Rachel McIntyre of Open Doors Preschools Named SBDC Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year 2026
Exciting News from Open Doors Preschools of Southwest Florida!
Southwest Florida’s leading early childhood education CEO honored for 21 years of building the standard in licensed, accredited, community-centered early learning
Rachel McIntyre, founder and CEO of Open Doors Preschools / Early Learning Group, has been named the 2026 Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year by the Florida Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Florida Gulf Coast University, the highest entrepreneurship honor awarded by the SBDC network in Southwest Florida.
McIntyre was recognized at the SBDC at FGCU awards ceremony on May 6, 2026, in front of the region’s business and civic leadership community. She was selected from a pool of 100 nominees across Southwest Florida. She is a mother of five children and a third-generation early childhood education professional who has spent her entire career building something she believes the industry has long needed: a proof point that quality, accreditation, and professional wages are not aspirations. They are standards.
“Winning this award matters to me because of what it means for my employees and for this industry. We have built our pay scale on actual data. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, regional economic trends, real numbers. We approach compensation intentionally, and it feels meaningful to be able to tie what’s happening in our economy directly to what our staff take home. Early childhood educators deserve that kind of intentionality. Most of them have never experienced it.”
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