Arc Herkimer’s Post

Transcript

Hi, I'm Kevin Crossley, and this is executives and golf carts Having fun. The President and CEO of our Kirkhammer, I take big swings for the organization. And one of those big swings was our acquisition of the MV Golf and Event Center. 175 acres of pristine property, eighteen holes of golf, restaurant, bar and an event tent overlooking the beautiful Mohawk Valley. Steve Zogby, welcome to the MV Golf and Event Center. Thank you, Kevin. Great to be here. See you, bud. Let's load you up. OK Ohh, it's a great summer day. Perfect day. Which the game was perfect, but you know, yeah, well you know it's got we'll work. We'll work on that. OK let's go up and put around a little bit 1st. And Steve is the executive vice president of Scalzo, Zogby and Wittig. And we are thrilled that he is sharing his time with us today on a beautiful Friday in the Mohawk Valley. Started the agency back in March of 1992. OK. Couple years ago, yeah. And. Red retired a few years after that, OK. And so that was in the mid 90s probably and Gary and I have been partners and friends operating it since then. Just been the two of you, just the two of us. Obviously you have a full contingent of staff we do, we have. 12 employees. I'm really proud to say that. I don't know how they've done it, but eight of them have been with us for 23 years or more. Really. Yeah. Ohh, that's fantastic. And you know, so wait a minute. Let me get this straight. We could be a little treat. You treat your employees well. Is that what you're saying? Well, I wouldn't. We must be doing something. Gotta be doing something and they treat us well. Well, that's good. Are we both decided that we should make an effort to contribute to the community and be involved And you know you go into those things not necessarily saying you know I sell insurance, but you go in there to help the organization and do what's right and. You know, people recognize that and and you'd be sincere about it and humble and you know, we then. Then you start to enjoy it. You know, you make friends, you learn things. I mean, I've learned so much. That's helped me as a person, as a business person. Tell us about some of the of the board work that you've been involved with. Yeah. So I've been fortunate to serve on all kinds of different boards. You know I've been on the MVCC foundation board. So that's you know that's more of a. Fundraising board than an operating board for an organization because we had nothing to do with the college other than help them raise money. The Stanley Theater for a long time which the the real name is the Central New York Community Arts Council but we call it the Stanley. All right. You know, probably one of my favorite ones and I just came from that meeting today was the is the Oneida County Industrial Development Agency. OK you're on the Development Board idea. Yeah. Been on that for about 15 years, and that's challenging, but also really excited. I've learned so much. I'll also say to you that probably most of the stress in my life has come from my volunteer board activities, not my work and family life. But nonetheless, that comes with the territory, the good and the, you know, sometimes challenging, sometimes not so good, right? Yeah, exactly. It really hit home for us when we moved our office back in November of 2017. We were in the New Hartford shopping Center for 25 years, yes, and decided to move to where we are now and Lamont Court in the office. Park there And, you know, having been there so long, we accumulate like everyone does. You know, you don't throw anything away. You know, you accumulate everything. And it was exciting, but a little bit unsettling when we had the shredding company come in and we shredded everything and we didn't bring a file cabinet with us to our new location. Oh, no kidding. So, you know, the biggest thing is the statement. Yeah. Which is, you know, which, you know, everyone pretty much deals with. Now, but as we are you know we're so dependent on technology and if we've had any success it's because we've, you know we've. Appreciated our employees very much and make sure that we do the best we can and we're not perfect, believe me, but you know to support them and give them the tools they need to. Be successful and more importantly be happy. One of the things we've done too it's it's been been really good for our employees as we've gone to kind of a hybrid model. Oh you have for working. Yeah, we, you know when COVID hit, obviously everyone was home and then after several months we, you know, started to go back, you know in in a hybrid fashion where we alternated weeks in the office and people really enjoyed that. So we've kept that in place. I got to ask you, what do you, what do you think the biggest challenge is for your industry over the next 5 to 10 years? There's a lot of acquisitions going on in our industry. For private equity, there's a lot of private equity involved and you know, it's it's. It's reducing the number of. Locally owned small to medium sized agents like us, we don't have the financial muscle that these large organizations have, sure. But I think from an opportunity is we do have the people. You know, in our area and I think in most communities, it's usually about the people. So Steve, as we prepare to eat this phenomenal lunch that we're about to have, I want to thank you for taking the time to come. And we are thrilled that Scalzo, Zagi and Riddick is a part of it. So thank you for being here. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be invited. I've enjoyed the other episodes, so. When you asked me, I was like, wow, that'd be great. Yes. And we had a great time. Thanks. Good conversation. Yeah. And I know, I know you won the coin toss with Gary, so you are already a victor. Before you came here, I was, Yes.