To curb its local talent drain, one of Maryland’s westernmost counties launched its first-ever business incubator, aiming to keep university spinouts close to home.
Allegany County’s Acceleration Trail began accepting companies last summer, offering six months of free rental space and access to mentorship resources from Western Maryland’s Small Business Development Center. So far, it has three tenants, and they say the biggest perk has been finding new ways to connect with other business leaders.
“This program shows that the state has an interest in this area and does actually want to support businesses here.”
Ardon Hall, founder of Clean Compost
Based in Frostburg, the county’s second-largest city and home to Frostburg State University, the incubator supports early-stage companies emerging from the school, according to Nathan Price, senior project manager at Allegany County Economic and Community Development (ACECD). It also aims to prove out a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem that will draw more businesses to the region.
“We want to keep our students from leaving, and we want others to come here and set up shop,” Price said.
That’s a challenge because Allegany County has struggled to retain younger workers.
Allegany County’s population fell 9.3% between 2010 and 2020, the steepest decline of any Maryland county, according to Census data. Across Western Maryland, more people are retiring compared to the number joining the workforce, a shift that has made it harder for local businesses to find employees.
“We’re trying to create a pipeline of new entrepreneurship to the area,” Price said.
The incubator is funded through the Rural Maryland Economic Development Fund, created in 2022 under former Gov. Larry Hogan. Western Maryland received $10 million through the program and directed $100,000 to ACECD to launch the incubator.
A founder brings his business back to Maryland
No former Frostburg State students have joined the incubator yet, according to Price, but it has attracted a wide range of companies, like cleantech startups and elder care services.
Among the first founders drawn to Acceleration Trail was Cumberland native Ardon Hall, who returned to Allegany County after nearly two decades in the Los Angeles tech scene to build a business that could make an impact at home.
“It’s a place that really stuck with me as I moved on in life,” Hall said. “I wanted to start something in a place I knew needed it.”
Hall’s company, Clean Compost, collects food scraps from farms and businesses in the region and turns them into compost, a service that helps some customers comply with Maryland’s new food residuals recycling requirements. The startup also provides a dashboard showing clients their estimated greenhouse gas reductions and other sustainability metrics.
“This program shows that the state has an interest in this area and does actually want to support businesses here,” Hall said.
The county has also supported other waste services businesses through its programming, like Clym Environmental Services, which is in the final phases of opening a medical waste disposal facility.
Another early tenant, Minh Dung Hoang, started Aquatic Circle in 2021 after buying a fish tank for his children and struggling to find an effective filtration system. His company now develops filtration systems for both consumer tanks and industrial clients, including shrimp farms.
Allegany County has proven to be a strong home base for Hoang’s company because of its cleantech support. In 2024, he received a grant from the county’s first round of the Cleantech Research and Development program.
Most of Hoang’s early customers are in the US, and he says the incubator has made it easier to grow his business in a rural area. Plus, Hoang said, sometimes it helps to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
“There aren’t many new businesses in this type of manufacturing area here,” Hoang said. “So I get a lot of attention and support out in Allegany County.”
