Business Appreciation Breakfast 2017

[Music] [Applause] [Music] what Collins has been such a great community for us to launch our business in with rizal Fort Collins is a brilliant place to live I lived all on the world I think it's probably my favorite place so far the people here are fantastic which leads to an exceptional candidate pool very qualified educated workforce and great support from the local community and other organizations to see the growth of Fort Collins has been new and exciting and you know we both Kari and I and our father Deb Merkley have grown up here and so we've seen a lot of growth and it's very very healthy and vibrant for our community pork bones kind of chose us I feel like it's a very artsy fun town and being in the floral industry we're all about the art scene and taking inspiration from businesses around us doing business and Fort Collins specially for something like this and in a national store was people have traveled they're well-traveled well-read well-educated and so people are into cooking and the culture of food and just being next to CSU is really great because you have people from all over the world really here and some people have traveled overseas so it's amazing it's a really supportive environment in Fort Collins for small locally owned businesses I think what's so special about Fort Collins is its diversity you know we've got Colorado State University what a terrific facility and what a terrific institution we've got so many successful companies that are primary employers that provide jobs for people in the four columns area but it actually pulls money from outside of Fort Collins into Fort Collins and it spins through it spins through our economy before it leaves again so all that has helped for Collins succeed I think it's important to remain grateful in business because it shows with your employees when you have that gratitude on a daily basis it shows in your meetings it shows with your employees when you're doing events with your employees when you're in business means you you're trying to better the business climate when you're trying to better your business when everyone works together it's fantastic Fort Collins really seems to love small businesses there's a lot of women entrepreneurs in our town we work with Studio B some day supply so many different places you know of young women entrepreneurs but somebody that's so special to us is timrie at door grace we share a building with her now and it's just been so amazing to have somebody to bounce ideas off of if we had a problem and we couldn't even think of how to tackle it she just went through it a year or two before us and was there to you know lend us some advice we're in the same industry and now the same building so we can share clients which is really amazing she's just been a huge support system we are completely blessed with such a loyal customer base that comes back time and time again so I'd have to say first and foremost we are grateful for our customers also though we have a very special team and I've learned that I just need to a lot of times support them and stay out of their way but I'm very grateful for our team and for Mike Buderus our store manager in particular who's been here since the store opened in 2003 and he really is the exemplary Ace Hardware of Fort Collins person my family has supported us so thank you Julie and team Kenny and along the way the city of Fort Collins and the Larimer County SBDC has given us real tools to be successful in transition of our ownership and serving their customers so very happy about that as far as a business the things that I am grateful for are the people that work here the families we have built relationships we have employees here that have been here over 30 years people retire from here a lot so I feel so grateful to have such wonderful people to work with and then the customers I mean we wouldn't be here without our customers they've become part of the mark the Motors family so anytime somebody you know buys a card from here services a card from here we're walking them in to our families so it's you know we build a lot of relationships with them and they continue to do business with us so when you take a company like enterprise that's family-owned there's values driven and that's important and take care of your customers you're taking care of the employees you trying to draw to develop that type of a business and you match it with this type of environment in Fort Collins it's really been fantastic Forbes well my role with regards to human resources and talent acquisition I really have to give huge props to Larimer County workforce they've been fantastic we've partnered with them since day one they actually helped us get our workforce initially hired up use their facilities brilliant support from them the business services team have been fantastic and just assisting us with all facets of a hiring process and and and outreach to the workforce the main things I'm thankful for are my two girls who have allowed me to be a 70 year old bum right now I don't have to do much they've run the place it's so much fun to watch them and the excitement they have to see this business succeed and progress and grow this is just a thriving community with folks who really care deeply about where they live in the quality of life and how they contribute to that here so it's our honor and privilege to be part of that so many wonderful people in Fort Collins that have helped this community grow and succeed thank you for calling thank you for callin for giving us 81 years in business and I'd like to thank people in Fort Collins for supporting a business like ours a small family-owned local business and helping us grow thank you for counts for being such a wonderful place to do business thank you for columns for making your family part of our family thank you for it Collins [Music] you

Channel: City of Fort Collins

Views: 237

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: XEkiAmQvcyU

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2017