I grew up in a very nonentrepreneurial family, one that you went to work in corporate America doing the same job day after day for the same company for your entire career. Soon after college, I knew that that type of career was not for me.
Go to college and then find a career and find a high-profile company to work for.
After I graduated college my father who was a VP at Bell Atlantic helped me get a job at MCI Long Distance phone service. It was a particularly excellent job right after college, joining a young growing company that was starting to take off with the breakup of ATT and Bell Atlantic. After about a year I knew my future was in sales but not the kind of sales that was the same thing day after day sitting in an office with little room if any to use your imagination.
What to do next to help expand my passion for sales but also use my creativity.
At this time there was another substantial change in world of Bell Atlantic, they changed companies to sell their Yellow Page Advertising, and I jumped at the opportunity. I was now out in the field working with small to large businesses, mostly privately owned, collaborating with them to generate more business through advertising. I found something that I could really enjoy doing for the next three years, developing relationships with people not just calling on faceless companies. This led to an opportunity to work for AAMCO Transmissions as a Franchise Operations Manager for the Midwest. I was hooked on Franchising within weeks of starting there. Working with families and watching them grow their business and wealth. I learned so much in the three years at AAMCO about the Franchise model, what it took to run a successful Franchise Business and why franchising is not always the right fit for some people.
The Biggest Career move in my life and for my family.
While working at AAMCO I found out that Toney Martino, the founder of AAMCO Transmissions, MAACO Auto painting and several other Franchise concepts, was starting a new brand called Goddard Preschools. Tony had already sold AAMCO by the
time I joined but I always heard of the legend of Tony Martino. I jumped at the opportunity to join them as their first Franchise Sales Manager. This was a big leap of faith for me since I never worked for a startup before with only ten employees and eleven locations. Watching it grow from a startup to the largest childcare franchise in the United States was very rewarding during my thirty-year career there. By the time I left there was close to seven hundred locations and over two hundred employees. It is my time to become a Franchisee. Watching Goddard Preschools grow and seeing how successful the Franchisees became lit a fire in me to open a franchise. After many discussions with Tony Martino, I was awarded a Franchise in Pennsylvania for me and my wife to run while still maintaining my position at Goddard Systems. We ran the school for twenty-two extremely rewarding years both financial and personal. Running our own business provides an income that allowed us to put both of our children through college with no loans, pay off our home and provide us with long term financial freedom that I never expected to have when I first graduated college.