Two months after COVID-related emergency orders shuttered the clinic that employed them, Melissa Esquibel and three colleagues launched Sandia Sunrise Therapy LLC to provide vital physical and occupational therapy services.

“Starting the business in the middle of a pandemic was definitely challenging,” clinic administrator Melissa Esquibel said. “We all worked very closely together (at the clinic that closed in March 2020). Keeping that connection was very important to us as we started the new business.”

Esquibel’s co-founders Teresa Ziomek and Oksana Tretiak practice occupational therapy, and Dr. Heather Armijo provides physical therapy. While all four women contributed to the business’s formation, Esquibel credits Ziomek with organizing the team and Tretiak with contacting business-development nonprofit WESST to help with the team’s strategic plan and other critical startup groundwork.

Before meeting with WESST, the four had written a business plan. “We drafted our goals, did our analysis on the market and the services we were going to provide,” Esquibel said. This laid the groundwork for their work with WESST, which has been offering its services at no cost during the pandemic.