Medical Mutual and Smart Business welcome you to the Pillar Awards for Community Service. Celebrating its silver anniversary, for the past 13 years, the Pillar Awards have spotlighted organizations and individuals making a difference in Ohio’s communities. These groups and employees connect with their communities through volunteering, charitable giving, pro bono work and more.

As Medical Mutual’s new President and CEO, I’m proud to lead an organization that is known for its integrity and service. Like this year’s Pillar Award honorees, Medical Mutual is deeply committed to service in the community. The company works to improve the physical, financial and mental health of people across Ohio. That includes focusing on the social determinants of health — factors like education, housing, transportation and access to food, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. All play a critical role in a person’s well-being.

A cornerstone to Medical Mutual’s community support is our SHARE program. SHARE stands for serve, help, aid, reach and educate. Medical Mutual’s SHARE employee volunteers supported dozens of events with nonprofit and community groups in 2022. It’s an important way that Medical Mutual gives back to our communities, and one of the annual Pillar Awards recognizes a company whose employees best illustrate the values of the program.

All of this year’s Pillar Award recipients demonstrate an immense commitment to their communities. Medical Mutual is pleased to join Smart Business in honoring these organizations and individuals.

On behalf of Medical Mutual and Smart Business, congratulations to all the 2023 Pillar Award honorees. ●

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pillar Award Honorees

 

A commitment to community is a defining principle for Barnes Dennig & Co. Ltd., and the firm works tirelessly to enhance and enrich the communities in which it lives and works.

In addition to conducting annual campaigns that raise tens of thousands of dollars each year for United Way, ArtsWave and the American Heart Association, the firm holds an annual Outreach Day. Every October, Barnes Dennig sends the entire firm out into the community for a day of volunteering at deserving agencies across the region. It dedicates its time, energy and resources to go beyond the numbers and help organizations achieve their charitable goals, donating more than 5,500 billable hours to date to help nonprofits.

Barnes Dennig also believes deeply in empowering youth, as they are the key to a successful, thriving future.

The firm’s COVID-19 Advisory Team and its work with the Employee Retention Tax Credit QuickTest has made a tremendous positive impact on hundreds of businesses and nonprofits and the team continues its tireless work to ensure each organization maximizes the tax credits it qualifies, providing lifeblood for businesses and organizations and continuing to provide critical services to the region and ensure ongoing growth and success.

Giving back is an integral part of Barnes Dennig’s culture, and members volunteer and serve on boards at nonprofits, dedicating time, financial resources and energy. The culture of giving back and strengthening its communities has a profound effect on the firm and team. ●

 

CEO Ryan has a vision of creating equity and inclusion and developing financial literacy in the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky area. The firm exemplifies the type of man Cullen is at his core. He was working at a global financial services firm serving the ultra-wealthy, but he felt that created a barrier for entry for those with lower incomes.

At 24, he started Cullen Investment Group, a registered investment advisory firm, based on the principles of no-account minimums, low fees, transparency and honest advice because, as a fiduciary, the firm is obligated to act in a client’s best interests. But Cullen didn’t stop there. He began reaching out to local, predominantly black schools, asking to teach basic financial literacy. He reached out to local black business owners to see if they would be interested in accompanying him so that they could talk about their experience being an entrepreneur. He also reached out to black business owners, offering free one-on-one financial literacy lessons and financial planning.

In doing so, he met Matthew Cuff. Matt, founder and owner of Just Q’in BBQ restaurant, shared Cullen’s vision, and Cuff asked him to be on the board of directors as treasurer of his nonprofit, RENEW, which provides resources to low-income individuals in eight key areas. Since then, Cullen and his newly merged firm, Cullen Cioffi Capital Management, have continued their partnership with RENEW to offer free one-one-one financial literacy lessons and financial planning to the low-income, often minority individuals that come through this nonprofit seeking help. ●

 

Robert “Bob” Hoffer is an exceptional community leader, a talented lawyer and a devoted family man. For more than 35 years, he has volunteered for St. Elizabeth Healthcare and serves, He also serves as managing partner of DBL Law and in 2018, the firm pledged $1 million — its largest commitment to date — to the St. Elizabeth Foundation in support of its planned St. Elizabeth Cancer Center.

His other community involvements include member, Board of Trustees, St. Elizabeth Healthcare; member, board of Directors, Kenton County Airport Board; chair, DCCH Center for Children and Families; member, board of Directors, Kenton County Airport Board; Chair, DCCH Center for Children and Families Annual Swing into Spring Fundraiser; and former chair, American Heart Association Heart Chase, among many others.

As further testament to how well-respected Hoffer is, DBL Law recently named him as managing partner. He is the epitome of a true team player. He will tell you he does not like individual awards due to his firm belief we all accomplish more as a part of a great team, yet he is so deserving for his collaborative leadership in breaking down silos for optimal results.

DBL Law’s mission focuses on making communities better places in which to live and work. While a percentage of the firm’s annual budget is dedicated to supporting local nonprofits, its impact is truly driven by civic-minded attorneys and staff who continuously devote personal time to leading and participating in fundraising activities and service. ●

 

Finit is a consulting firm serving some of the world’s largest organizations to craft, deliver and sustain Corporate Performance Management technology solutions, enabling them to use their financial data to make better business decisions.

Recognized as an industry leader that empowers CFO organizations, Finit has delivered 100 percent success for over 350 OneStream clients. It works with Fortune 100 and 500 companies as well as privately held companies across a variety of verticals to help solve their complex and unique business challenges. Led by CEO Rob Cybulski, the value that Finit adds stems from its values, its founding principles and the passion it has to put people first, advocating for the Finit family, clients and communities.

When Cybulski and Angie Apple founded Finit, every decision stemmed from the principles of putting people before profit and being in service to others. They established a culture that makes it easy for managing partners and employees to embody. This foundation directly aligns to the success and well-being of the members of the Finit family, clients and communities.

Some companies select a single foundation, cause, or philanthropy in the community where the company is headquartered. Finit’s culture promotes individual expression, as it believes it is important to allow individuals to support what is meaningful to each person. Finit’s philanthropic policy has always been to support the communities local to employees and corporate events, which includes Cincinnati, where Finit is headquartered. This approach also allows Finit to impact countless people and organizations in many cities across the country through a variety of activities. ●

 

Health Carousel is a total talent management company with a leading portfolio of health care staffing solutions: Health Carousel Travel Nursing and Health Carousel International.

It has more than 650 administrative employees in five offices who work to deliver highly qualified health care professionals across a range of in-demand health care professions as they work to ensure every patient in the U.S. has access to a qualified health care professional, when and where they are needed. Its higher purpose is to improve lives and make health care work better. Since its founding in 2004, Health Carousel’s health care professionals on assignment have impacted more than 10 million patient lives across the U.S.

Health Carousel’s #HCGivesBack program encompasses four main areas of giving back: philanthropy, diversity and inclusion, employee well-being and recognition. Its responsibility as an organization is to ensure its operating practices and initiatives are ethical, legal and profitable. It strives to be good corporate citizens by contributing resources to the local and global communities and advocates for the global migration of talent and ethical practices in international recruitment.

Additionally, its signature initiatives and opportunities align with its higher purpose each year. Health Carousel’s leaders and employees infuse its values of teamwork, integrity, excellence and service into support for communities through charitable giving, corporate sponsorships, in-kind donations, employee volunteerism and board service. In 2022, it doubled down on its commitment to going the extra mile and doing the right thing by focusing on increasing health equity and making an ongoing difference in supporting employees and communities. ●

 

Providing outstanding service, whether to customers, employees, or to the surrounding community is a core value for KDM. Its service efforts are employee-led and supported from the top down.

KDM has a strong history of exceptional corporate citizenship and a culture of giving that is woven into the fabric of who we are as a company. It believes in taking care of the team internally, so they are empowered to serve others externally.

KDM has supported the local community by hosting events and fundraisers, volunteering and through financial contributions. The organizations that have benefitted from these efforts this year include Adopt a Class Foundation – Parker Woods Montessori school; Sister of Notre Dame; Mount Notre Dame High School; De Paul Cristo Rey High School; Princeton City School District; Xavier University; Big Brothers Big Sisters; and Hoxworth Blood Center.

KDM has made financial contributions to support charities and community events including to Project Santa; De Paul Cristo Rey of Light; Mount Notre Dame High School; American Heart Association; Evendale Phi Lamdba Pi: Conquer the Hill event; Sisters of Notre Dame; Special Olympics; Ronald McDonald House; Metro Relief; St Vincent DePaul; Health Network Foundation; and East Carolina BS of America.

KDM employees have come together to volunteer in some unique ways this year. De Paul Cristo Rey Corporate Work Study Program makes high quality, college prep education possible for students with economic need. Adopt-A-Class Foundation is a group mentoring program that connects businesses with students. And KDM employees provided Christmas gifts to 15 Princeton School District families. ●

 

Phillips Edison & Co. Community Partnership is an award-winning, associate-led initiative dedicated to encouraging community involvement and connecting associates to causes important to them. In 2021, the team donated time, funds and/or needed items to a wide variety of causes that resonated with the team and communities. These included one of PECO Community Partnership’s most popular initiatives, the annual Diaper Drive, and adopt a family events held throughout November and December. In 2021, the PECO team donated funds to the Talbert House to purchase diapers, helped 20 families with gifts in conjunction with the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities and donated 250 pounds of food to the Loveland LIFE Food Pantry. Other 2021 Cincinnati charitable efforts included a blood drive, participation with Last Mile Food Rescue, a bowling night with Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities and a fundraising challenge to benefit Feeding America.

The Cincinnati team also held its annual half-day of volunteering at Gorman Heritage Farm as 65 associates cleared the parking lot, removed honeysuckle, worked on the sunflower maze, removed snakeroot, did gardening and groundskeeping, and harvested 350 pounds of potatoes.

In 2022, PECO Community Partnership once again held its half-day of volunteering at Gorman Heritage Farms and has held two food drives and a blood drive. In addition, the Phillips Edison team volunteered and marched in Cincinnati’s PRIDE parade for PRIDE month and supported local black-owned businesses during Black History Month by ordering associate gifts from them and sharing information about them with associates to encourage them to patronize them, as well. ●

 

Powernet and its employees place community service at the forefront of everything they do. When the team brings a new product to the market, its people think of how they can use this product to make a real difference in communities.

This has been Powernet’s philosophy year after year, driving its involvement in the community. It contributes high-end technology, such as tablets and Wi-Fi, to low-income communities and nonprofit groups working to create better outcomes for members of the community that are less fortunate than others. Its goal is to give those less fortunate community members an opportunity to experience what their peers take for granted as everyday commodities. This is known as the digital divide, a social barrier that Powernet strives to erase with its efforts across communities.

Its philosophy isn’t just to give back to organizations and communities, but to make an impact that will be felt by citizens for many years yet to come. Donations of free Wi-Fi like 2018’s donation to Avondale give citizens living in low-income communities a chance to access the internet to apply for jobs, pay bills, do schoolwork and perform many other valuable tasks for daily living. This donation has helped many residents with day-to-day tasks and will continue to do so as it has completed expansions to the Wi-Fi network over the past year. These expansions have allowed it to provide hundreds more families with free Wi-Fi in multiple apartment buildings in the community. ●

 

ProLink ensures that organizations have the best people to staff them. As a true partner to its clients, its recruiters screen talent for experience and cultural fit, while compliance and clinical teams handle interviews and credentialing to reduce the burden on client teams.

The company allows organizations to hire skilled professionals on a temporary basis for short- or long-term assignments, add full-time employees at the early to mid-career level and acess deep consulting expertise or specialized project teams to solve business challenges.

Led by CEO Tony Munafo, ProLink was founded as a family business and remains committed to its core values through years of growth and expansion. It values its commitments and won’t quit until its clients and talent are fully happy. It thrives on forming lasting connections with people and believes that regular communication and reliable guidance builds trust.

Organizations that have benefited from ProLink include Make a Wish-Dash Bash 5K; American Foundation for Suicide Prevention-Dash Bash 5K; Dress for Success; Adventures in Missions; Disaster Aid USA; The Ronald McDonald House Cincinnati; and Mathew 25: Ministries.

ProLink sponsored the Kane Brown charity concert where proceeds benefitted the McLendon Foundation and gave away tickets for the Kane Brown charity concert.

Members of the ProLink team traveled to Indiana to support a ProLinker who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and partnered with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful in a neighborhood park cleanup in early September. It also partnered with Best Point to help prepare children in the community for the upcoming school year by donating school supplies. ●

 

RDI brings something to the Greater Cincinnati area that most companies do not: servant leadership. As a growing organization, RDI has a large pool of talent, professional connections, and financial resources. What makes it unique, however, is its heart for people as it leverages resources to serve the community. RDI refers to itself as a family, demonstrating the value it puts on relationships not just with its clients and employees, but with surrounding neighbors and organizations.

CEO Bronson Trebbi says that RDI operates with a mission to build strong and diverse communities within the organization and where they live. He says they operate the business with a serve-first mindset, in which they commit each day to humbly serving employees, clients and communities.

Servant leadership is a part of RDI’s culture, guiding every decision and every interaction. It compels action in the form of community partnerships, volunteerism, fundraising and creative campaigns that make a tangible difference in the lives of youth, at-risk communities and marginalized groups.

There are myriad ways RDI serves the Greater Cincinnati community, to build meaningful relationships, to inspire other individuals and local businesses to get involved, and to make a tangible difference for the entire community. While RDI has made significant financial and material investments across the city, the effect of their generosity is beyond measure, touching not only the lives of people who are currently in the community but also the generations to come. ●

 

Towne Properties Founder and Partner Neil Bortz consistently leads by example by ensuring the communities the organization works in are also the communities it serves.

In support of Bortz’s vision, July is known as Towne Month of Giving. The overall participation rate in 2022 was 90 percent. From district offices to apartment communities, Towne Properties associates supported their favorite local organizations with volunteer work, financial contributions and more. This year’s chosen organizations included 4 Paws for Ability, A Kid Again, Adopt a Class, CPWI, Crayons to Classrooms, HART Cincinnati, Humane Society, Kids 4 Kids, Mary Rose Soup Kitchen, ReStore and Ronald McDonald House. As Winston Churchill says, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Towne knows that creating community requires giving time, effort and presence. Towne associates provide a monthly experience for the students, such as a Christmas party, pumpkin decorating, career day at Towne, a trip to the zoo and more. Not only do the associates volunteer countless hours planning and executing events for the children, they volunteer regularly to come read to the classroom.

In addition to giving generously of their time, Towne associates also pledge their personal money to fundraising efforts and hold fundraisers with their vendors, homeowners and residents. Since 2017, Towne Properties has raised over $65,000 for ArtsWave to support art projects and cultural organizations throughout Greater Cincinnati and over $175,000 for United Way of Greater Cincinnati to provide Cincinnati families with hope for sustainable economic wellbeing. ●

 

Trinity In Home Care has been a leader in the community and industry of non-medical home care for the past 10 years. It has been very apparent that giving back is one of the drivers of this company from the very beginning. Giving back to the community in the form of charity has been built into the company through serving at a soup kitchen in Over The Rhine for six years, as well as serving on committees and actively engaging for nonprofits.

Trinity In Home Care has always set a precedent that when an employee gives, the company will match. This doubles its reach in many different causes that hit home to not only the community but the employees as well. Up until this year, the industry of home care was run without oversight in the state. Trinity in Home Care, through the founder, Aaron Stapleton, worked with the state representatives to add regulation for those being cared for at home. The company believes that anyone being cared for should have rules and regulations set so care can be uniform, whether you are getting care in Cincinnati by Trinity In Home Care or another one of its competitors.

While passing this regulation would have been enough, Stapleton worked with the Ohio Department of Health to set these regulations and help them to understand the world of in-home care. For the past year he has put running the company on the back burner to help set the regulations and educate the community. ●

 

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Medical Mutual Share Award

 

The Gorilla Glue Co.’s mission, The Gorilla Way, is rooted in giving back to the community. Community is one of the four pillars of that mission, and the company truly believes that is critically important to be invested in and connected to the community.

Its Comamunity Committee plays a huge role in keeping Gorilla Glue connected to the community. There are several ways in which Gorilla Glue employees can give back in a meaningful way. The entire organization, including satellite offices, participate in its annual Community Day, where it has worked with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful to clean up and improve an area in Cincinnati. As the organization grows, it has divided this into Community Day(s) so it can have a larger impact. In 2022, it partnered with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, A Child’s Hope International and Project Connect.

In addition, its employees have selected the following eight local organizations that they can voluntarily donate to through payroll deduction or on their own: 4 Paws for Ability Inc.; Joseph House; Lighthouse Youth Services; Habitat for Humanity; People Working Cooperatively; ProKids; SPCA Cincinnati; and Green Umbrella.

Its second annual Gorillas Give Back Golf Classic raised over $100,000 that was divided amongst the eight Gorilla Glue charities. It also partners with the Cincinnati Zoo to aid in its efforts to care for and support Gorillas worldwide. And it hosted drives including a back to school drive through Project Connect; a toy drive supporting St. Vincent De Paul’s Angel Toy Drive in December 2022; and its Silverback Sponsorship program that enables employees to apply to have gorilla glue donate product or money to an organization that the employee chooses.

The Gorilla Glue Co. is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has been selling Gorilla Glue for over two decades. The glue was first discovered being used in Indonesia on teak furniture, but consumers soon found it to be incredibly versatile and demand soared. On a mission to make products that deliver impressive results, the company has since expanded its offerings.

In addition to great products, the organization strives to be a great company for employees. The Gorilla Glue Co. is family-owned and operated and prides itself on its family atmosphere and fun-but-serious products. Its employees are its No. 1 asset, and the company is dedicated to providing a healthy work culture centered on family values.

It has been selected as a Top Place to Work in Cincinnati for 11 years in a row. The Gorilla Glue Co. is a proud member of the How2Recycle® Program. ●

 

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Nonprofit Board Executive of the Year Award

 

From the beginning, Jeff March has been a living embodiment of The Best Point Story. As a baby, he was adopted from the agency when it still provided adoption services to the Cincinnati community. As he continued to grow, he never lost his gratitude for the organization that helped him start out in life.

March has continued to push forward and has had a successful career as one of the founders of BRG Realty Group, where he serves as CEO. Today, he continues to help Best Point and the 16,000 children and families it serves each year. He, along with his wife, Jeanette, selflessly and tirelessly devote their talents to Best Point’s continuing mission of serving the community’s most vulnerable populations in life-changing ways.

When COVID-19 became part of the daily vernacular for the community, March was instrumental in ensuring the nonprofit agency remained fiscally strong. His business acumen, coupled with an unbridled passion for underserved children and families, helped Best Point continually operate in unprecedented and uncertain times.

Through March’s leadership, Best Point pivoted in record time to offer critically needed telehealth services to children whose medical diagnoses are, in many cases, so severe that without treatment, they can often relapse to life-threatening status. Seeing this need, he offered advice on how Best Point could adapt in a fluid operating environment, which resulted in the agency increasing from 4,000 telehealth services in early March to over 40,000 by the fall. ●

 

Andy Holzhauser was board president of Green Umbrella, where his term ended in December. Previously, he worked as its treasurer, putting his first career in accounting and second career in nonprofit management to excellent use. He has continued to serve on the Finance Committee while board president and has helped the organization evolve systems as it has grown.

Holzhauser has shown unbridled leadership during a phase of extensive growth at Green Umbrella. During his tenure, it has expanded from six full-time employees to 18. Together, they built out their internal marketing and development departments, increased the number of in-house programs from three to six and more than doubled its organizational operating budget.

Holzhauser has helped it better serve its 2 million community members across Greater Cincinnati in local food security, carbon emission reduction, equitable access to greenspace and active transportation infrastructure. Most recently, Holzhauser led the Green Umbrella Board through the decision to spin off its highly successful Tri-State Trails program into its own nonprofit organization.

As Green Umbrella aims to be a leader in collaboration and facilitation across government, nonprofit, and for-profit worlds, these connections have been critical to programming, as we aim to advance sustainability best practices across the region. Holzhauser’s dedication to sustainability is far-reaching. Outside of Green Umbrella, he works as a partner at Donovan Energy, a clean energy project development and finance firm. ●

 

William Butler has been chairman of Corporex Cos., for 57 years and serves as a board member of Lindner Center of HOPE.

Since 2008, Lindner Center of HOPE has served as a lifeline to tens of thousands who’ve faced the struggle of mental illness or addiction. Offering a wide range of mental health services and treatments in an atmosphere that promotes long-term healing, we are staffed by some of the nation’s best psychiatric experts. Lindner Center of HOPE is a place entirely dedicated to hope — and finding a unique path forward.

Mental illness and addiction can set those who struggle on a common journey, in search of one thing. Hope. Hope for answers and action. Empathy and excellence. Lasting change and confidence. These journeys often lead to Lindner Center of HOPE, which consistently delivers exceptional care on a personal level. It has gained consistent recognition on a national level. It is a psychiatric center of excellence for its breadth of expertise and depth of understanding, and its physicians are leaders in psychiatric research and provide the highest degree of empathetic, individualized patient care.

In his work, Butler is experienced in building commercial buildings and residential buildings. He is dedicated to community service and when planning began for new construction at Lindner Center of HOPE, he offered to take charge.

Throughout his career at Corporex, he learned how challenging mental health disorders can be — and how it can affect families, friends and co-workers. Coupled with the limitations of the illness itself, the hurdle of stigma adds another challenge. ●

 

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Philanthropist Of The Year Award

 

An accomplished community icon, Anthony Muñoz — president of the Anthony Munoz Foundation, former Cincinnati Bengal and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame — has been actively involved in his commitment to make a difference in the lives of local youth in the Greater Cincinnati region.

He decided to bring all of his charitable initiatives together in April 2002 to establish the Anthony Muñoz Foundation (AMF), a nonprofit organization armed with the mission of engaging the Tri-State region to impact youth mentally, physically and spiritually. Along its journey, the Anthony Muñoz Foundation has touched the lives of over 50,000 youth.

Now, over two decades later, the Anthony Muñoz Foundation educates, promotes, recognizes and rewards Tri-State youth who excel in all phases of life, while reaching out and empowering those who are struggling. No matter what adversity youth may face, the Anthony Muñoz Foundation programs teach young people that they can overcome their respective obstacles while maintaining a focus on higher education.

Committed to nurturing the growth of all Tri-State youth and especially vulnerable, at-risk populations, the Anthony Muñoz Foundation has created unique opportunities that appeal to students of all ages, educational, cultural and economic backgrounds. Through deploying a life-changing college scholarship fund program, three high school education and recognition programs, three empowering football camps and its Whiz Kids tutoring program, the foundation is making a tangible difference in the lives of youth across the Tri-State. ●

 

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Nonprofit Executive Director Of The Year

 

Nancy Eigel-Miller hasn’t just made an impact on the1N5 organization, she is the organization.

Eigel-Miller founded the James W. Miller Memorial Fund in 2010 after losing her husband, Jim, to suicide in 2008. Upon his death, she dedicated herself to learning everything she could about the signs and symptoms of mental illness and risk factors for suicide. As she discovered more, she renamed the organization 1N5, representing the statistic that one in every five individuals lives with a mental health condition.

She felt compelled to leave her corporate job and use this newly founded nonprofit to foster education about the mental health crisis among the youth population. Her passion is to normalize conversations about mental illness, especially among young people. Having spent the bulk of her career in the market research arena, Eigel-Miller collects and applies data to address the mental health crisis facing today’s youth. Additionally, she is committed to providing high-quality, evidence-based programming for schools, changing the narrative around mental wellness and making a positive impact on local students, teachers and caregivers.

Eigel-Miller leverages relationships with business leaders, the medical community and government officials to prevent suicide by erasing the stigma of mental illness and promoting optimal mental wellness. On any given day, if she isn’t in her office, you are likely to find Nancy out and about in the Greater Cincinnati area.

Eigel-Miller is the heart and soul of 1N5. ●

 

Clare Zlatic Blankemeyer, executive director of GreenLIght Fund Cincinnati, is a firm believer that impactful change comes from proximity to issues of injustice: we cannot impact that which we do not know. Driven by her perspective, sense of purpose, and judgement, she has a steadfast passion for ensuring the voices of those with lived experiences are part of social sector decision making.

One would be hard to describe the multitude of ways that Blankemeyer is extraordinary at her work. Blankemeyer loves Cincinnati, and she pours herself into identifying and nurturing creative solutions to entrenched problems. GreenLight operates under the premise that broad coalitions of community voices are best positioned to identify the prioritized needs of the community. These needs can vary widely, and her role is to respond to those voices by understanding and introducing solutions to those problems. However, Blankemeyer becomes an expert in both the needs and the potential solutions.

She consistently and proactively exhausts every community resource to better understand points of leverage for improving problems through policy work, direct service, coalition and partnership building, business models, and political strategy because she knows that they are necessary for transformative change. The qualities that best capture Blankemeyer’s impact on locals organizations and the community are not her substantial, nuanced and deep wisdom that have been expansively demonstrated. The qualities most impressive are her remarkable integrity, character and consistency. She is respected widely, and she serves without fanfare, without pretense and without wavering, and Cincinnati is significantly better because of her. ●

 

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Kent Clapp CEO Leadership Award

 

RDI brings something to the Greater Cincinnati area that most companies do not: servant leadership. As a growing organization, RDI has a large pool of talent, professional connections, and financial resources — all things that help to position it as a business leader.

What makes this company unique, however, is its heart for people as it leverages these resources to serve the surrounding community in meaningful ways. RDI refers to itself as a family, demonstrating the value it puts on relationships not just with its clients and employees, but with surrounding neighbors and organizations.

CEO Bronson Trebbi says that RDI operates with a mission to build strong and diverse communities within the organization and where they live. He says they operate the business with a serve-first mindset, in which they commit each day to humbly serving employees, clients and communities.

These aren’t euphemisms or shallow marketing ploys. Servant leadership is a part of RDI’s culture, guiding every decision and every interaction. It compels action in the form of community partnerships, volunteerism, fundraising, and creative campaigns that make a tangible difference in the lives of youth, at-risk communities and marginalized groups. RDI serves the community through corporate philanthropy for local nonprofit organizations. In 2021, RDI donated $1 million to St. Xavier High School to invest in youth and support the school’s mission toward academic rigor and spiritual growth. It also donated to the Greater Cincinnati chapter of GSLEN, ensuring that children have access to an educational community where they can thrive, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

RDI last year also ran food drives to provide food to local organizations and families in need. It supports Meals on Wheels’ Bust a Crust holiday fundraiser and works with Milford Miami Ministries and Toys for Tots to help distribute resources to local families.

RDI has also packed supplies for Ukraine victims, repurposed paint for housing, sorted items for hurricane victims, labeled and repackaged dialysis bags, sponsored/visited elementary school classes throughout the year and volunteered to help feed the residents of the homeless shelter in downtown Cincinnati. RDI also helped scale a pilot program to prevent loneliness and isolation among seniors by purchasing, packaging and distributing hundreds of Meals on Wheels birthday boxes and holiday grab bags for the elderly that represent thousands of dollars in in-kind donations.

Recently, RDI team members hand-delivered gift bags to the homes of these community members in order to personalize the gift and bring even more cheer to their day. As a result of RDI’s assistance, people in the community have access to resources — food, clothing, medical supplies, educational opportunities — that they would not otherwise have, and they experience the type of emotional care and respect that everyone deserves. ●