Ian Proverbs is optimistic about his company’s prospects for 2025.
The owner of Proverbs Excavating and Construction in Lordstown said he just left a “great meeting” with another large business, his fifth of the year so far.
“It’s still early,” he acknowledged. “[But] we’re probably going to double what we did last year if we get everything that’s coming through the door.”
Proverbs’ optimism was largely shared by the owners or operators of several small businesses in the region, even as they acknowledged the year could present some challenges.
“If you look at just overall economic conditions and the statistics, things are still trending positively and we’re relatively strong, both in the Mahoning Valley and nationwide,” said A.J. Summel, economics professor at Youngstown State University.
Last year, there was fairly stable but modest growth for the economy as a whole, which is largely driven by small businesses, Summel said. Overall, nonfarm-sector employment changed a tenth of a percentage point from December 2023 to a year later. Growth sectors included manufacturing, which grew 2%, and construction, 4%.
“There’s no sector that I know that has seen double-digit either growth or decline,” he said. “You’re always going to have some sectors that are growing and some sectors that are shrinking.”
Manufacturing and various financial services are among the largest sectors represented in the five-county northeastern Ohio-western Pennsylvania region, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The data, provided by Lake to River Economic Development, shows that manufacturing’s share of gross domestic revenue is 16% in Columbiana County, 10% in Mahoning County, 15% in Trumbull County, 12% in Lawrence County and 23% in Mercer County.
Services such as finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing represent 20% of GDP each in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, 17% each in Mercer and Lawrence counties and less than 10% in Columbiana
Reasons for Optimism
Proverbs, whose company has excavation/construction and commercial facilities maintenance contracts, said 2024 was a good year as well, in part because of its organizational tightening. Business was up about 40% from the previous year, he estimated.
He isn’t completely sure what is driving this increased activity, though he acknowledged some of it is from increased word of mouth, including through a service club he belongs to. “Rotary has really been a help getting my name out there,” he said.
Tony Ferrello, CEO and managing director of FortyTwo Event Production Inc. in Boardman, also anticipates a strong year in 2025. It will be the first year that the company’s applied engineering department will be fully operating with technology that had been developed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when production work was shut down.
FortyTwo provides sound and lighting equipment and operational expertise for concerts and other public performances, as well as other communications services.
“Building that back in ’21 and ’22 allowed us to really become strong. In ’24, we kind of changed our business a bit and focused on the needs of both the national production community and the local communities, and that has improved quite a bit in terms of what we expected coming out of the pandemic,” he said.
The technology has “come a long way” in terms of software development, specifically with FortyTwo’s partnership with Microsoft Teams. The company is installing “a lot of high-tech communications rooms” for governments, police departments and fire departments.
“That business is improving a lot in 2025,” he said. In terms of production work, more national concerts toured the Midwest in 2024 than any previous year, and he expects that record to be broken in 2025.
Berner International, based in New Castle, Pa., also is anticipating a second consecutive record year in 2025, following “low double-digit growth” in 2025, according to David Rimbey, president and CEO of the air curtain manufacturer.
No single factor is driving the growth, he said. The company has expanded internationally in the Middle East, Europe, Mexico and Latin America; invested heavily in the sales team; and launched multiple new products in recent years.
“We have good geographic expansion, international growth, multiple new products and new technologies,” Rimbey said.
At Keystar Insurance LLC in Youngstown, the 2024 numbers were comparable with 2023. But Bonita Starkey, president, anticipates increased business in 2025, from both insurance and estate planning. People are more aware that they need to put their affairs in order, to help people “make their estates airtight” so they are not losing assets in probate.
“It’s costly, and it’s time consuming,” she said. “There are trillions of dollars that are stuck in probate.”
Starkey recently hosted a workshop geared to assist caregivers and parents who are dependent on their children but live independently.
“The caregiver space is a very sensitive area, because it’s hard to give up your independence, but at the same time you need help,” she said. “This is geared toward finding that balance, the balance between receiving help and maintaining autonomy at the same time.”
She also is approaching churches and other community groups to get the word out since many people think such planning services are unaffordable to them. “I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that it’s something that people can afford,” she said.
Potential Challenges
Just looking at overall economic conditions, things are trending positively, and the Mahoning Valley and national economy are both “relatively strong,” Summel said.
The big challenge is how federal policy might create uncertainty, he said. The effects of tariffs and how they might affect inflation, which could affect Federal Reserve policy on interest rates, are being closely watched.
“There’s a lot more uncertainty about federal policy, both fiscal and monetary policy, in terms of what that’s going to look like even a few months from now, and certainly what that will look like at the end of 2025,” he said.
After taking office in January, President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on products from China, bringing tariffs on Chinese goods to 35%, but is holding off on 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico. Summell expects the effect of the Chinese tariff to be “relatively modest” compared with the ones on Canadian and Mexican goods, which will have a much greater impact because of the volume of goods imported from those two countries.
Once imported goods are higher priced, domestic producers likely will respond by raising their own prices “in large part because they can,” now that their competitors raised prices, he said. Additionally, both nations are expected to enact tariffs of their own on American products, which could affect local companies that are engaged in export activity.
Goods exported from the Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area totaled $753.5 million in 2023, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data provided by Lake to River Economic Development. That includes $221.7 million from primary metals manufacturing, $172.9 million in electrical equipment and $102.4 million in machinery.
“It’s almost a universal consensus that economists have that it would have a negative impact overall on the economy,” Summel said. “Like with any change, there’s going to be some winners and losers, but the loss to the losers is going to be greater than the gains of the winners, and those losses would be felt by both businesses and consumers.”
Herb Soss, president at Ace Lumber Co., a building supply company in Youngstown, said he is unsure what to expect in 2025. His business shrank from about 15 employees to three after the pandemic.
“It’s anybody’s guess,” he said. Variables include interest rates, worker availability, “who has money and who doesn’t” and shipping costs.
The cost of materials makes judging what to keep in stock a challenge. “You don’t want to bring inventory in that’s going to sit there,” he said. “[Manufacturers] need items that are going to turn, that can bring dollars in.”
Some specialty items such as pine decorative siding and cedar products that were available before 2020 are no longer being produced, Soss said.
“I’ve got people looking for shiplap cedar siding. We’ve been running it here in our shop in small amounts because nobody’s carrying it,” he said. Suppliers aren’t manufacturing the siding because it’s an expensive product.
Another potential concern is the proposed 25% tariff on products from Canada, which Trump announced but paused. Canadian spruce represents the bulk of the supply locally, but if costs increase because of the tariffs, prices likely will increase on Douglas fir and American spruce as western mills adjust their pricing. “They’re not about to leave money on the table,” Soss said.
“In this part of the United States, most of the stuff is Canadian spruce,” he said. “If I knew that the tariff was going to really pose a problem, I should buy $200,000 worth of material, stockpile it and wait until the price goes up.”
Business was “challenging” at the Party On! party supply store in Niles, co-owner Jeff Lyda acknowledged. Lessons learned over the past 26 years can’t be relied on “to navigate what’s coming at you now,” he said.
One positive factor has been a “really large bump” in the store’s online business in the wake of national chain Party City’s bankruptcy filing.
“It’s created a natural demand outside of our area where people are searching for goods that we have in stock,” Lyda said. “Our biggest challenge is trying to get everything onto our website so we can continue to capitalize on that opportunity. It’s going to be a major focus of 2025 for us, web sales.”
In addition to price increases on merchandise, the obstacles Party On! faces in 2025 include the bankruptcy of a major supplier of licensed products for children’s parties, Lyda said.
“They controlled a lot of licenses and a lot of products that we’ve always got from them, and they were really the only choice,” he said.
Birthday party supplies represent “the core part of our business,” Lyda said, and he hasn’t found a good replacement. “It’s left us looking for other suppliers that offer innovations, so that’s made it a challenge.”
Lyda doesn’t anticipate the tariffs on goods from Mexico being an issue. The only items the retailer imports from there are piñatas, and the company might be able to time purchases to avoid the tariffs, depending on when they are implemented.
“I don’t really expect major changes,” he said.
At Berner International, finding personnel remains a problem.
“We’re probably faced with the same challenge that most people are faced with today – hiring and making sure that we can continue to hire the talent that we need to build the organization,” said David Rimbey, president and CEO. “We don’t anticipate supply chain to be a real factor, even with the recent uncertainty with tariffs.”
People often will prioritize other more immediate or tangible needs – food or the electric bill, for example – over purchasing insurance or estate planning, Keystar’s Starkey acknowledged. The problem is that people – regardless of age -– are just an accident away from being unable to give authority over medical decisions or name beneficiaries.
“We’ve worked so hard to build those legacies. It’s very important that we pass them along the way we intend to,” she said.
FortyTwo is “constantly managing and re-managing” its staffing to ensure employees are “earning what they need to earn so they’re able to be out there doing what they need to do,” Ferrello said.
He also acknowledged that business expenses have risen 22% on average since 2021, a situation he expects to continue. To combat that, he expects to create “a more efficient operation” by bringing in new technology to sell in new markets to increase output enough to stay ahead of inflation.
“We’re looking forward to 2026 and 2027, when we’re going to release some of our share to the public and private markets,” he said.
Pictured at top: Ian Proverbs, owner of Proverbs Excavating and Construction in Lordstown.