a more apt term, as the couple recently turned their homespun and hearty baking recipes into the couple’s first business – Abrams Bakery, in the village of Newburgh.

McCormick’s Country Store’s ability to adapt is key to its continued success in L&A County. Lindsay Noyes and her brother Justin Martin have spent a significant portion of their lives within the inviting and homey confines of McCormick’s Country Store in Camden East. As teenagers they worked in the store, which has been both an important business and social hub of that part of Stone Mills Township and Lennox & Addington County for decades. After managing the store for a couple of years under its previous owners, Mike and Amy Martin, Noyes and her brother bought the venerable entrepreneurial institution in 2003 and have been operating it ever since.

Guildine Industries is proof that you can be a world-class, industry-leading manufacturer in a highly technical and specialized field and yet still be based in the lush, beautiful rural landscape of Southeastern Ontario. The firm will mark an incredible 60 years of operation in 2017, having been founded by four British researchers in the Town of Smiths Falls back in 1957.

Napanee Beer Company catches the craft beer wave. What started out as a passionate new hobby has turned into an adventurous – some might say intoxicating – new business enterprise for Napanee’s Geordan Saunders. Taking his award-winning brewing knowledge and experience, and combining it with an already successful career as a marketing professional, Saunders opened the Napanee Beer Company over the Victoria Day long weekend to general acclaim.

Hart N Hart continues to be a community business fixture. Ryan Moore humbly admits that the biggest challenge he faced when purchasing the long-established Hart N Hart Signs and Promotions company eight years ago was “to not mess it up.”

The Gilmours never set out in their inaugural entrepreneurial endeavour for praise, accolades and renown. They simply wanted to make amazing chocolate, in hopes that other folks would enjoy it too. But through tremendous hard work, exceptional skill and dedication, over the past five years Erica and Drew Gilmour have turned their plucky little company – Hummingbird Chocolate Maker – into the talk of the confectionary world, earning a prestigious 2016 Golden Bean Award and other distinctions at the recent London Academy of Chocolate Awards.

JAE Automation is proof positive that a cutting-edge, high-tech company can work with some of the biggest, most innovative manufacturers in North America but still enjoy the camaraderie and enviably balanced lifestyle of living in a small, close-knit community.