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The following programming is sponsored by Marc J. Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasly Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. At March Forward, Marc and his partners and associates think out of the box to partner with their clients in regards to their visions for their lives, their businesses and their legacies. And through his innovative work with the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that help to fuel their success. Founders’ Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the stories behind their successes, and the lessons they’ve learned. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun! Now, let’s dive in...

A Hard Summer And A Move

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in.

Marc Bernstein 0:52

Good morning, America. How are you? I'm in the studio here with Tim. Good morning, Tim. Good morning. And um, you know, I always want to comment a little bit. This is July of 2026. Who knows when you'll be listening to it? But there's been smoke all around the country, a lot many parts of the country, and it's feels like difficult times. A lot, you know, a lot of political headwinds and all that kind of stuff. So when I say how are you, I mean how are you? I hope you're doing well, and I hope you're keeping your head above water with everything that's going on. What's on my mind is my wife and I yesterday moved our home of 26 years, and it's the longest I think I've lived in a place and then moved. So of course it we accumulated a ton of stuff, way more than we need. It's just it's just I've been thinking about the experience of moving. And it's exhilarating and exciting in some respects, and it's also stressful, and it's uh brings a lot of questions about and things like that. So that was kind of my experience of so I've been an observer of what what a move is about. Tim, you're a guy who's moved a bit in your life. So what what's your experience with moving?

From Lancaster To Milan And Back

Tim Austin, AIA 2:04

Yes, so I I moved away from Lancaster uh to go to school and uh studied um out of state, you know, for for several years and then worked out of state uh on the East Coast, and then uh finally, I guess it in my twenties, I went off to get a master's in Milan, Italy, and lived there for um almost four years. Came back in 2020 when the world was uh just about ready to shut down. Um and I've been back since.

Marc Bernstein 2:33

Aaron Ross Powell So what was that what was that all like for you? What was it like to move to Italy first of all, and then to move back during the world catastrophe?

Tim Austin, AIA 2:41

Well the move there was really exciting. I I was able to do a do a summer language program, sort of tune up my Italian, and uh and then I enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano in a Italian language design program and uh had a blast. It was a f it's a fantastic program, and uh my classmates were really top of their game. So I had a great time, but ultimately decided to come back, both for family reasons and for business reasons, it made sense. Uh so I bought a one-way ticket back in February of 2020, uh not knowing that that was going to coincide with a worldwide pandemic. But I was able to make it back just in the nick of time, about a week and a half before the whole world uh shut down.

Marc Bernstein 3:23

Aaron Ross Powell So that move was actually kind of a relief for you, I would think, in a way.

Tim Austin, AIA 3:28

Well, I was really lucky because uh my my parents uh you know have a farm down in Conestoga, Pennsylvania in the River Hills. And uh we just as a family kind of hunkered down and uh had uh you know, had a actually really a good time, a good summer uh together and um a lot of a lot of quality family time. So I I was uh happy to be back with them and then it gave me uh like many people, it gave us uh time to reset and uh for me to launch my business collab here in the US.

Marc Bernstein 4:04

So Tim Austin, AIA, welcome to the show, is an architect and um founder of Colab XYZ and also co-founder of Lancaster Capital Day, which we're gonna spend some time talking about. It's really an interesting thing. And let me remind our listeners that this is part of a series we're doing. We're doing several special series. Uh, one is the first one I started was about Lancaster PA because it's an hour and a half from where I grew up. I went there as a kid and I thought of it as a nice, quaint town of Amish people and Dutch Wonderland and the host farm. You know, that's what I knew of Lancaster. And it's really today at least very different from that. It's a very, I would call it a progressive city, a lot of culture, a lot of arts going on, a lot of events which we're gonna be talking about, um, and very energetic, you know, is what I've noticed about it. And of course, I kind of got I got introduced uh uh just quickly by my friend Ray Lowe, who's the luckiest guy in the world, who retired to Willow Valley, and also and then immediately after that, Deb Brandt, who is founder of Fig, who we found each other by accident, and she came on the show. And when I saw Fig magazine, I'm like, I gotta go to Lancaster and see what's going on there. And it was and in fact, Tim and I met at the Fig Emerald Anniversary Party, right? So um, and um this year, together with nonprofit and municipal leaders, he's launching the downtown street festival, as I mentioned, called Lancaster Capital Day. So let's start with your story. So you had so you studied as an architect, we've we've talked about that, went to Cornell, they studied in Milan, came back, and um what what happened well first of all, you're you're to me, you're you're an ultimate entrepreneur. You started these festivals that you do from scratch, you started your company from scratch. Um, and I think some of that's in your family to a certain extent. So tell us a bit about your family enough to understand where you might

Family Business And Design Roots

Marc Bernstein 6:05

have gotten some of your entrepreneurial streak from.

Tim Austin, AIA 6:09

Uh well yeah, I um my family's been in in business. Uh my grandfather served in World War II and came back and worked for Armstrong, uh, which was the big company in Lancaster PA. It was sort of the Fortune 500 company, and he went through their training program. It still is after a couple of bankruptcies. Yeah. But uh no, really, really great company and and uh brought a lot of good people to uh Lancaster County, um my grandfather and grandmother you know being two of them. And uh they raised their family. My my father grew up in Lancaster and uh ultimately joined um joined this business that was an offshoot from Armstrong. Um so definitely grew up in a family that that uh talked about business and economics and uh it was always an interest of mine um to to to someday start a business. I think uh architects by by nature are often entrepreneurial because we have uh you know these design studios and we at some point we have to learn how to run them. Um So that's where I've ended up.

Marc Bernstein 7:13

Aaron Ross Powell And when I met you at the FIG um event, you were uh representing the log cabin, which is another family business, right?

Tim Austin, AIA 7:22

Well, yeah, at some point my yes, at some point my family got into the restaurant business as well. My my father uh bought the log cabin restaurant at at auction in uh 2009, and um I'm not sure he knew what he was getting into, but it's become uh quite a uh project for us, um, and it's been a fun way to collaborate with my father in the last few years.

Marc Bernstein 7:46

I hear that it's a very uh popular restaurant. It's in Liditz, by the way, right?

Tim Austin, AIA 7:51

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, just between Lidditz and Efferda, um technically in Leola, and um a real cool historic restaurant that was uh built in the 1920s as a speakeasy and uh serving you know serving alcohol uh in the woods. But uh in nine in 1933, when they repealed Prohibition, it became an official restaurant and it has been uh operational pretty much ever since. There have been three ownership families. Uh the last owner, Charlie DeSantis, was this Italian American guy, really dynamic. He had it for 50 years and and built it into uh sort of the the fine dining restaurant of Lancaster County. And uh it's been our family's goal to to you know to maintain and and restore that tradition um and uh you know keep keep this special place. Lancaster has a lot of heritage tourism, and so we fit right into that. People who are looking for a good meal who also want to learn a little bit about our history can do that at the log cabin.

Marc Bernstein 8:49

I've been told I need to get to eat there one of these days, which is which we will do. So uh so you have that, and then uh from coming back from Italy where you had done some architectural work, you create a Colab XYZ. Let's just talk about that for a minute, and then I know

Building Colab And Rock Lititz

Marc Bernstein 9:05

you you're really anxious to talk about the festival. Yeah, sure. So we'll do that.

Tim Austin, AIA 9:08

Uh yeah, so so I have a architecture design firm uh called Colab. We're based right in downtown Lidditz, and uh it was really important to me to build a team. Um in you know, in in my school, university, uh I had worked with teams. I really enjoyed the collaborative environment, and uh it's really the best way to get something designed uh to to bounce ideas around. So hence the name collab. Yeah, a little you know, collaboration um is is certainly uh an inspiration for us. Also the idea of a laboratory. So you know, laboratory is experimental in nature, and that that's a piece of what we do. So I was able to uh recruit some some really talented designers uh on my team. I have um a small team, but uh uh there are four of us in Lidditz and and actually two Italians who are based in Milan.

Marc Bernstein 10:00

And you do clo you collaborate with the Italians to a certain extent as well. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh yeah.

Tim Austin, AIA 10:04

We work directly with um with our Italian uh coworkers and they bring uh really a a nice perspective to the team. You know, they live and breathe design every day. There's probably no more beautiful country in the world than than Italy, and Milan has become the design capital of the world. So when there are big events like uh Milan Design Week, uh our teammates are in it, they're out there, they're doing events, and they bring that inspiration back to our team. So we we have the luxury of living in this cool small town in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, um, but we feel very plugged in with the design world.

Marc Bernstein 10:44

Aaron Ross Powell What kind of w who do you design for? What kind of buildings?

Tim Austin, AIA 10:48

What kind of Well so I I'm actually the only architect on my team. Uh so I've you know I've continued to do some architectural work at the log cabin and and and local to to Lidditz. Um but the really we've we've moved into branding. Uh like graphics. Largely yeah, we have a strong graphic design. Um we recently collaborated with uh local business in Lidditz uh to do a mural uh on one of the walls in in downtown Lidditz. So yeah, our team has a real design, graphic design competency, and now we have a web designer marketing person. So uh we work at different at different levels, but largely to um make the you know things visible. Uh we you know build a build a brand around uh businesses.

Marc Bernstein 11:42

By the way, Lidditz has a lot going on too, besides rock Lidditz, among other things.

Tim Austin, AIA 11:47

Yes, absolutely. And that could be a good segue to the you know the next part of this conversation. Yep. So Lidditz i is quite a cool little town. Uh and uh originally founded by uh the Moravian community that had uh come to Pennsylvania for you know religious freedom and they set up in Bethlehem, PA, and then their second community was Lidditz. And uh I think from 1756 until the mid-1800s, it it was a closed Moravian town. But it has since opened. It is this sort of vibrant community with um a lot of interesting people. And at some point along the way, uh uh a couple entrepreneurs who actually you might enjoy talking to, uh launched these businesses focused on the performing arts. And the two big ones are Tate, which does staging, and uh Clare Brothers, which does sound.

Marc Bernstein 12:41

Well, I came from the music business. I knew Claire Brothers. So you know the Claire's, yeah.

Tim Austin, AIA 12:44

And uh yeah, and they had uh these businesses, they started you know collaborating with the top artists in the world, traveling the world, and um they have since built this entire campus dedicated to uh live performances. Uh we call it Rock Lidditz, it's actually just um you know maybe a mile up the road from downtown Lidditz. And uh it's something that attracted me to the town. I I saw the creativity happening there. There's this idea of innovation uh hubs, and clearly Lidditz has become one. And uh it it it sort of justified my move back to Lidditz because I wanted to stay creative and I wanted to live in a small town, and that's uh can be hard to do.

Marc Bernstein 13:23

Um by the way, we had Josh Funk on the show, too. Okay. Do you know he does all the catering? Okay. He has the um uh Annie's um the Annie Bailey's. Annie Bailey's the Irish bar, but he does all the catering. Yep. And now in Philadelphia he does the big rock events and stuff like that.

Tim Austin, AIA 13:42

Oh yeah, they they do a great job.

Marc Bernstein 13:43

Yeah, yeah.

Tim Austin, AIA 13:44

Um yeah, there's I mean it it is definitely an inspiration to see you know what they're they they've done, what they continue to do, and um I've I've learned a lot from them and uh you know, looking for opportunities to collaborate.

Marc Bernstein 13:58

Um which leads us to where we have a break coming up, but maybe just in 30 seconds, talk about so what came out of that, the festival that came out of that.

Tim Austin, AIA 14:06

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, sure. So in in 2022, uh I was new in town, but we had uh started doing these potluck dinners with the Italians and sort of Italophiles, it's say, people who were interested in speaking Italian.

Marc Bernstein 14:18

Aaron Ross Powell Which you are, you're an Italian Trevor Burrus.

Tim Austin, AIA 14:20

Something like that. Yeah, I'm not I'm not um sort of ethnically Italian, but I lived there long enough that that uh yeah. So we had while you're in Italian file files. Right.

Marc Bernstein 14:31

You're not you're not an Italian, but you're Italian. Yeah, yeah. So I was looking to speak to the Trevor Burrus, I am too. I married. I used to date them, I married one.

Tim Austin, AIA 14:39

It's a slippery slope. Yeah, it is. So yeah, we had we had been getting together, and in 2022, we we turned that little potluck into a festival. Uh so uh the rest is history.

Marc Bernstein 14:50

Aaron Ross Powell So it's time for to take a commercial break, and we'll be right back, and we're gonna hear more about this on Founders Forum.

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How A Potluck Became Litalia

Marc Bernstein 16:14

We are back on Founders Forum with our guest Tim Austin. Tim, welcome back again. And we're just starting to talk about the Italian L'italia, I understand, is the name of the festival. So it started in 2022. I think it was not expected to be a real big deal at first, right?

Tim Austin, AIA 16:33

No, not at all. So we had been gathering this sort of group of Italians and Italian speakers uh on a monthly basis for basically a potluck dinner. And um it had grown. We had maybe th 30 or 40 people in our network. And so uh in 2022, we we had this idea that we would get together in you know late s summer and have a large picnic which we would invite all of our family and friends to.

Marc Bernstein 17:01

So uh we by the way, you you're doing this along with Justina, right? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Tim Austin, AIA 17:05

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Marc Bernstein 17:06

Aaron Ross Powell So who's been a guest on the show who also is an Italiophile, I believe.

Tim Austin, AIA 17:11

Justina's great. And and uh yeah, she um you know she like me comes comes from the U.S.

Marc Bernstein 17:18

but has been able to collaborate with Italians and she imports Italian wine, by the way, and has a c a business called Vinbar.

Tim Austin, AIA 17:25

Yes, they're yes, they do a great job downtown Lancaster. So so this sort of uh group of people, hodgepodge of of uh of people, uh culturally speaking, we're we're a real mix, but uh interested in in sharing Italian culture and and celebrating Italian culture. So we we booked uh just ha sort of a a portion of Lidditz Springs Park, which is a real beautiful park in the in downtown Lidditz. And um and we thought we would do this picnic, but uh one thing led to another. Uh one of our members posted it online and sort of called it the Italian Festival of Lidditz. Well, that got some um traction, and before we knew it, we had something like two s 2,000 RSVPs on on Facebook. So we sort of scrambled, and in just a couple weeks uh we we we planned what became the first annual Litalia festival. Uh but we were talking um earlier about uh the real strong um business community in Lidditz that's focused on the performing arts, and we we really benefited from that. Um we were able to sit down with some of the other leaders in the community from the from the park and also from venture Lidditz, and they basically laid out their template for running a great event. And they worked with a lot of vendors from Rock Lidditz. And uh so in just in just uh a couple weeks we were able to bring in um you know staging and and and and quality sound.

Marc Bernstein 18:53

Trevor Burrus It's really amazing because Liditz is a small town-ish.

Tim Austin, AIA 18:57

Oh, it definitely is a small town of Central Pennsylvania. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, we've got 5,000 residents. So we're not you know we're not huge.

Marc Bernstein 19:04

But you had all these resources to be right around you to do that.

Tim Austin, AIA 19:09

Absolutely. And and it really, I mean, it's everything. It's not just sound, it's it's it's your trash and porta potties. So you know, we we just followed that template, and um it helped to have a stunningly beautiful park with stunningly beautiful weather. Right. But a lot of people showed up. We had about 3,000 people at our at our picnic. And um and that's when we realized we we had more than a picnic on our hands, we had a real festival. And uh the vendors we had invited some vendors uh to that first year, and all of them had a fantastic day, they made a lot of money, and they came to us and they said, well, what you know, what's the date next year? What when can we come back? And uh so we got real serious about it. We uh we were able to book the entire park. We really expanded the footprint, we extended to two stages, um, and added a lot of other programmatic elements, including an uh a plain air art competition, um, an expanded kid zone, a car show. So really since 2023 onward, we've been running this this festival. We're going into our fifth year and we're expecting upwards of twenty thousand people. Aaron Ross Powell It's one day or is it the weekend? It's actually just one day, yes. Uh Saturday, September 19th, uh this year, 2026. And uh it's gonna be it's it's we we'll we're in Lidditz again, um, but we are moving location uh from the Liddest Springs Park up to East Main Street. So downtown? We're right downtown. So um it's a real opportunity to be blocked off and it'll be in the street. Yep, so we're blocking uh a portion of East Main Street, and uh we've been able to rent uh some green space at Linden Hall, uh the Lidditz Moravian Church and Lidditz Historical Foundation. So uh we're kind of piecing together um a really nice uh festival.

Marc Bernstein 21:01

How many people do you would you expect this year?

Tim Austin, AIA 21:03

I think it could easily top 20,000. Uh it's very weather-dependent, you learn as you plan free outdoors.

Marc Bernstein 21:09

Obviously, people are coming from all over to come to this year.

Tim Austin, AIA 21:11

Yes, they are. They are. They're coming down um from you know upstate, they're coming in from New Jersey and Delaware and New York. Um we have performers now uh who are well known uh, you know, in the States and also um coming from Italy, and that has been able to attract a wider audience. Aaron Ross Powell Amazing.

Launching Lancaster Capital Day

Marc Bernstein 21:31

That's really incredible. So that so let's talk about Lancaster Capitol Day, because that's evolved out of this.

Tim Austin, AIA 21:38

Yeah. So it seems like every year we add something. Uh and uh you know, we added an Italian gala, fundraising gala, we added a concert, we had you know, there are all these elements. Uh our team, it's a young team, uh it's very innovative. And um anyway, coming out uh out of the success of last year, uh we were talking about some opportunities. And one of them was to actually put this knowledge we have to use and uh actually launch another festival. So we linked up with um a lot of local leaders in in Lancaster City, uh including Deb Brandt from from FIG. She was able to bring together a really nice team, uh including the City of Lancaster. She's very connected there, yeah for sure. It helps uh it helps to piggyback off that network. So uh we got talking uh December of last year about the the possibility. Obviously there's a lot of excitement around America 250, and we thought it might make sense to uh to explore those th those themes on our own turf and to look at Lancaster's own history and our role uh in in the Revolutionary War and and sort of all the things about Lancaster's.

Marc Bernstein 22:49

It was a pretty significant role.

Tim Austin, AIA 22:51

Yeah, I mean at the time, so I'm not sure. It was almost the first capital of the country, actually. It could have been. Yeah. So at the time of the you know, uh independence movement, Lancaster was actually the largest inland city in the colonies. So um we we were designated a royal market town, and we still have Central Market. So that legacy has really carried forward. Um but we were an obvious choice when you know the Congress was uh r chased out of town by the Brits, they uh they chose Lancaster as their first stop. Now it wasn't particularly safe. Um out of Philly, you're saying. Yes, they you know, they they had to escape Philadelphia. So they um they met in Lancaster for one day. It was September twenty-seventh, seventeen seventy-seven, and they convened a session of Congress in the first courthouse, which was right on the s square in Lancaster City. Now it was a short-lived uh experiment. Uh they during that session of Congress they voted to continue moving west across the Susquehanna River, and then they set up shop for several months in York, uh, which is our sister city. Um so it's sort of a funny little historical anecdote, but it's something we're quite proud of.

Marc Bernstein 24:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Austin, AIA 24:19

I mean the de facto capital. Right. Um, but it played an important role. And at the time, you know, in you see in in early writings, even George Washington, who wrote a letter to Congress that that was read that day by um John Hancock, he he actually asked the people of Lancaster for for blankets and shoes for the war effort. You know, so even then we were recognized as a as a community that made things uh and uh we were recognized as a really welcoming community as well. Um when you talk to the City of Lancaster about their priorities or their marketing points, they uh they actually use some of the same language. You know, we're still industrious, we're still welcoming. I've heard a lot of them in the U.S. It's nice to see that there's that through line uh in in all these years.

Marc Bernstein 25:05

Aaron Ross Powell When when is Lancaster Capital Day?

Tim Austin, AIA 25:07

Aaron Ross Powell So this year we uh we are planning the festival for Saturday, September 26th. The week after your other festival, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's a doubleheader. Um there's some economies of scale in that.

Marc Bernstein 25:21

Maybe I should plan a trip and just stay for the week.

Tim Austin, AIA 25:24

Oh, absolutely, yes. Um we have actually some some of our Italian friends coming to town and then staying to help out with the second festival as well. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Marc Bernstein 25:30

Well, I say I'm Italian by reverse injection. So speaks anyway. Yeah, so it should be a good time.

Tim Austin, AIA 25:38

Um I think both festivals will be will be a lot of fun. You know, so what what we you know what we developed for the Italia Fest, uh, you know, a community festival that celebrated Italian culture, we're we're largely doing the same thing with Lancaster Capital Day, but our focus is on local Lancaster culture.

Marc Bernstein 25:55

Trevor Burrus Well, if you're listening to the show, look for that because it's uh pretty exciting things. It's uh so many great things happening around America 250, and this is one of them. Um we don't have much time left.

Best Idea, Books, And Farewell

Marc Bernstein 26:06

I have a couple closing questions for you. One is what is one of the best ideas you've ever had?

Tim Austin, AIA 26:13

Oh gosh. Uh I should have prepared for this. We may just have talked about a couple. Yeah. Uh I I don't know. I um I I think maybe by accident the the choice to come back to Lancaster has turned out to be a really uh important one in my life. Um it's led to all sorts of cool things. Um reconnecting with my family and and uh connecting with a community that that likes to build things.

Marc Bernstein 26:40

Accidental ideas are good too. They count. Uh what what book are you currently reading, Tim?

Tim Austin, AIA 26:47

Oh gosh. Um you're a reader. I yeah, I mean, I have a couple books. I I tend to read multiple books simultaneously. Um Yeah. So I I think the one I I'm most excited about is is Flatland. The the sort of funny geometric uh meditation on space. Uh anyway, it's it's it's quite funny. Um and uh Yeah, so it's sort of that say in the tradition of absurdist literature, like Alice in Wonderland.

Marc Bernstein 27:22

Okay. And uh an old book?

Tim Austin, AIA 27:25

Older book, yeah, during written during the Victorian era and sort of a uh commentary on the Well, check out Flatland because we're out of time.

Marc Bernstein 27:34

Tim, thanks so much for being here. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next week on Founders Forum.

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