Joseph Cincotta and Julie Lineberger are not suddenly geniuses

2023-10-30

Dear friend,

Joseph Cincotta and Julie Lineberger are not suddenly geniuses. They have been all along.

Those were my thoughts as I walked back to my car last week at the former G.S. Precision facility west of Wilmington on Route 9, near Chimney Hill.

Julie and Joseph have been a socially conscious, environmentally committed business owners from when they started LineSync Architecture in Whitingham in 1988, before moving to Wilmington in 1991.

Julie Lineberger and Joseph Cincotta -- Wilmington residents and owners of LineSync Architecture and housing manufacturer WheelPad.

I met them in the 2000s when all of us were working in the "green building" world. I got to know Julie through her work as Board president at Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. I was impressed then with the stars in their eyes, and I'm so impressed that they continue to have stars in their eyes as they talk about the business they are currently growing, WheelPad.

In their words:

WheelPad L3C is dedicated to those who need mobility solutions and seek independence at home.

WheelPad is a company centered around those who desire choices when faced with injury, disability, or chronic health complications. We believe you should have the choice to remain at home to heal and live. We are proud to offer tiny home style accommodations with true universal accessibility, ready to adapt to your home and property, and to any lifestyle change.

WheelPad offers our Personal Accessible Dwellings (PADs) for living, and healing, at home.

Compared to accessible home renovations, our platform can be deployed in weeks, rather than months, offering a perfect solution to caring for a loved one at home, moving grandparents closer, or simply enjoying independence and comfort on your property. Time is rarely a luxury when a life-changing event is presented, so we designed WheelPAD home attachments to deliver accessibility and comfort, fast.

When a veteran, someone with a spinal cord injury, a cancer patient or any aging person needs to make an existing home accessible, their SuitePAD model arrives. It is built on a trailer and can be positioned as needed to attach to an existing home.

WheelPad is not a standalone "tiny home," although a forthcoming model, StudioPAD, will be a complete studio apartment. WheelPad augments an existing home with an accessible bedroom and bath. The prefab unit relies on electric and water service from the existing home.

True to the beautiful architecture that Joseph is known for, the SuitePADs I toured last week feature smart design with a human touch. The structure of the home is structural insulated panels (SIPs), installed by Foard panel. Over that goes a layer of plaster, making the walls durable and aesthetic.

I love plaster, not only because it is durable, aesthetic, and uses local labor. I love the subtle touch that the plasterer leaves behind, demonstrating that home was made with love in Wilmington, Vermont.

Joseph Cincotta showing us a WheelPad under construction in Wilmington.

Being in a wheelchair can scuff up your walls, Joseph notes. A thin layer of plywood lines the room, but with curves on the sheets that turn the room into a landscape. "I didn't want any institutional lines," Joseph told me, pointing at the spot, a third of the way up the wall, where that would normally be.

Pointing up, he showed me the barn-door track that, equipped with a lift sleeve, gives the mobility-challenged individual a supported track directly into the curbless shower at the other end of the unit. It not only gives mobility, but Joseph said they have heard over and over how this detail saves the backs of caregivers.

Joseph chose the "butterfly wing" design for the natural-wood ceiling, he told me, because it "breaks out of the box."

The barn-door slider is a fraction of the cost of institutional equipment. Details like these were also chosen to provide a highly functional and space at the most affordable price possible.

At a time when the cost of housing is going up and quality is in danger of going down, the WheelPad includes smart choices of materials, finishes, and design that strike a smart balance.

More info: https://www.wheelpad.com/​

***
This is my first newsletter as an elected official in which I've commented in detail about a private business venture, so I feel moved to include a couple of disclaimers.

I've known Julie and Joseph for a long time. I like their product, I like the fact that they are offering good manufacturing jobs in Wilmington. I want them to succeed.

I am not endorsing WheelPad nor LineSync, and I have no financial interest in either. Julie sent me a campaign donation (<$100) last year. Because she is gracious and kind, she allowed KJ to snap the photo that still appears on my newsletter signup page. Thank you, Julie and Joseph!

I appreciate all that, and it has no bearing on today's newsletter.

***
Today's newsletter is about all of the geniuses who are building businesses in Windham County and what they need to succeed.

A long time ago I read a book called Afterwards, You're a Genius.

If I remember nothing else about the content of this book, I remember the title, which is hilarious.

The book title is based on this quote: "You're wacky before you succeed. Afterwards, you're a genius."

This occurs in business all the time -- we anoint people like Steve Jobs "genius" status years or decades after their business has become successful.

This kind of hero worship is a problem. Steve Jobs is dead, of course -- and may he rest in peace. Our society over-invests in existing companies whose best days are behind them, while failing to invest in the business owners who will be anointed with tomorrow's awards when they need us most -- today.

Julie and Joseph, the team behind LineSync Architecture, hasn't exactly been toiling in obscurity. Their work has won many awards and happy customers over the years.

Given that track record, we would do well to pay attention to what they are doing and go out of our way to support it.

According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, only 7% of Americans who need an accessible home, have one. Ouch. WheelPad has a solid business model and customers to meet this need.

To grow, a business like WheelPad needs skilled labor and it needs manufacturing space. Julie and Joseph are taking the bull by the horns with their plan to purchase the facility they are using and transform it into a campus for modular home construction, with space to train carpenters.

Rendering of future WheelPad facility on Route 9.

They're doing it in a way that demonstrates care for their employees. Here's a look inside their manufacturing facility, which they are outfitting with radiant-floor heating and locally sourced hemlock flooring.

Concrete flooring is cheap to build but hard on the healthcare budgets of workers. "Concrete flooring in manufacturing facilities is very hard on the legs and bodies of the people doing the work," Julie told me. Typical of Julie and Joseph, they went a step further than convention and came up with a solution -- hemlock.

Hemlock flooring goes in over the radiant heating system in the WheelPad manufacturing facility.

The geniuses behind WheelPad have a lot in common with Tina Thurber, RN, the genius behind Care in Vermont, Inc. Tina and her excellent staff are not only providing home healthcare in the Deerfield Valley at a time when other agencies are leaving us behind, but she has also built a training facility into the company's downtown Wilmington office.

I've spoken with dozens of Windham County business owners over the last few months about what they need to grow and meet the many demands of today's markets, and they have a lot in common.

Founders like Julie, Joseph, and Tina can't succeed on their own (no one can!). While these business owners might have the wherewithal to grow a business while building out their capacity, it takes a lot more than a lone genius to have a healthy business environment.

I would like to see Vermonters and all of us in Windham County put our heads together and see if we can do more to support critical businesses like these. Too often, governmental roadblocks reward established players. How can we bring down barriers to support these businesses today? Who are the teenage and 20-something entrepreneurs of Deerfield Valley's tomorrow?

Let's find and support tomorrow's "geniuses" -- today.

Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from you.

P.S. Happy 67th, Joseph! In your honor:

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

-e.e. cummings

Pokeweed - Quill Nook Farm