Dave
and Buster’s, Home Instead earn enhancement awards
(LIVONIA;
February 11, 2014) - OHM Advisors, Bill
and Rod’s Appliance, Dave and Buster’s, and Home Instead Senior Care were
selected as Livonia Chamber of Commerce award winners and will be honored at
10th annual Leadership and Awards Celebration on Thursday, Feb. 20, at Laurel
Manor.
“These companies do amazing work and
share their success in many ways throughout the community,” said Livonia
Chamber President Dan West.
The 2014 Outstanding Large Business
of the Year Award goes to OHM Advisors,
an engineering and consulting company headquartered in Livonia. OHM employs 220
people at eight locations in Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The company serves nearly 50 municipal
clients, including Livonia, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Northville, Plymouth
and Canton townships, Romulus and Wayne County. They also work for several
corporate clients such as Valvoline, Nationwide Insurance, and New Albany
Company.
“We have our four original customers
from 1962 still on board, including the city of Livonia,” said John Hiltz,
OHM’s president and third-generation partner. “I think that says a lot of about
our staff and service through the years.”
The company was created by Ernie
Orchard, John E. Hiltz (Hiltz’s great uncle), Frank Papke and Bill McCliment in
Detroit in 1962 and moved to Livonia in 1972, at about the same time Hiltz’s
uncle retired and his father, John J. Hiltz Sr., became a partner. It became
known as Orchard, Hiltz and McCliment in 1983. Through the years, OHM provided
key planners for infrastructure work, drain installation, and road projects – a
number of them along the I-275 corridor.
Hiltz, a former member of the Livonia
Board of Education, said the OHM staff is encouraged to be involved in the
communities in which they live and serve. In Livonia, OHM employees are
involved in the Plymouth Road Development Authority, Livonia Community
Foundation, Livonia Symphony Orchestra, Livonia YMCA, and numerous other
causes.
In 2013, OHM added 60 employees and
earned two notable honors: The American Council of Engineering Companies of
Michigan Firm of the Year, and the Michigan Business and Professional
Association selected OHM as a leading place to work.
“Our service has been the key to our
growth,” said Dan Fredendall, OHM’s executive vice president. “We know we
succeed only if our communities succeed, and we bring those services for
success to the table.”
The Outstanding Large Business of the
Year honoree is a Livonia company with more than 50 employees and a sustained
record of business excellence and extraordinary community service. Hiltz said
he is “humbled” that OHM was selected, and he views the honor as a “validation
of the service we provide to our customers and communities.”
The 2014 Outstanding Small Business
of the Year is Bill and Rod’s Appliance,
a three-generation appliance repair and sales store with a presence in Livonia
for 51 years. The company expanded six-fold in 2013 by moving into an
18,000-square-foot building on Middlebelt Road. The move provided room for
mattress sales, demo kitchens for customers to test appliances, and increased
inventory. The move boosted the employee count to 26, and sales of parts and
machines by 182 percent.
“I think our dependable service and
helpfulness through the years helped us grow,” said Linda Legato, who runs the
business with her husband, Kim, and son, Joe. “Kim is always answering
questions from customers.”
Many appliance stores are not willing
to share expertise with customers trying to fix their own appliances, but Kim
Legato said this builds trust with future customers. “I always felt that helping
people like that was an investment in future business,” Kim Legato said. “They
seem to always come back to buy parts or a new appliance.”
Linda Legato’s father, Aloysius “Rod”
Rodriguez opened the business in the basement of his Garden City home in 1963
with his friend, Bill. Months later, they parted ways and Rod moved into a
Livonia store, but Rod kept the name Bill and Rod’s. Rod died suddenly in 1976,
shortly after he hired his daughter’s new fiancée. Kim and Linda eventually
took over and ran the business while raising their three children. The couple
also praises the work of senior technician John Kortesoja for his 39 years with
the company.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” Linda
Legato said about earning the Outstanding Small Business of the Year award, an
honor that goes to a Livonia business with 49 or fewer employees with a sustained
record of business excellence and extraordinary community service. Bill and
Rod’s has supported Livonia Goodfellows, Livonia Save Our Youth Task Force,
several school fundraisers, and donates appliances to Life Remodeled, a charity
that builds new homes in Detroit for impaired adults.
Dave and Buster’s and Home Instead
Senior Care will receive this year’s Community Enhancement Award, which honors
Livonia companies that invest in a construction project that makes a visible
difference in the community.
Dave
and Buster’s
opened its second Michigan location in Livonia in December. The
multimillion-dollar project constructed a new 40,800-square-foot restaurant and
video game arena on Victor Parkway with room for 1,800 people and jobs for 294.
Meeting rooms and sports viewing areas are adorned with murals featuring
Detroit-area sports teams and landmarks. General Manager Dave Rogan said people
have waited more than three hours to enter the venue on some nights.
“It has been great the way the
community has embraced us,” Rogan said. “We exceeded our expectations by 35
percent (in the first two months).”
Dave and Buster’s consistently
attract customers from Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Toledo. “We pull
people to the Livonia area so there is an additional (economic) spend in this
area,” Rogan said.
Home
Instead Senior Care
tripled the size of its home-turned-office location on Middlebelt Road. The
expansion to 4,900 square feet added room for administrative offices and
training rooms, but owner Glenna Yaroch focused on an expansion that maintained
the comfortable, home feel and Victorian look of the structure.
“Being locally owned and operated, I
don’t want anyone to tackle me in Kroger’s because they were upset with our
service,” said Yaroch, a 20-year Livonia resident. “We were always committed to
quality. We aim to do what is right, not what is easy.”
Her team of 155 employees tended to
the non-medical, in-home needs of 300 clients last year, most of whom are
senior citizens with cognitive issues such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Yaroch opened her Home Instead
franchise on Five Mile and Hubbard in 2002, before moving to her current
location in 2004. She concluded about two years ago she needed more space when
“I had to meet in the bathroom to have a private conversation with someone,”
she said.
A physical therapist by trade, she
frequently supports senior care initiatives at St. Mary Mercy Hospital. Yaroch
and her husband, Scott, have three grown children and worship at St. Michael’s
Catholic Church.
For the second time in five years, Mark LaBerge is the Livonia Chamber of
Commerce’s Ambassador of the Year, which is awarded to the chamber’s
most-active volunteer over the past year. The retired Livonia police captain is
now the director of campus safety for Henry Ford Community College.
“Mark is omnipresent at our events
and grand openings, and his keen awareness of this community is immensely
helpful to the Chamber,” West said.
He has lived in Livonia for 41 years
and is an alumnus of Churchill High School.
LaBerge and his wife of 28 years, Brenda, have two grown children. In
addition to his chamber involvement, LaBerge also serves on the Community
Alliance Credit Union Board, Livonia YMCA Board, and Livonia Optimist Club.
“The Chamber lets me contribute to
the growth, positive change and continuous improvements of the city that I grew
up in, was educated in, worked in, raised a family in, and still choose to live
in,” he said. “The Livonia Chamber is more than a business group – it is an
organization that supports the entire community.
The business award winners were nominated by
Livonia Chamber of Commerce members and community leaders and selected by an
anonymous committee who evaluates the nominations.
The Leadership and Awards program, sponsored by Cambridge Property and Casualty, AlphaUSA, St. Mary Mercy Hospital and Madonna
University, is coordinated by the Livonia Chamber of Commerce and the
Livonia Observer. Tickets are available at $25 each. Admission includes a light
dinner and soft drinks. A cash bar will be available. To reserve tickets, call
the Livonia Chamber office at 734.427.2122, or via e-mail at sweeney@livonia.org.
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Livonia
postcards featuring Larry Nehasil Park and Wilson Barn are now available at the
Livonia Chamber of Commerce.
