Thomas Cronkright

Through life experience as a youth, I gained first-hand insight into how a successful business should operate. This began as a young man growing up in a somewhat non-traditional family that centered around retail business and serving the needs of the community. I had the privilege to watch my grandfather turn a small hardware business into a successful True Value franchise. I had a father who was a Wall Street stock trader turned a small business operator when he was called back to his hometown to grow the family hardware business. This is where I learned to help people - starting with assembling tricycles for a nickel apiece and quickly graduating to drawing up plumbing diagrams on the back of cardboard boxes with the homeowner looking on and nodding. I had the opportunity to gain this valuable experience long before discovering that Law would be my academic path. Putting it all together, my long lens in doing so was to create or have a leadership position within an organization and meet my professional challenges with the skills and confidence to inspire others. An extroverted person by nature, I like to take complex things and break them down to see if they can be reframed into simple and actionable steps. Today, I am the passionate CEO of two companies with a truly symbiotic relationship. I’ve been fortunate to enjoy great success along the way, but at the same time, leadership is full of tough lessons – all of which have shaped me into the servant-minded leader that I am today. My vision is to have a culture that is personified in a fun company softball game with great BBQ food, full bleachers, with diverse groups of people that come together as one family – not because they have to, but because they want to. How do I work toward this? I seek to lead by example and treat people with the kindness, empathy, and the humanity that it takes to build a sustainable company and family atmosphere. I work tirelessly to build strategies that focus on investing in our people with successful business outcomes as the by-product. Best of all, I have the privilege of working each day with my best friend, Lawrence and going home to my best friend and wife of over 20 years.