McHales Wins Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce "Success" Award

The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce presented the 2008 SUCCESS Awards to five local companies in the manufacturing/distribution, non-profit, professional service, retail/hospitality and service industries. The event, in conjunction with the month-long celebration of small businesses was held at Receptions in Erlanger. It also a highlighted a first-ever tie in one of the categories.

The winners are:

• Family Nurturing Center, non-profit category
• Contact: Jane Herms (859) 525-3200 Ext. 12
• Women’s Crisis Center, non-profit category.
• Contact: Kimberley Adams, (859) 655-2650 Ext.22
• Advantage Group Engineers, engineering category.
• Contact: Raymond Brake (513) 396-8900
• McHale’s Hospitality Group, retail/hospitality category
• Contact: Chuck McHale, (859) 442-7776
• Libertas Technologies, service industry category
• Contact: Dave Hatter, (859) 261-9700

“We are very pleased and proud to have these exceptional companies working and thriving in the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area,” said Steve Stevens, president, Northern Kentucky Chamber. “Their hard work and determination keeps our local economy thriving and benefits both our businesses and communities.”

Established in 1996, the Small Business “SUCCESS” Awards recognize small businesses that have demonstrated growth, financial stability, resourcefulness and creativity to excel in their chosen industries.  Through an in-depth application process, the field of 70 nominees was narrowed to nine outstanding small businesses.  Sponsors for the 2008 “SUCCESS” Awards Luncheon were Gold Level: Abstract Displays; EGC Construction Corporation; Insight Communications; and St. Elizabeth Medical Center, and Silver Level: The Christopher Financial Group; Frame & Save; Frost Brown Todd LLC; Katz, Teller, Brant & Hild; National City; PETSuites of America; Riegler Engineering, LLC and Time Warner Telecom.

Winner Biographies

Family Nurturing Center: Committed to overcoming barriers in order to best meet the needs of children and families in our community. It began in the mid-1970s as the Citizens Committee Against Child Abuse with a vision of community leaders and their recognition of the devastating impact of child abuse and neglect. Their humble beginnings started in the basement of the volunteers’ homes, where they took turns managing a 24 hour hotline responding to parents in crisis. Crisis intervention was critical in the early days, but area leaders recognized parents needed more than a reassuring voice at the other end of the phone to truly end the cycle of child abuse. The agency began with an annual budget of $2,200 and no paid staff.

Today revenues are nearly $1 million each year from diverse resources. The agency employs a full-time executive director, 15 professional core staff, along with 25-40 paid group facilitators. The agency has grown from being housed in a basement to having two locations; one in Florence and one in Cincinnati. 

Women’s Crisis Center: Established in 1976 as the Rape Crisis Center of Northern Kentucky, the Women’s Crisis Center was formed to provide crisis and support services for rape survivors.  The group changed its name in 1979 to Women’s Crisis Center to reflect the additional services provided to battered women and children. The first shelter opened in 1981 and operations have since expanded to Covington, Florence, Maysville, Williamstown and Carrollton.  A toll-free 24-hour crisis hotline number began in 1992. In 1998 they were operating with a limited number of local, state and federal grants and United Way funding.  In that same year, they had an annual campaign budget of $40,000.  Today, they have an annual campaign goal of $239,000 and an operating budget of over $2.8 million. They recently began a capital campaign to build a new Regional Services Center in Boone County to replace the current leased facility in Florence. 

The Women’s Crisis Center not only helps those that are facing domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse, they provide ongoing public education presentations to remove the stigma of these crimes. They have provided intensive domestic violence training to law enforcement, court officials and other professionals to help them understand these crimes and the trauma the victims’ experience.

Advantage Group Engineers: They began in 1998 with three engineers and a couple of spare bedrooms. Within three months they hired their first employee and in 1999 moved to the Hamilton County Small Business Incubator. Expansion continued to seven employees in a one room office, a computer network operating from a desktop computer, used furniture, network cables hanging from the suspended ceiling and when they wanted to download email from the dial-up connection, they had to turn off the fax machine. Despite the challenges, the company expanded in 2004 to 13 employees and relocated to the Historic Ford Factory Building. Now, 10 years later, they now have 20 employees; 11 engineers, five cad technicians, two office staff and two co-ops.  The structure of the company is now designed to be employee owned, fulfilling the needs and expectations of the owners and employees.

McHale’s Hospitality Group: As a family-owned business Chuck McHale began as a bagger and clean-up person when he was only 13 years old. After the passing of his father in 1986, he assumed management responsibilities.  In 1990, he purchased one location of the chain of grocery stores and changed the focus of the business from retail to off-premise catering.  In 1998, Chuck sold the last retail store and built his first banquet facility, The Marquise Banquet & Conference Center and an industrial kitchen.  They now have two additional locations the Point Pavilion and The Gardens of Park Hills.  They have also become the preferred caterer at many area venues including the prestigious Drees Pavillion.  In 2008, McHale’s began a new direction in business by becoming the Management Company for the areas newest facility, The Grand at Fifth and Madison. 

McHale’s has prided them selves in employee retention.  They have two full-time employees who have been with the company for over 15 years and many who have been there for more than five years. As a seven-time designee of the “Emerging 30” they have shown a tremendous amount of growth over the years. They have chosen to continually invest the additional income back into the company through renovations and enhancements.  Plans are in progress next year for a $80,000 renovation of The Marquise located in Wilder.

Libertas Technologies: Founded in 2001 by Dave Hatter who has always had an intense client-focus and a fierce drive to do things the “right way,” ensuring that clients get what they pay for and are always treated with honesty, integrity and ethics. With this simple philosophy and two long-term clients in hand, Dave threw caution to the wind, defied the bursting tech bubble and stock market crash, in 2001 to continue the pursuit of excellence in building business applications. The first six months went very well and then came September 11 and the business took a turn for the worse. 

Many long term clients stopped all discretionary spending, forcing Libertas to look outside of the Greater Cincinnati region for much of their work.  In 2004 after their business development director quit and the employees went for several months without salary, a turn around occurred. They cut back all expenses and ran as bare boned as possible. They hired sales trainer, Steve Mulch, to help them perfect their sales skills and grow their business. Not only did Steve help them improve their skills, he became a key strategic partner in developing a new prospecting application. The software as a service tool is called Growth Management System and now has 13 clients including Rumpke, Hemmer, etc…  This software has been a major contributor to their bottom line. The last two years have also been strong with major projects for John Morrell, P&G, Avon and many more.