February 12, 2025 • 8 mins
Todd Hart, owner of Overhead Door Company of Grand Rapids joins us for a Talk of the Town!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Talk of the Town on news radio would thirteen
hundred and one oh six nine f M. Steve Kelly
and Brett Pikida from West Michigan's Morning News in studio
with us the owner of Overhead Door Company, Grand Rapids,
Todd Hart, thank you for coming in today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey guys, thanks for having me today and allowing us
to shine a little bit of light on garage doors
and Overhead Door Company of Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, you had to open the door first, I did.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That was good, Steve Kell.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It going'll be a lot of this stuff coming fast
at you. Just so you know, Steve, you know it's
an open shut ohn overheadoorgr dot com to find out
more information. And I'm learning today too, seventy six years
you are the standard here in West Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yes, we're coming up on seventy seven years as the
original garage door company in Grand Rapids. We're part of
the experience we've gained along the way and the expertise
that we have as a result.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And obviously garage doors have come a long ways and
you can get real fancy with him. They're obviously great
as far as return on investment when you're looking to
upgrade a home, but talk about kind of what your
vision is. I mean, after seventy six years in County
with this company and where it's moving.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Forward, certainly, thanks Brett so for us. And I'm new
to this business. I bought it about eighteen months ago
from the Locro family who really had it for the
first seventy five years. And I come out of twenty
five plus years of manufacturing, so this is a brand
new experience for me. What we want to do is
take some of those aspects of manufacturing that are really good,
the processes and the systems, and apply that to the
(01:24):
garage stores. But more importantly, we really want to invest
in our people. We want to make sure that we're
safe as the number one priority for our people and
for our customers. We want to make sure that we
live by core values and put processes and systems in
to have a better customer experience.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Overheaddorgr dot com for more information. Let's go back to
your people. Let's talk about how this is a skilled
trade endeavor. And one of the reasons why I know that,
not just that it's written down in front of me,
is that I can't fix that stuff. Yeah, and so
if it was like gross motor skills. Absolutely, but this
is a saying that has to be a safety feature
(02:01):
for my family too, So why wouldn't it be someone
who has a little more training than me.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's exactly right. That's something I've discovered along the way
as well, is coming into this business and finding that
this is a hidden skilled trade. It's one where I
have immense respect for our technicians, for the technicians at
all of the companies, because whether it's your home or
your business, this is a garage doors are ubiquitous. They're
up there down But really what that means is that
you have goods and materials flowing in and out of businesses.
(02:30):
You have people that are getting out of their house
so that they can go to their job, or so
that the ambulance can come or the fire fire trucks
can come. So really having these skilled technicians is very
important and it does hide in plain sight because you
think about electricians, you think about plumbers, you don't think
about garage door technicians as being skilled. And in turn,
(02:53):
there's actually accreditations and with those accreditations you can move
across the country with the proper creditation into town and
have a job. The next day, so it's really something
special for those people as well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Tod, What about the services you provide, because there's a
lot of places that will put stuff up, but then
they won't fix stuff, or they won't do this or
that in the business, What do you guys offer and
what have you been building on that has been your
seventy six year history.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Sure, we are a full service garage, door and loading
dock company, so that means that we do commercial work,
we do residential work, We do the loading dock systems
as well, and that makes us somewhat unique in the space.
There are many many residential companies that are out there,
and there are dock companies exclusively, but those that do
all three there's a limited number of those, and that's
(03:39):
just something we want to continue to build upon with
our planned safety inspections. So we've done those for a
long time in the commercial space under the premise of
planned maintenance. We believe it's actually planned safety, and then
we're moving that into the residential space with three different
tiers of planned safety. Just a regular inspection you can
call and have done it anytime, or also a couple
(04:02):
of service agreements whereby you get preferential treatment and you
get that service done annually for a monthly subscription, not
unlike you see for hvac or other of this of
the skilled trades.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So talk to us a little bit about return on
investment if I'm looking at bottom line. We always watch
those home flipping shows and they talk about certain rooms
being more beneficial to upgrade than others. What about the
garage door service at Overhead Door Company of Grand Rapids.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, see, thanks for coming back to that. Bred ask
that a moment ago, and I didn't quite get to it.
Relative to the return on investment for a homeowner, it's
one of the few items that has a positive return
on investment the moment that you put it in. According
to Remodel magazine in twenty twenty four, the return on
investment the moment you put a garage door in is
(04:53):
one hundred and two to one hundred and five percent.
So it's one of the very few things that you
have an immediate return as you upgrad your curb appeal.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Wow, So if you're selling your house, get a new
garage door along with painting things beige or whatever. I
don't want to step all over the realtor. I don't
know what color to paint the thing, assuming puce is
still out, but it would make sense to do it
right away.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Absolutely, And if you look at the cost of some
of the other upgrades of your house versus the return,
it's a tremendous return on investment.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I want to ask you about technology when it comes
to this, because these truly have become kind of and
nothing against the ladies. It could be the ladies cave,
I guess the man cave space where I've seen stereo
systems put out their TVs put out there, right And
with that, you want to have the control with your
garage door of what you can do. Obviously, make it safe,
make it so no one can break in. In my
(05:43):
particular space, I've got an extra back part of my garage,
so I've got a side door that's a garage door
that I can pull in if I want to have
jet skis in there or snowbills that I store in there.
So I mean, you can really get creative with this.
And I've seen that where it's like an extra house,
but it's really the guy or the gal's garage that
they have and they just have an entertainment space.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Certainly, we're doing a lot of barn dominiums these days,
exactly exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Does anyone use garage Mahal is.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That I think there's some of those as well. I
think it depends upon design, Steve, But yeah, so there
are those, and then there are the other elements of
technology that exists within the garage doors as well, which
where it's right from your smartphone and you can check
to see if the door is opened or closed, or
if you're having a service technician come over, I'll just
have them shoot me a text and say hey, we're here,
(06:32):
and I will go ahead and open the door remotely.
And so there are also all sorts of different interfaces
with your Google Home and your Amazon Alexa where you
can say, hey, Alexa, close my garage door. So it's
just about having those built in within your system. And
so that's available through the two different brands of openers
(06:52):
that we carry, which is the Overhead Door brand and
then also the lift Master brand.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We will invite you to check out Overhead Door GRT.
But lastly, what about the future. What kind of vision
do you see in the next five ten years for
Overhead to our company?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So our vision is to grow, not unlike any other business,
and we're going to grow through our people. Again, we
mentioned earlier the safety, the core values, and the processes
and systems, and so with those in place, along with
we just built a training center and the mesody of
our building so that we're able to train our technicians
faster to again provide a better experience for our customer base.
(07:29):
Those are the ways we intend to grow. We're certainly
moving forward with some field service software that we believe
will create a better user experience as well for our customers.
And so just putting all those pieces together and continuing
to grow our people in order to grow our business
is really the vision that we see. We would love
to and bid aspirational, take those tools and take our
people and make Grand Rapids the hub and possibly go
(07:52):
out to different locations and have those be the spokes
with the leaders of our business that take all those
skills with them being the leaders of those next locations.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Why wouldn't great answers to some questions this morning on
Talk of the Town with Todd Hart, who is the
owner of Overhead Door company of Grand Rapids and could
also be a twin brother, I don't know if you
noticed the resemblance. Yeah, it's like looking in a mirror again.
Overheadoorgr dot com. Todd, thank you so much for coming
in today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Man, thanks for having me today. Thank you, Steve, Thank
you Brett.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
This is Talk of the Town on news radio WOULD
thirteen hundred and one oh six nine FM.
It's Talk of the Town on news radio would thirteen
hundred and one oh six nine f M. Steve Kelly
and Brett Pikida from West Michigan's Morning News in studio
with us the owner of Overhead Door Company, Grand Rapids,
Todd Hart, thank you for coming in today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey guys, thanks for having me today and allowing us
to shine a little bit of light on garage doors
and Overhead Door Company of Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, you had to open the door first, I did.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That was good, Steve Kell.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It going'll be a lot of this stuff coming fast
at you. Just so you know, Steve, you know it's
an open shut ohn overheadoorgr dot com to find out
more information. And I'm learning today too, seventy six years
you are the standard here in West Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yes, we're coming up on seventy seven years as the
original garage door company in Grand Rapids. We're part of
the experience we've gained along the way and the expertise
that we have as a result.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And obviously garage doors have come a long ways and
you can get real fancy with him. They're obviously great
as far as return on investment when you're looking to
upgrade a home, but talk about kind of what your
vision is. I mean, after seventy six years in County
with this company and where it's moving.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Forward, certainly, thanks Brett so for us. And I'm new
to this business. I bought it about eighteen months ago
from the Locro family who really had it for the
first seventy five years. And I come out of twenty
five plus years of manufacturing, so this is a brand
new experience for me. What we want to do is
take some of those aspects of manufacturing that are really good,
the processes and the systems, and apply that to the
(01:24):
garage stores. But more importantly, we really want to invest
in our people. We want to make sure that we're
safe as the number one priority for our people and
for our customers. We want to make sure that we
live by core values and put processes and systems in
to have a better customer experience.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Overheaddorgr dot com for more information. Let's go back to
your people. Let's talk about how this is a skilled
trade endeavor. And one of the reasons why I know that,
not just that it's written down in front of me,
is that I can't fix that stuff. Yeah, and so
if it was like gross motor skills. Absolutely, but this
is a saying that has to be a safety feature
(02:01):
for my family too, So why wouldn't it be someone
who has a little more training than me.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's exactly right. That's something I've discovered along the way
as well, is coming into this business and finding that
this is a hidden skilled trade. It's one where I
have immense respect for our technicians, for the technicians at
all of the companies, because whether it's your home or
your business, this is a garage doors are ubiquitous. They're
up there down But really what that means is that
you have goods and materials flowing in and out of businesses.
(02:30):
You have people that are getting out of their house
so that they can go to their job, or so
that the ambulance can come or the fire fire trucks
can come. So really having these skilled technicians is very
important and it does hide in plain sight because you
think about electricians, you think about plumbers, you don't think
about garage door technicians as being skilled. And in turn,
(02:53):
there's actually accreditations and with those accreditations you can move
across the country with the proper creditation into town and
have a job. The next day, so it's really something
special for those people as well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Tod, What about the services you provide, because there's a
lot of places that will put stuff up, but then
they won't fix stuff, or they won't do this or
that in the business, What do you guys offer and
what have you been building on that has been your
seventy six year history.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Sure, we are a full service garage, door and loading
dock company, so that means that we do commercial work,
we do residential work, We do the loading dock systems
as well, and that makes us somewhat unique in the space.
There are many many residential companies that are out there,
and there are dock companies exclusively, but those that do
all three there's a limited number of those, and that's
(03:39):
just something we want to continue to build upon with
our planned safety inspections. So we've done those for a
long time in the commercial space under the premise of
planned maintenance. We believe it's actually planned safety, and then
we're moving that into the residential space with three different
tiers of planned safety. Just a regular inspection you can
call and have done it anytime, or also a couple
(04:02):
of service agreements whereby you get preferential treatment and you
get that service done annually for a monthly subscription, not
unlike you see for hvac or other of this of
the skilled trades.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So talk to us a little bit about return on
investment if I'm looking at bottom line. We always watch
those home flipping shows and they talk about certain rooms
being more beneficial to upgrade than others. What about the
garage door service at Overhead Door Company of Grand Rapids.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, see, thanks for coming back to that. Bred ask
that a moment ago, and I didn't quite get to it.
Relative to the return on investment for a homeowner, it's
one of the few items that has a positive return
on investment the moment that you put it in. According
to Remodel magazine in twenty twenty four, the return on
investment the moment you put a garage door in is
(04:53):
one hundred and two to one hundred and five percent.
So it's one of the very few things that you
have an immediate return as you upgrad your curb appeal.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Wow, So if you're selling your house, get a new
garage door along with painting things beige or whatever. I
don't want to step all over the realtor. I don't
know what color to paint the thing, assuming puce is
still out, but it would make sense to do it
right away.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Absolutely, And if you look at the cost of some
of the other upgrades of your house versus the return,
it's a tremendous return on investment.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I want to ask you about technology when it comes
to this, because these truly have become kind of and
nothing against the ladies. It could be the ladies cave,
I guess the man cave space where I've seen stereo
systems put out their TVs put out there, right And
with that, you want to have the control with your
garage door of what you can do. Obviously, make it safe,
make it so no one can break in. In my
(05:43):
particular space, I've got an extra back part of my garage,
so I've got a side door that's a garage door
that I can pull in if I want to have
jet skis in there or snowbills that I store in there.
So I mean, you can really get creative with this.
And I've seen that where it's like an extra house,
but it's really the guy or the gal's garage that
they have and they just have an entertainment space.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Certainly, we're doing a lot of barn dominiums these days,
exactly exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Does anyone use garage Mahal is.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That I think there's some of those as well. I
think it depends upon design, Steve, But yeah, so there
are those, and then there are the other elements of
technology that exists within the garage doors as well, which
where it's right from your smartphone and you can check
to see if the door is opened or closed, or
if you're having a service technician come over, I'll just
have them shoot me a text and say hey, we're here,
(06:32):
and I will go ahead and open the door remotely.
And so there are also all sorts of different interfaces
with your Google Home and your Amazon Alexa where you
can say, hey, Alexa, close my garage door. So it's
just about having those built in within your system. And
so that's available through the two different brands of openers
(06:52):
that we carry, which is the Overhead Door brand and
then also the lift Master brand.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We will invite you to check out Overhead Door GRT.
But lastly, what about the future. What kind of vision
do you see in the next five ten years for
Overhead to our company?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So our vision is to grow, not unlike any other business,
and we're going to grow through our people. Again, we
mentioned earlier the safety, the core values, and the processes
and systems, and so with those in place, along with
we just built a training center and the mesody of
our building so that we're able to train our technicians
faster to again provide a better experience for our customer base.
(07:29):
Those are the ways we intend to grow. We're certainly
moving forward with some field service software that we believe
will create a better user experience as well for our customers.
And so just putting all those pieces together and continuing
to grow our people in order to grow our business
is really the vision that we see. We would love
to and bid aspirational, take those tools and take our
people and make Grand Rapids the hub and possibly go
(07:52):
out to different locations and have those be the spokes
with the leaders of our business that take all those
skills with them being the leaders of those next locations.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Why wouldn't great answers to some questions this morning on
Talk of the Town with Todd Hart, who is the
owner of Overhead Door company of Grand Rapids and could
also be a twin brother, I don't know if you
noticed the resemblance. Yeah, it's like looking in a mirror again.
Overheadoorgr dot com. Todd, thank you so much for coming
in today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Man, thanks for having me today. Thank you, Steve, Thank
you Brett.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
This is Talk of the Town on news radio WOULD
thirteen hundred and one oh six nine FM.
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