Meet Dominique Scarimbolo

We were lucky to catch up with Dominique Scarimbolo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dominique, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Our resilience I believe really comes from an overwhelming sense of confidence and determination in what we are trying to do. We not only have very strong morals and ethics that we follow, but overall just a strong sense of self and standing up for what we believe is right. And the reason we fight on everything we do, is because we refuse to be silent, because silence is a form of acceptance. And if you don’t challenge and fight back when things are wrong, you are choosing to accept it. Our mom has always been super independent, and always told us that we can accomplish what ever we put our mind to, and being as independent as what she was and just being a very strong female figure when we were growing up, it additionally instilled a sense of resilience in us that we have continued to develop and grow as we’ve lived our lives. We’ve been through more than our fair share of struggles, but those struggles have continued to make us stronger, and we ultimately refuse to give up on anything that we feel strongly about. Sometimes resilience might be seen as stubbornness, and not that there isn’t a little bit of that with it, but it is so much more than that. We fight for what we believe in.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

We are focused on our Brewery. But we are so much more than just that. We are horticulturists, farmers, bakers, chefs, carpenters, welders, and anything else we want to be. Our business ties heavily to the community, which is what we have fully intended to build it for. We want to help gather, educate and make environmental improvements, not just at our business, but help others make improvements to their lives, and to their surroundings, to help make us better stewards of the planet in so many facets, and to encourage us to be better people. None of us are perfect, but we can always strive to be better than what we were before. And we should always push forward to be better in any way we can. We are a rural and agricultural operation. We have started to grow a lot of our own products that we use personally and for the business. We participate in our own animal husbandry. We have huge plans of large greenhouse development to grow certain crops year round to help create access to locally grown products, instead of supporting massive commercial agriculture that has ultimately led to a growth of produce that has little to no nutritional value, due to absolutely no nutrients in the soil plants are grown in. We need to be healthier, we need to be better, and that is what we strive for every day. We also want to be better than any other business in how we treat our own people. Success of a business is something that should be shared. There is no reason to have such huge profits of a business, and not share that with those who have helped make you successful. Yes every business needs and wants to be financially successful , but that is not a core value. Financial success is a byproduct of running a business that stands on strong moral and ethical standards, and that is something we value, and take to heart. Success is to be shared with your people and then also giving back to the community as they are also a huge part of your success.
We have high goals. We are striving to have our business 100% self sustaining, and off grid, having no outside power source, no need of outside trash, and being a zero waste facility. We also want to develop a specific glass recycling and reuse program to encourage getting back to using products that are not toxic to our health. Plastics have been overused to the detriment of just about everything. Plastic is inferior in manufacturing and in food processing and handling. Glass is clean, and can far easier be repurposed and reused.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Self-motivating, challenging, and critical thinking capabilities are three huge qualities and areas that impacted our journey beyond what we initially even realized. It is not easy being self-motivated, but is something that we have developed in our desire to always move forward. Ultimately we can only control ourselves, so you can not rely on someone else to motivate for you. You have to accept responsibility of yourself and do everything in your own power to move yourself forward. Accepting challenges is a big thing, and also something that actually excites us. We love being challenged, and take every challenge as a chance to rise to the occasion. Challenges bring about innovation, and encourage critical thinking and very out of the box thinking as well. Lastly critical thinking is a huge skill that attributes to our success. Our ability to think outside the box and think very methodically and critically in everything we do allows us to then do anything we set our minds to. If we don’t know how to do something, we read about it, we watch, we learn until we can understand and then practically apply what we’ve learned, and we constantly strive to learn new things. Knowledge is empowering. The advice I would give to people no matter what point they are in with their journeys, is never give up. That doesn’t mean you can’t change or shift your goals, but always keep moving forward. Determine your “purpose” and then strive to fulfill your purpose, set goals. And set BIG goals, dream big, because if your dreams don’t also scare you, then you aren’t dreaming big enough.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Our biggest obstacles have mostly been due to some sort of government interference. Whether it be over taxation, over regulation, unlawful closures due to abuse of authority in local government. We have faced so many obstacles in this specific area, and ultimately what we have found, is that our government does not, nor do they want to support our business or any business at all in the rural areas. Small businesses like ours face constant struggles. We have been targeted specifically due to having been so outspoken against our local government in the zoning problems they’ve created and that they’ve tried to shut us down since the end of 2017, part of which has been due to a change in the zoning code that ultimately should of never applied to us in the first place, as we should of been vested since our licensing in 2014. But trying to enforce changes on businesses that are already vested is unlawful, but when you do not comply, and when government authority is challenged, a huge target is put on your back, and retaliation has been an issue when you choose to stand up for what is right. We are currently mid petition to superior court, challenging King County’s authority in the interpretation of their own codes, which are heavily unconstitutional, because they are written to be intentionally vague, which is ultimately what makes them unlawful. And there are multiple constituional principles that support this, as well as the overturning of the chevron deference case at the U.S. Supreme court level, and this is where our struggles have taken us thus far. Given what we are challenging, we are able and willing to take our issues all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court level. And we have been doing everything Pro Se, which has made it difficult in balancing the time to do everything, but is ultimately what we have been forced to do in order to attempt to make much needed changes to the way local legislation and even state level legislation is enforced.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fourhorsemen.beer
• Instagram: @fourhorsemen.beer
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/fourhorsemenbrewery
• Youtube: @FourHorsemenBrewery
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/four-horsemen-brewery-kent?osq=brewery