Chamber announces annual Small Business Award finalists

The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce announced finalists for its annual W. Curtis Strube Small Business Award.

Industries for the five finalists range from insurance and real estate to technology, management consulting and food service, according to a news release. The companies are scheduled to be honored at an awards luncheon on May 6 at the Oasis Hotel & Convention Center, where the winner will be revealed.

The finalists are:
• At Home Real Estate Services of Southwest Missouri LLC, a residential property management and leasing firm founded in 2007 by Michelle Gipson and Trent Jackson
• Insurors of the Ozarks, an insurance firm started in 1982 by Bill D. Young and Greg L. Young, for which a third-generation owner, Bryant Young, is set to take over the business on April 1
• PCnet LLC, a 1987-founded information technology company that is led by President Marty Roach
• People Centric Consulting Group LLC, a business management consulting firm founded in 2012 by CEO Don Harkey
• Sensitively Sweet LLC and The Safe Spoon, a bakery started in 2022 by Katrina Hagan, Sensitively Sweet is joined by The Safe Spoon, a cafe she and her husband, Alec, opened earlier this year

Company representatives are scheduled to participate in an April 2 panel discussion at the chamber's Good Morning, Springfield! event. The May 6 Small Business Award event will include a keynote address from Casey Woods, Missouri State University’s new head football coach.

The 2025 Small Business Award winner was publishing company Four One Seven.

Honorees are selected based on written applications reviewed by an independent panel of judges comprising previous recipients, local business experts and volunteers of the chamber’s Small Business Council.

The Small Business Award is named in recognition of the late Curtis Strube, who founded the chamber council and is a former director at Drury University’s Breech School of Business Administration.