May 24, 2015 6 min read

Valley National Security Services LLC was among employers who received the Governor’s Job Creation Award May 6 during the 31st annual Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association Employment, Training & Education Conference in Hershey.

The awards are jointly sponsored by state workforce development agencies – the departments of Aging, Labor & Industry, Human Services, and Education – and the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association to recognize exceptional employers and training providers who promote outstanding hiring and workforce development practices.

Valley National, based in Washington, was founded by Mark Giovanelli, former adult education coordinator for Mon Valley Career & Technology Center. As a result of helping to develop and implement one of the first Natural Gas Technician programs for secondary students in Pennsylvania, Giovanelli became interested in developing a business venture of his own.

Valley National, a fully licensed, insured and bonded company, provides security and accountability services to the gas and oil drilling communities.

Starting with 10 employees in 2010, the company has grown its workforce to 160, and has moved from a home operation to renting office space to buying and refurbishing a building in Washington to meet the growing needs of the business. The company has operations in Washington, Greene, Fayette, Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Armstrong counties.

The company also partners with three PA CareerLinks offices in Southwestern Pennsylvania and in the past year, has posted 12 job orders for 70 open positions and has hired 19 new employees.

Washington Importing Co., Chris Yanni said, is the epitome of the American Dream.

“My grandfather came from Italy when he was 13, with a fifth-grade education who had to learn to speak English,” she said. “He opened an Italian store on Jefferson Avenue in June 1935 and worked really hard to keep it going.”

Eighty years and three generations later, it is still going. Along the way, Washington Importing transformed into a food service distributor that relocated within the city of Washington, to Locust Avenue. It supplies restaurants and pizza shops throughout Washington County.

Chris Yanni and her brother, Anthony, now own the business, which has two others on the payroll. One is Anthony’s son, Anthony, a Trinity student who is 15 going on 16. He handles marketing fliers and other technical matters, and is the fourth generation carrying on the tradition. For now.

“I don’t know about my nephew’s plans,” Chris said.

Her father, also Anthony, joined Washington Importing in 1948. He worked alongside his dad until, Chris said, the Washington County Redevelopment Authority “took our store” in 1966, near where Shop ‘n Save now stands. She said her dad reopened at the current location that year and ran the distributorship and Italian store until the mid-1990s, when he shut the latter. He died last year.

Chris is proud of the family business and appreciative of its clients.

“We try to provide good products at a fair price,” she said. “We’re very grateful to the people of Washington County for the support they’ve given . . . and we’ve benefited them. Local people have to help other local people.”

For more information, visit sites.google.com/site/washimporting/home.

Shawn Janovich’s ambitions are modest and ambitious at the same time.

“We want to be a local place that features good times and good food,” he said of Bacon, Bourbon and A Beer, a restaurant/bar he hopes to launch around Halloween at Park Place at the Meadow Lands.

The foundation is being poured for the building that BBB will share with other tenants in the sprawling retail project off Route 19, near the intersection with Racetrack Road. It will be in, what is for now, the back end of Park Place, which is primarily in North Strabane Township. Only a small sliver – near the entrance – is in South Strabane.

This is, essentially, a homecoming for Janovich, a Washington High School graduate who is tackling his third business endeavor. He owned and operated a courier service for nine years in Washington, D.C., before returning to the Pittsburgh area to run a bar on that city’s South Side for four-plus years.

Janovich, of Robinson Township, Allegheny County, is adamantly opposed to having a chain-like facility, saying he wants Bacon, Bourbon and A Beer to be a distinctive local spot.

An informational session is scheduled Wednesday for mineral and royalty owners.

The Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners will host the event beginning at 6 p.m. at the North Franklin Township Volunteer Fire Company hall, 565 Sylvan Drive. Speakers will discuss particulars related to leasing and drilling.

NARO members will be admitted free. The cost for non-members is $18 through advance registration, $20 at the door.

To pre-register, visit naro-us.org/events or call 1-800-558-0557.

Anderson Chiropractic in Peters Township is offering a new treatment technique.

Scott Anderson’s practice, at 3821 Washington Road, has introduced nasal cranial release therapy, used to treat concussions and other head trauma. It is a release technique that, according to a news release from the practice, “is designed to relieve forces that can adversely affect the skull and trigger health problems including vertigo, low energy, insomnia, difficulties concentrating and anxiety.”

Anderson, according to the practice, is among the few chiropractors in the state providing this technique. For more information, visit andersonchiropractic.us.

Allstate Insurance Co. is looking to add a number of good hands. The firm announced in a news release last week it plans to expand in Pennsylvania, adding more than 260 insurance agents and personal financial representatives.

The company said it is taregting “cities and areas that are growing” and is seeking agency owners “who are mid-career, mid-level managers who want to own and operate their own business.”

For more information, visit allstate.com or call 1-877-470-8150, option 1.

• Lendmark Financial Services LLC opened a Waynesburg branch April 28. The address is 55 Sugar Run Road, Suite 109, in Widewater Commons Shopping Center. It is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Lendmark deals in personal, car and debt-consolidation loans, and merchant retail sales financing services.

• Amy J. Braun-Bostich, of the Peters Township office of Ameriprise Financial, will be honored after qualifying for the company’s 2014 Circle of Success annual recognition program for top advisers. She is a financial/private wealth adviser in the Braun-Bostich & Associates office at 6000 Waterdam Plaza Drive, Suite 160.