Roselle-based Collars Inc. launching app connecting tradespeople with employers
Based on their own difficulties finding tradespeople for their Roselle-based flooring company, husband-and-wife business partners Rocco and Cheri Molfese are rolling out a new firm and app next week connecting blue-collar workers with employers.
Though the initial emphasis will be on the regional expansion of Collars Inc., they intend to expand to 14 Midwestern states during 2026 and become nationwide in 2027.
Existing employment resources like LinkedIn and Indeed haven’t focused on the same market they are, the couple said.
“We couldn’t find the right talent because the right talent wasn’t on those platforms,” Collars co-founder and Chief Heart Officer Cheri Molfese said.
As such, the biggest inspiration they took from those other sites is their belief that the key to Collars’ success will be becoming universally known as the type of resource it aims to be.
The Collars app always will be free for job applicants and initially free for employers before it eventually becomes a subscription-based service for employers. In the meantime, the company’s revenue will come from advertisers, sponsorships and investors, Digital Marketing Specialist Nathan Carlberg said.
Not only has Collars leadership appeared at Chicago Build 2025 at McCormick Place and at an apprenticeship expo at Elgin Community College in recent weeks, but also planted seeds for the company’s later expansion by speaking at events in Boston, Miami and Silicon Valley.
“We’re trying to build a community,” co-founder and CEO Rocco Molfese added.
Rather than the traditional resumes associated more with other industries, Collars will use visual profiles made up of photos and videos. The app will use AI-powered matching to modernize the way tradespeople find work and employers find job candidates.
“We hire the same way the trades hire,” Cheri Molfese said. “Show me what you can do.”
As with any good idea in business, the Molfeses have strong opinions about why their entrepreneurial effort has never been pursued before.
“Because it’s been easy historically to forget about the people who build the world in which we live,” Cheri Molfese said. “One of the hardest things to witness in the trades is the mistreatment of tradespeople. We need to be able to elevate the tradespeople so they have visibility.”
Even with a growing awareness in high schools of the trades as a legitimate career path, trade schools largely have not acquired the know-how of how to move students from their training to jobs. Rocco wants Collars to close that cultural gap as well.
The couple already have begun to see evidence of success close to home.
They were sweethearts at Lake Park High School in Roselle, which recently decided to change the name of its College & Career Center to the Career & College Center. The Molfeses see that as a significant shift despite its subtlety.
Rocco Molfese is a fourth-generation tradesperson who broke off from his father’s company to form his own — Crown Coverings — during the 2011 recession when many such firms couldn’t support employees. He also earned a marketing degree when he attended Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton with Cheri.