The Columbus Blue Jackets are excited to partner with First Merchants Bank to recognize small businesses in our community. Each month throughout the season, one company will be featured as the Small Business of the Month presented by First Merchants Bank. This month's Small Business of the Month is Assured Glass Services; to enter your small business, click here.
Alyssa Wolf loves working in the family business, but there is one unfortunate side effect when the business is the glass industry.
The vice president of Assured Glass Services is a third-generation member of the family working in glass, but that means there’s a lot of experts on the subject sitting around the table no matter where they go.
“It’s really cool, and it’s a family problem because they just all get together and are picking out the problems with glass,” she said with a laugh. “That’s a running joke – you're trying to enjoy a nice dinner and they’re looking at bad caulking.”
Those are the risks you run for keeping it in the family, and Wolf is OK with that. Now in her fifth year at the company founded in 2013 by her father, Andrew Gum – grandfather George started in the glass industry in the 1960s – the Westerville South alum is happy to help keep the party going.
Assured Glass Services is a small- to mid-sized commercial glass contractor that does around $7 million in revenue per year and boasts 21 employees. The company specializes in storefronts, curtainwalls and all things glass and glazing, and you can see their work at such places as apartments at the Grandview Yard and Southern Station, the Grandview high school and middle school renovations, the Del Mar restaurant at Easton and the Westerville police headquarters.
Keeping it in the family has its perks to Wolf, who has watched her father and grandfather develop deep ties in the glass industry.
“There’s something really cool about working in the same field as your family and really understanding what their life has been like and how they came up,” she said. “My dad when he was younger in the business was very involved in trade organizations like the Glass Association of North America; now he’s with the National Glass Association. It’s been really cool to have the opportunity to be involved in that sort of stuff and meet the kinds of people my family has worked with.”
Employees from Assured Glass Services were welcomed to the Blue Jackets’ game Saturday, sitting on club level and having the opportunity to visit the press box – including meeting CBJ television broadcaster Jeff Rimer – during the first intermission.
“It’s been really awesome,” Wolf said of the in-game experience. “I didn’t really know what we were getting into coming here tonight. We’ve gone to CBJ games quite a bit, but we’ve never been able to sit in this section, so that’s really cool. The press box was super cool; I never really thought about the fact it was way on top. It’s cool to be part of the action.”
