For the Love of Incubators: NEPA Couple Leads Region's Renaissance

The heads of two closely related business incubators, the Scranton Enterprise Center and the Innovation Center at Wilkes-Barre, were in the car recently on their way down to Harrisburg to accept a grant they had jointly applied for.

One wanted to plan their discussion with the grantor, while the other said “let’s just worry about it when we get there.” Like an old married couple, they prepared their separate ways and during the meeting, in which they formally accepted funding that will go a long way in promoting small business in their region, they fed off one another successfully.

They are, in fact, a married couple. John Augustine heads the Wilkes-Barre incubator, while his wife Kristine Augustine leads the Scranton incubator. It’s an unusual situation, especially considering their approaches are admittedly different.

Says Kristine: “My husband and I really are polar opposites, almost in every sense, which is why we complement each other. I’m the one who hides behind the camera. He’s the one who runs in front of it.”
That, says John, is ideal for their line of work.

“From an organizational perspective, if you were looking to hire people, that’s kind of what you want. We push each other’s boundaries, hopefully in a positive way.”

While on the surface it appears a series of coincidences put them in remarkably similar positions, there’s really more to the story--the Augustines love what they do and where they live and want to be a part of shaping the future of both.

Both have played instrumental roles in the retooling of their respective city’s economies, from a blue-collar mentality to a knowledge-based focus on technology, and in turn have given Northeastern PA a leg up during the recession and hope for accelerated growth coming out of it. Especially considering the parochial nature of the area, the Augustines’ ability to work together has been a big reason why regionalism is gaining unprecedented momentum here.

“While John and Kristine run ‘competing’ incubators, collectively they understand that acting regionally makes both of their incubators stronger,” says Chris Haran, president of the region’s Great Valley Technology Alliance, a public-private partnership that the Augustines both helped bring from concept to reality. Both are members of the organization’s board.

“There have been occasions where one Augustine might refer a prospect to the other, as the type of client or type of space might not have been appropriate for their respective incubators.”

Surprisingly, the couple’s paths don’t intersect all that much throughout the workweek. Maybe they’ll wind up at the same meeting twice a month, but even when they do, they usually don’t sit next to one another and it’s not apparent they’re husband and wife.

“Once people find out we’re married and do the same thing, the looks we get are kind of funny,” says John.

It took the Augustines eight years to find out they wanted to be married. Kristine grew up in rural Wayne County, while John came from the Wyoming Valley in Luzerne County. Both wound up at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre.

The pair had many mutual friends who lived off-campus in Wilkes-Barre during the summers and became good friends themselves, but went years without dating. Perhaps foreshadowing their shared career, both were on crutches at the same time their junior year when John, a soccer player at King’s, slipped off the edge of a parking lot while running and partially tore his ACL, and Kristine hurt her ankle stepping off a curb. They started dating during their senior year and graduated in 1997 with big plans, but they weren’t necessarily focused on each other.

Kristine started working the day after she graduated and a year later was hired by the Scranton Chamber of Commerce to run a micro-lending program. She still leads MetroAction, which provides small business loans and assistance in the Scranton area.

John went to work for Wilkes-Barre newspaper the Times Leader, before forming his own internet company and teaching at King’s and local Penn State branch campuses. He then landed at the Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, and he and Kristine first worked together on the formation of the Great Valley Technology Alliance in 1999, representing their respective chambers. That process launched an initiative to create local incubators, and while that early work helped shape their future, neither knew it at the time.

“I don’t think either of us was thinking too far in the future,” says Kristine. “I didn’t really know where I was going day to day. My job position was evolving and I didn’t know where I wanted to go.”

John left Wilkes-Barre in 2000 to “chase dot.com glory,” and had some successes with his own internet startup and another in Stroudsburg, but he felt pulled back to Wilkes-Barre and landed back at its Chamber in 2003. That’s about the time when Kristine was establishing the Scranton Enterprise Center, and John was tabbed to establish a similar incubator in downtown Wilkes-Barre.

In Wilkes-Barre, an incubator existed long before most, but it was more associated with light manufacturing and assembly. As that changed, the concept for the Innovation Center took shape, and it leaned on Scranton and the National Business Incubator Association for things like procedure manuals, lease structures, tenant manuals and technology policies. It opened in 2004.

Maybe that collaboration was the biggest sign of all. John popped the question on Christmas Day, 2004, and they were married on October 5 the following year. Together at home, they have two young children (Jack and Jill--really) in Mountaintop. Separately at the office, they each have valuable skill sets--John is a marketing wiz with a focus on economic development through company recruitment, while Kristine’s expertise lies in research analysis and funding--provides backbone to projects that impact both cities and the region.

Simple geography mitigates most competition between the historically competitive cities--most companies within 20 miles of Wilkes-Barre will seek incubator space there, and same goes for Scranton. It gets interesting when incubator-shopping companies don’t realize the Augustines are married and try to play one against the other.

The grant that the Augustines obtained is significant. It is part of a regional plan to have a $1 million fund to provide low-interest loans to assist businesses, and the Augustines hope to be about halfway to that goal within the next couple months.

“I think there are opportunities for collaboration and the lines of communication are open,” says Kristine. “We’re working on a few projects now that kind of spurned from conversations we’ve had.”

Part of why their relationship at home and the office works is the Augustines rarely talk about work off the clock and they take their confidentiality clauses seriously. For example, John kept quiet for almost two years about Pepsi Co.’s expansion at the Crestwood Industrial Park that created nearly 100 jobs.

“I get calls all the time from companies, and not that I wouldn’t trust my wife with information, but it’s a little more sensitive when you have a high-level CEO thinking about leaving their job locally and starting a business and raising dollars to build a product,” says John.

While their shared interest and experiences have had a major impact, it’s still the couple’s differences that really make them click, says John, which seems to be a good thing for their marriage, their community and the economy.

“During the hustle and bustle you don’t think about that enough but at the end of the day you look back and say ‘I have everything I could ask for.’”

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Joe Petrucci is managing editor of Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.

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Photos:

John and Kristine Augustine run the Innovation Center at Wilkes-Barre and the Scranton Enterprise Center, respectively.

Kristine Augustine

The Scranton Enterprise Center.

The Innovation Center at Wilkes-Barre leaned on its Scranton counterpart for assistance when it opened in 2004.

All Photographs by Aimee Dilger