Welcome back to Business Inspires! We asked George Cleary and George Cleary II to join us, to talk about The Cleary Company celebrating 30 years of ingenuity.

They've transformed home renovations, emphasizing relationships and sustainable growth. These industry pioneers have shifted from general contracting to an all-encompassing design-build model, revolutionizing client experiences.

Embracing Workplace Challenges: "I like to enjoy what I do. And when I don't enjoy what I do, I won't be at The Cleary Company. But, you know, it's it's, it's always been, something that's it changes every day. You know, there's a different set of opportunities, a different set of situations that we've gotta figure out a way to work through and problem solve. So, you know, it definitely keeps you on your toes." — George Cleary

With a culture that's won national accolades, the Clearys align deeply with community values, sponsoring events and championing vital causes like Pelotonia.

Growing with Purpose: "Yes. I think dad's always strove strive to tell, you know, everyone that works in the Company, we wanna grow, but we wanna grow for a reason. And the reason we wanna grow is to give back to our community and impact more lives."— George Cleary II

They're not just building homes; they're nurturing a legacy of innovation, community spirit, and relentless commitment to excellence.

Top Takeaways

**Embracing Growth and Innovation**: - The Cleary Company's shift from general contracting to offering design and architectural services illustrates the value of evolving business models to better serve customers.

**Intergenerational Wisdom**: - The partnership between George Cleary and George Cleary II highlights the synergy that can be achieved when experience and fresh perspectives combine within a family-run business.

**Cultural Pillars of Success**: - The company’s strong culture, commitment to problem-solving, and collaborative spirit are foundational to its national recognition and internal cohesion.

**Employee Development and Satisfaction**: - The Cleary Company’s emphasis on training and supporting staff in pursuing new opportunities contributes to a positive work environment and employee loyalty.

**Community Engagement and Responsibility** - The company's longstanding support for the TriVillage Chamber and participation in philanthropic endeavors reflects the importance of business roles as corporate citizens.

**Technology as a Lever for Industry Progress**: - George Cleary’s enthusiasm for technological advancements demonstrates the necessity of staying current with industry trends to remain competitive and improve problem-solving techniques.

**Vision for the Future**: - Looking ahead, The Cleary Company plans to focus on growth that emphasizes community impact and the well-being of both clients and employees while staying true to its core values and culture.

Memorable Moments

00:00 Found joy in renovating homes, pursued construction career.

04:57 Growing up in a business-oriented home.

09:27 Inspiring clients through personalized home design process.

10:23 Design process empowers client satisfaction and budget.

16:10 Value relationships, not just making money.

25:57 Supporting community through volunteer work and donations.

32:20 Unsure of future, but stays innovative.

To run a successful business, you need resources, valuable connections, and community recognition. Business Inspires will provide you with the tools, resources, and examples to inspire you to create the business you envision.

With more than 60 years as an integral part of the Grandview, Upper Arlington, and Marble Cliff communities, the Tri-Village Chamber Partnership is dedicated to a singular purpose - the success of the business community.

Thank you for downloading, listening, and following Business Inspires, a Tri-Village Chamber Partnership podcast.

This season is presented by: 

• City of Upper Arlington.

To schedule a guest appearance, or find out more about sponsoring Business Inspires, send an email to:

Katie Ellis, President/CEO, Tri-Village Chamber Partnership

katie@chamberpartnership.org

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Copyright 2025 Tri-Village Chamber Partnership

Welcome to Business Inspires where our goal is to inspire you to create the business you envision. I'm Brett Johnson, Tri Village Chamber Partnership board member and the owner of Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Thank you for following and subscribing to the podcast. With me is Katie Ellis, president and CEO of the Tri Village Chamber Partnership and cohost of the podcast. It's great to be here with you, Katie.

So happy to be here with you. And today, we have the pleasure of interviewing the 2 g's, g 1, g 2, known as George Cleary and George Cleary the second of the Cleary Company, and they are celebrating their 30 years in business. So I'll just throw out the first question to whichever, sounds best. Feel free to go first, whoever. Can you share the story of how the Cleary Company was founded and what inspired its inception 30 years ago?

Sure. I'll start it because George wasn't born then. So this will be easier easier for me easier for me. But yeah. So I I was in the industry for 10 years, and I always like to say I was I was very fortunate as a child. I went to a school, and I met some great people. And a good friend of mine's, father was flipping houses, and this was a long time ago, like 45 years ago. So not many people knew what, that probably wasn't even a term at that time.

But, he would buy these little homes out by the city of Columbus Airport and renovate them and, you know, buy them at, foreclosure sales. And we'd go in and, redo them entirely. His his son, which was my best friend, and me would go in and work evenings and weekends during the school year. And in the summer, we'd work for him just doing everything from painting to electric to, you know, countertops, cabinets. We did it all with his guidance. And, of course, we weren't experts, but, we became pretty good at it. So that's how it started, you know, my my desire. I really enjoyed that, you know, to see the transformation, for lack of a better term, of, you know, how we could see a a product and turn it into something that was totally different that people would very much be excited about living in.

So I really felt that joy, that, you know, new homeowners were getting to experience something that literally had been boarded up months before. And there was, you know, in my naivety at that age, thought there was no re bringing a life back to these dwellings, and we did. And, so that's how that's how I got interested in the construction business and, went from working for him to working for, different contractors of sorts and, just kind of eventually got into a career with another gentleman. And I was his general manager for about 10 years And and ended up getting into sales for him and then basically became his general manager. And after 10 years of working for him, he was a dear friend and, in our wedding. You know, good enough friend that he was in my wedding. But at that point, after 10 years, he was kind of on the downhill side of wanting to go get into bigger and better ventures. And I was young and energetic.

So I wanted something bigger, and, so I decided to start on my own with my wife's little prodding. So we started our own Company, my wife and I, and that's the current Company that we have today 30 years later. So, so I guess it started out flipping homes, and then I worked for somebody learning the business, you know, how to run a business for 10 years. And then, just took the leap of faith. And fortunately, our phone has rang ever since that day.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah. I was I was gonna say, we think that flipping houses is something recent, and you just brought it to light. It's like, no. This has been going on a long time.

Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah. And as as old as I am, it's going on, you know, a 1000 1000 of years, quite honestly. But Yeah. But my part has been, half a century. I've never thought of that. That's kinda saddening to me, but that's the way it goes.

Well, we'll say that you were at the beginning cusp of it. How about that? And yeah. You know?

Very comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

So, you know, g two will go with you. I mean, what have been some key milestones and accomplishments for the CLEAR Company over the past 3 decades. Obviously, you've, you've experienced it all your life. So, you know, what have you seen those those key key moments?

Yeah. I think, a lot of what he said is true. You know, I remember him and my mom working out of the basement of our house, for the first 10, 20 years of the business. So, you know, I'd come home from school or whatever, and it was time to pay the bills after dinner, and the business never stops. It's 247, 365, but they were great at caring for me and my two sisters. And, you know, I this first hire 29 years ago was, Rob Lindeman, who's our senior project manager. And, it's been great to see him and dad evolve from high school up to where we are today. But, growing up in the house, it was interesting having a business be the office building, as well.

And then we moved into an office on Kenny Grove, about 10 years ago, and then we outgrew that space. We only had about 8 parking spots, and that didn't work when you have 40 employees. So we've been over on Old Henderson Road now coming up on 4 or 5 years, and, it's been great. We have a beautiful design studio, and we'd love to have anybody and everybody in. We posted some Tri Village events here, and we're just blessed to be in this building and in the community.

That's fantastic. And, g one, do you have anything to add to that? That same question?

Yeah. So what are some of the monuments? Like George said, he might be off on a date or 2 here or there, but that's alright. When we were, moving into the buildings and whatnot, but we are very fortunate. The building that we have today is fantastic, we're in the process of remodeling it, upgrading it even more because it's just what we like to do. But we do enjoy hosting events. I know we've partnered with Tri Village, a few times on that. But, you know, it's a it's an event space. We created something so that we could, you know, reciprocate our good our good fortune with the community.

And, we have a room that, you know, makes it pretty easy to partition off from the office so that if people do wanna have a, meeting of some sort, you know, they can kinda do that without interfering too much with the Cleary Company while we're while we're working. And, currently, we're excited. We're doing some stuff to the outdoor living space to kinda kick the notch so that we can, on decent days, kinda host bigger parties or outdoor parties and gatherings and meetings. And, so we're really looking forward to that, being done by our 30th anniversary party, which will be Friday, this September 27th this year. So crossing my fingers and praying for decent weather because we'll have very likely hundreds of people there. And, so it'd be nice if it was a great day.

Yeah.

But, so some of the other milestones, I would say, like, g two hit on, Rob. He calls Rob uncle Rob because he's known Rob every day of his life. And even though Rob and I are not related, we are friends of 45 years. So, it was kind of interesting when George came into the business that he'd be walking the halls and saying, hey, uncle Rob, or good morning, uncle Rob. And Thank you. People look people look around like, wait a minute. I thought I knew everything here. What's this all about? So that's been fun.

And and and in all honesty, Rob's, you're part of our business. You're part of our lives, and it's, really been fun for me to see how George and Rob have really connected. And, you know, obviously, we're from generations. So Rob and George are different generations, but George is trying to learn anything and everything from from Rob that he can because he's a wealth of knowledge. So they they bonded, really well, and that's been great. Some of the other, probably, milestones have been, you know, when we decided that we wanted to become more than the general contractor, and go into the design, build, remodeling captioned, which just means that we offer design and architectural services. And instead of just looking at somebody else's, bring them a price, to do the work. There's now a whole, what I always refer to as dating.

There's a dating process where we'll show you what we try and inspire our clients and say, this is what we can do. This is the the home that we can make out of your house and, you know, we can do everything that you want, make it look a lot different. So the difference being of of the two models is, you know, previously, everybody else did design, and we just kinda built what people designed. And now we get the opportunity to be part of that fun part, which is, totally different, but intertwined. And that's the design and, inspiring people why we need a bigger room, or a smaller space, or more windows, or more natural light, or, you know, whatever the case may be. So that's a really fun part to be part of to, you know, to impact what we build. So when we build, we can't be done with it and be proud of our work, but not necessarily be happy with the design. Now we're we do everything what I always say a to z.

You know, we we have the whole process in our on our lap so that we can, you know, design it to what we're hearing our clients' desires and making sure that that's, you know, gonna be a good fit for them when they're done. And we can kinda control the budget too, which is nice. Because, you know, sometimes the design team or the architect designs whatever not knowing how much it's gonna cost, and then hand us the plan, and we tell them it's gonna be twice what they thought, and they get really frustrated. So then they just wasted that whole time and financial component working with somebody else only to find out that it's not something that they can make come to life, you know. It's not something that's ever gonna happen. It's just on paper. And so seeing a lot of disappointment over the years and that disconnection of the architect and the builder, was really frustrating to witness. So so so that was a big thing, and that was 15 years ago that we hired Laura Watson, as our first designer.

And, as soon as we did that, it was probably within 2 years that we needed a second designer. And we really got some a boost of energy to that because it it is a fun part of the process.

So

that was neat. And Laura's now our our senior, designer, but she's the design and development manager. So now she's in charge of probably almost a dozen people, 10 anyway, in the development department department. So that was a really big milestone for us to be able to build what we wanted to instead of what others wanted to build.

So And it seems like, that really attributes to the longevity of your success. Because construction, it seems as though it's a very competitive industry and the remodeling market, but it sounds like you really took those aspects together to create something that would really help you to be successful. Yeah.

I think it's, helped a ton of our clients. I can take a test. I think it's up to ton of our clients because, a lot of families are dual income these days and having to deal with a design Company, a architect firm, a GC firm who don't know each other and work with each other on a daily basis can sometimes be confusing, and you have a lot of different moving pieces where, the design build model has been great. Because if, Brett has a question about his kitchen, he has one phone number to call and we handle everything from a to z. So, that's where we always pitch clients, you know. We're not for everybody, but, we love being able to handle everything from a to z because we have one phone number to call. We do everything from the initial consultation to warranty 2 years post your project. So every paint stroke, every design decision, every order, and there's no point of fingers or anything.

It's either all the successes and failures, they all fall on Cleary Company and Cleary Company well. So, people like the one point of contact and the design build.

Yeah. That's super that you evolved because you listened to what your your customers needed and and you you felt the pain points. That's great. You know, that because that that's how you grow is you should listen to customers and, you know, take it again with a grain of salt. But at the same time, it's like, but you're hearing more and more. It's like, you know, we need to bring all this in house. That's great that, and then then it worked and it worked, you know, and and it went the direction you wanted to go. So, can can you highlight some of the memorable projects? You know, just we kind of touched upon that that you, you know, brought it all in house.

But, the the projects or the clients that have, you know, been significant throughout your history.

Yeah. So I always go to, and George will have plenty. But I I always go to the the very first project because, quite honestly, I I'm always I I don't know that I was born confident, but I've always been a confident person. And by the time that I started the business, like I said, I I've been doing it for 15 years, through different companies and whatnot. So I I I was confident because I I don't wanna say I deserve to be confident, but I had the experience. As a young person, I had a lot of experience. And, so I had the confidence, but the client, Luke and Gail Fek, our very first clients, they had the confidence in me to give me their first you know, their job, which in today's money was probably, you know, north of $200,000. And, they knew I they knew me, because I was a friend of theirs, or I was their daughter's friend.

But they entrusted me to, you know, start my Company and start the project and build it to their expectation. And, so that was that was really fun to, you know, enjoy that. And I don't take that for granted because I could have been trying to hang my hat up on the project for months until somebody, you know, came along. But they had overheard that I was starting, and they and we had a good relationship. I never dated the the girl, but her her, husband now is my best friend and always was. So that's how we knew each other. And so they knew I was a good person and that I was gonna do what I said. And, so that was one of our favorite projects and surely our foundation.

And, and that just led to you know, our biggest philosophy is treat people the way that they wanna be treated, and good things are gonna come out of that. And, you know, we're we're totally relationship people. Of course, we have to make money, you know, to be able to be in business for any amount of years. But, you know, our our our focus is not making money. It's building relationships, treating people right, listening to them, as you said, not designing and building what we want for them, but what they want. And, so that relationship with Luke and Gail Feck has turned into, you know, their next that relationship, they sold that house, gave our business card to the people that bought it. We did probably another today's money, $200,000 worth of work for that client at that house. So, those are those are the kinds of things that that, you know, that we've really been able to be successful with is, you know, building a reputation where people are gonna enjoy working with us and standing behind our work.

So another project comes to mind is, a fun one. Was a wonderful couple who had 6 kids, and the baby was born and came home to a pretty much a whole house renovation, which was very trying for a, you know, a mom of 5 other kids to bring her baby home to a construction site. And, although the house was nice in size, it was more moderate than than large. So that was, a trying time, but we all got through it. We continue to do work for them and their family and their friends today, so that was kinda fun. Building building projects for my friends and my family. You know? People have always said, oh, I'd never worked for for your family or your friends. And I'm like, hey.

If I can't please them, you know, then I'm not we we can't be in business. We've gotta be able to be transparent. So, one of my best friends is you know, we renovated, built a 2 story addition for him about, you you know, 20 years ago. So those are some that come to mind that were pre pre George, pre pre, g 2. George, anything of of, your your thoughts?

Yeah. Well, clients are getting very, thoughtful in their designs and implementations in new spaces. You know, we're starting to do a lot of outdoor living and, complex additions that not every home has, and people want difference and their homes to stand out in the neighborhood. So, as our Company has grown, our project sizes have grown, and that's really allowed us to do some awesome pool houses and decks that run into swim swaths and all sorts of interesting stuff, that, you know, we can do kitchens and baths and basements all day, but, allowing guys in the design team to do fun new projects has been a great part of Earth as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Who'd have thought you'd be going outside? That mean people did stuff outside but not put that kind of money into a couple of lawn chairs and and a fire pit maybe. Exactly. Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. And, g 2, I know you started your career in this business outside of the Cleary Company. So can you share how long you've been with the Cleary Company? And then also, what's the dynamic like working with your dad?

Yeah. So I've been, with the Cleary Company, about 2 years now. I always say it with my whole life because when I came home from school or even my full time jobs, you know, it was talking about the Cleary Company or what was going on and knowing everybody. He mentioned Rob and Laura. They've both been there 15 plus years. So they have been family, and, I feel like that was the best part about walking in these doors was I already had a good base foundation of relationships with a lot of the people that have been here. But as far as working with my dad, it's been great. Definitely a different side of business that I've never worked before or with any family before outside of a couple hours a week when I was a intern when I was 14 years old or 15 or whatever over a summer when I needed 10 extra bucks, but it's been awesome to grow in our relationship.

And, you know, I went from seeing them a couple of times a month to a couple of times a day. So, complete 180 and, you know, he has great people here that make his and I's job much easier in the long

run. Yeah. It's been said that it's, it's easier to recruit people when you have some, you know, visible values and principles that, you know, that attract good people. Could you talk about, what what values and principles that have guided Company operations and decision making through the years?

And it

might be a g one question. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And he's gonna step on his feet to be one of them. But, yeah. So, you know, again, not to beat the drum on the relationships, but that's that's just who I am. And, you know, everything falls from from leadership. And, if I'm leading the Company, it's gonna have a strong culture. That's just you know, I like to have fun.

I like to enjoy what I do. And when I don't enjoy what I do, I won't be at the Cleary Company. But, you know, it's it's, it's always been, something that's it changes every day. You know, there's a different set of opportunities, a different set of situations that we've gotta figure out a way to work through and problem solve. So, you know, it definitely keeps you on your toes. And, you know, a lot of people have been very admirable of what we've been able to do over the 30 years that we've been doing it. I think there's an extra sense of energy that I have for assistance and stubbornness that, you know, there's no 2 no mountain big enough that is gonna conquer us, so we just kinda clutch through and figure out a way to get over it or, you know, move through that. So so the culture of our past is is embedded in that.

That's something that we don't pre we press and, you know, we we serve others. There's nobody in our team that that I haven't done what they're doing. Probably a lot of them on our team, but I could not do what they do nearly as good as them. But but I feel their pain, you know, and when it's a struggle, whether it's a design or a nailing pattern or whatever, I, you know, I can relate to that. So, and people like that, you know, because Yeah. Nobody wants to be talked down to and told all you know, told exactly how to do it. We let people make mistakes. And, when mistakes are made, we we like to talk about them because, I'm always fine and freaking if somebody makes a mistake.

But if your coworker has the same job title and he makes the same mistake a month later, that's that's an expense. So we like to talk about the mistakes that we can learn from them so, so that nobody else is gonna get, you know, so that quite honestly, a client's not just so they're that the bottom line is not disappointed. We had to rebuild something. Nobody wants to do that. So Yeah. You know, we we're very collaborative. And, but the culture at the Cleary Company is well, to pat ourselves a little bit on the back, we won a couple national awards, on our culture. It's not only us in the building that feel that, but others have voted us into those those types of awards, because they witness it and they see, you know, that we treated each other like family and friends.

And, you know, we're not we're not out there making them work completely blind without guidance and doing things they're not capable of doing. We're we're big into onboarding and, you know, education training and management training and leadership training and trying to, you know, make the boast out of people. And when people leave, you know, it's it happens. We're we're usually fine with it. We may be very, very disappointed, but, you know, we want people to be happy. And if they found happiness or they see a different pursuit they can take, then, you know, we want them to, to find and our own, you know, goals. So, but, again, the culture is is intimately, important to the Company. Yep.

And just to switch gears a little bit, the Cleary Company has been a supporter of the chamber for such a long time, so thank you so much for that, not only just, you know, in sharing your space with us for events, but also sponsoring other events so that we can continue to contribute to the business community around us. And then just on that topic, are there other things that you do, to give back to the community or to contribute to social or environmental causes?

I'll let George senior end it, and I'll talk about the easy ones and let him do his Pelotony speech. But, we worked with Huckleberry House last year to, home for troubled youth in area organization we're in, National Association of Modelers Industry. We volunteered some time and materials to kinda spruce that space up for, those kids and make sure they feel like they have a nice beautiful home to live in. We've worked with Kick Butt Columbus, which is cleaning up some of the highways and roadways in the city. We work with Habitat for Humanity a lot on donated building material items. So just because one of our clients might not like their current fridge, it's operable, and, we'll try and get make sure those don't end up in our landfills. And all of our employees get one paid volunteer day per year. So every Company has their vacation and personal time and sick time or whatever, but we also give everyone a paid day off to choose a charity of their choosing, whether it's their kids, the YMCA their kids went to, or camp summer camp for their kids, whatever, you know, their drive is, we let them, go work where they are.

I'll let Nat talk about Pelotonia.

Yeah. So Pelotonia is an, long winded thing for me, so I'll be brief. But we got involved with Pelotonia the 2nd year that they were here, which was 15 years ago. And, we've been avid supporters. Wrote I personally wrote. I was encouraged to go to Pelotonia, on year 2 with my brother-in-law, which is a you know, Pelotonia is about cancer research. And, little did I know that brother-in-law, Chip, would die of cancer someday, but, when he got me involved with it. But, sadly, we we lost Chipper to brain cancer and, lost my mom to cancer.

So there's a lot of I have a sibling that's got cancer, so we've had a lot a lot more than we'd like to, and it's just a great cause to help other families be able to hopefully not have the the, sorrow that we've had to go through. So we do everything that we can to raise money for them, and, we have our own, team team Cleary Cyclers. Last year, I think we had 26 riders. 4 years, this will be our 5th year, but the 1st 4 years, I think we raised $287,000. So we're making a, you know, we're making an impact on, that community. And there's other things that we do, you know, along the way. On the Mary, that George talked about, there's always a annual project that we do, that we support. You know, it can be a single mother's, group home in Delaware County.

We did 1 year. You know, we there's a there's a lot of other things that we do and we'd like to continue to do or even build out more in the philanthropy, you know, lens, to give back because we have been very fortunate. It's important to, to again our our core values to do what we can to help others. So

Yeah. Yeah. Well, congrats

some of the the highlights.

Yeah. Congratulations on on the money's raised and plus all the other projects and such. I mean, that's that's part of culture and value too. You know, that to to do that sort of thing. So this next question, I I wonder if I'm gonna get 2 different answers from from both of you maybe. But at the same time, I think it's interesting looking ahead. Mhmm. What do you see? What are Clari Company's goals and aspirations for the future? You know, after celebrating 30, obviously, that's you kinda look at like, okay, what's the next 30 gonna be like? What do you need to do? And, and I'm sure you're planning that, obviously.

I mean, you you you made it through 30 and you just don't do that by accident. You do it by chunks. So I'll start with g 2. What what does next 30 look like for you?

Yes. I think dad's always strove strive to tell, you know, everyone that works in the Company, we wanna grow, but we wanna grow for a reason. And the reason we wanna grow is to give back to our community and impact more lives. What we do is very interpersonal. If we're inside your home redoing your kitchen, it's emotional. And, you know, there's ups and downs. But when we get out of there and families are able to host Thanksgiving with their extended families and show off their space and live happier lives, you know, that's really why we do what we do. So, making sure that group is centered around our clients, centered around our employees.

You know? We don't wanna grow to a point where the employees are stressed out and not loving what they do, going back to what, senior said. Making sure that culture is still a friend of mine and, you know, growth has been great. I forgot to say a couple of times. It's awesome knowing how many lives were impacting in these walls, outside of these walls, and those walking by. There's 5 or so people having lunch in the cafeteria and talking about their kids and what colleges they're going through and knowing that, educations and dinners and Christmas presents. It just, you know, there's a wide array of people that are touched by the Clarity Company on a daily basis. So it's been the main focus of the growth.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think, g one?

Yeah. So, can you can you repeat the question? I'm sorry.

Yeah. No. It's okay. What what we're looking at is, you know, you've you've got 30 down. Let's look at the next 30. What what are you thinking about in regards to what you'd like to see it to be? Great.

I'm sorry. I I wasn't that I wasn't paying attention, but I No. No. Kinda I was really enjoying how George was talking. So, I'm proud of him. But yeah. So then the next 30 is definitely the next generation of the Clari Company. You know? And and we are extremely grateful, for one that, you know, we made it through I think most small businesses don't make it through year 3.

You know? So to be 10 times past that, it's it's something we don't take for granted. Business of any sort, running a business, starting a business, inheriting a business, it's it's all, you know, very dish very, very difficult. So, we we don't take that for granted that we've been able to get to this first 30. But, you know, what does the next 30 look like? It's a lot like without me, probably. I'm not, I'm not a spring chicken, but I'm not going anywhere soon. And so I'm excited to see what you know, not only what our team and George and a lot of others, in the Company, what they can do with it, but, you know, what's the world gonna look like in 15, 20, 30 years? There's gonna be a whole different set of of, needs that, the common family is going to want. So I've always said, you know, we've got to be innovative. We've gotta keep our educational hats on.

Let's not just show up at work and do what we do. Always gotta wanna learn, and I think there's a good a good vibe of that in our culture. You know? We've we realized we have to learn. But one of my, sayings is if we are not innovative and we don't strive to be better, then we're gonna get run over by our competition Because the technology is a prime one that we can all relate to. You know, when I started the business, I had a pager. You know, there was no there was no cell phone. So, you know, and now we can we have operating software and and project management software that we can interconnect on our smartphones with our clients and and have a Zoom meeting face to face. We can show them a situation that we've uncovered and ask their live opinion of how they wanna deal with it.

And they might be at work or they might be abroad, but we can problem solve just by that technology. So that's that's completely foreign to 30 years ago. So Yeah. You know, trying to stay up on technology and building trends and efficiencies and, you know, lack of skilled labor is making us, as an industry. We're having to be more in, more inventive of how we can build products that can be installed easier by by laypeople, so to speak, instead of trained professionals. So so that's what's exciting to me about the future is it's going to look a lot different than the 1st 30 years. And, the work the work mentality and the work ethics of of the team, how that's all going to, you know, evolve is, to me, not scary, but almost exciting to see how we're all as a community and as a, population, how we're gonna adapt to all of that. Great.

So is there any final messages that you would like to convey to our our audience here, about the Clery Company?

Should try village especially. You know? Thank you. I know a ton of our business comes from, Upper Arlington and Grandview and Marble Cliff. I Ronald Anderson, so we're right on the border there of Upper Arlington. I was raised right here. I live in Grandview. We love we love the community, and, 2 thirds of our business last year was repeat referral, and we'd love nothing more than to help you and your family and friends, continue to grow like we talked about.

So my quick one would just be, again, a a thing of gratitude to all our clients and our partners like yourselves and our vendors and our employees. You know, we couldn't do it without one of those, good people, but, you know, it's it's just been a great 30 year run, and we'll see what, the good lord has in store for the next 30.

Exactly.

Well, congratulations. We're we're so happy to have you a part of our membership, a part of our community. And, you guys, we wish you continued success in doing some great things. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And, and listeners, thank you for joining us. And don't forget to check out our podcast page on the Tri Village Chamber website. Look for the podcast tab at the top of the homepage. Tell us what you think about this or any of our episodes at info@chamberpartnership.org.