Inspired by the "gravy" made by his Italian great-grandmother Neal McTighe decided he had enough and decided to start "Nello's pasta sauce" Earning his PhD. from the University North Carolina Chapel Hill, entrepreneurship was not always the plan for McTighe, after graduating college, McTighe searched for an academic job, eventually settling in an academic publishing job at Duke University.

Now known as "Nellinos", McTighe's signature pasta sauce is sold in over 1,200 stores across the country. McTighe said he never felt Italian growing up, despite the ancestry on his mother's side. What little memories of Italian traditions he had usually relegated to his great-grandmothers Philadelphia kitchen.