Angela Zonnevylle is finally receiving the recognition she deserves. It’s just not from the source she’d expected.
In March, Zonnevylle was awarded both the “Ohio Business Person of the Year” and the “Republican of the Year” awards by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The awards are given in recognition of business leadership and entrepreneurship. About 50 Ohioans received the “Business Person of the Year” award this year.
Her accomplishments as a business owner over the last few years are undeniably noteworthy: She took over a financially challenged business after her husband’s unexpected death, and in seven years, increased sales 50 percent to 70 percent, she estimates.
In 1995, she was faced not only with the sudden loss of her husband, but with the decision of what to do with his ceiling installation business, DeGeorge Ceilings Co. She had worked for the company as a bookkeeper, but otherwise knew little about it.
“I was given a choice by the bank, my accountant and my attorney. It was either sell or try and run it, and I decided to try to run it,” she says. “Even some of my children advised me not to do it.”
For Zonnevylle, there was little choice.
“I didn’t feel I could let it go that easily,” she says. “To me, that was not an option. I couldn’t see my dad’s dream, or my husband’s or my dream going down the drain like that.”
After many days that started at 6:30 a.m. and didn’t end until 2 or 3 the next morning, Zonnevylle learned the business, got a bank loan and turned a fledgling company into a profitable employer.
“I put everything I had into it,” she says. “I was very energized and I didn’t let anything tear me down. I just hung in there and thought, ‘If I can get by death, I guess I can handle anything. Nobody died today, there’s nothing that can be any worse than that.'”
Zonnevylle’s just not sure, exactly, what she did for the Republican Party during that stressful time to deserve such prestigious honors.
“A year-and-a-half ago, I got a telephone call from (Congressman) Tom Delay’s office,” she says. “I thought it was a joke.”
Delay asked her to sit on the Small Business Advisory Council, which meant a commitment of a few days a year traveling to Washington, D.C., to sit in on congressional meetings. She agreed, but shortly afterward was stricken with an injury that kept her from traveling. She says her involvement on the council amounted to telephone and e-mail correspondence, in which she was asked to share her opinions on issues affecting business owners.
She says that during that time, she adamantly supported the Bush campaign, but primarily voiced her support to family and friends. She may have been able to do more for her party at another time in her life, but her No. 1 priority then was, and still is, her business.
“I didn’t feel I had done anything other than work myself to death here trying to keep my business going,” she says of the recognition.
In any case, somehow, some way, her accomplishments as a business owner and her understated commitment to the Republican Party were noticed.
The GOP won’t tell her who submitted her name for the recognition — just that it was submitted by more than one person.
