We are thrilled to congratulate Calen Vesper on her recent promotion to Senior Accountant! 🎉 Calen joined the team as an administrative assistant back in 2016. And we quickly learned what a rockstar team member she is. While excelling in her administrative duties, Calen began taking on more bookkeeping and general accounting functions until she earned the role of staff accountant in 2019. Calen reports to Rose Fetters, Director of Finance, who is thrilled to have another Innovator who loves numbers and spreadsheets as much as she does! Rose has been constantly impressed with the way Calen rises to every challenge. Calen is responsible for Innovative's general ledger. She spends her days reviewing reconciliations, managing the close process, and analyzing financial statements. She also plays a key role in the overall budgeting and forecasting process while managing the general office administration. As if that wasn't enough to keep her busy, Calen is currently working on finishing her associate degree in accounting at Hagerstown Community College. "Innovative is committed to creating pathways for our team to grow along with the company. Calen's promotion is another example of how we're successfully building out our leadership team from within," Rose said. If you've been paying attention, you'll know this is one of many recent Innovative promotions as we've been actively growing our team, ramping up for future expansion. We created more than ten new positions and expanded our leadership team through internal promotions over the past year.

It's been an exciting few months for the Innovative team! We're thrilled to congratulate two of our earliest employees on their recent promotions to the highest ranks of Innovative's executive team.

Here we grow again! Twenty-twenty-one has been an exciting year filled with big changes and accomplishments. Over the Summer, we expanded our management team and promoted five employees to newly created management positions. Now, we’re thrilled to introduce six new employees we’ve welcomed to the Innovative family over the past few months.

Today was what we call a big, freaking deal at Innovative. And for all the RIGHT reasons. First off, it was our very first, post-COVID in-person, all-hands company meeting. 🙌That means real-life friends and company-sponsored breakfast goodies 🍩 that tasted way better than whatever day-old muffins we’ve scrounged up in our kitchens the past year and a half. Secondly, our chief Innovator, Jason, announced not one, not two, but FIVE internal staff promotions! ❗ That’s right – this little two-person computer shop that started 20 years ago now how as a full-fledged management team of home-grown leaders. Pretty cool, huh? 😎

Innovative, The Community Foundation of Washington County and Family Healthcare of Hagerstown partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Washington County (BGCWC) on a $122,355 technology overhaul at the BGCWC's four locations. The project will give the Boys and Girls Club of Washington County the necessary tools to work from home and more efficiently share digital information between locations; give the kids they serve reliable access to online learning and virtual activities; and maintain network security, information privacy, and children's online safety.

Family, education, and community are the primary themes of the legacy the Mellott family is building through their 100-year-old family business. But what exactly is Mellott Company? Mellott Company crushes it. No, really. That's what they do. Headquartered in Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania, Mellott builds, sells, and services rock crushing equipment worldwide. So...what does that mean? Look at your concrete sidewalk. That concrete started as giant rocks mined from a quarry and crushed down into gravel. That gravel, when mixed with some other ingredients, turns into your concrete sidewalk. In a nutshell, Mellott Company engineers, builds, repairs, and maintains the equipment that turns rocks into gravel. Cool, right? Even cooler, when you talk to Mellott Company employees, you're likely to hear more about training, education, and personal and professional development than you are about concrete and rocks. That's precisely what happened when I sat down to chat with Mellott's Chief Financial Officer, Mike Sappenfield.

What do you think of when you think of an HVAC company? Quirky culture, modern technology, and participative leadership may not be the first things that come to mind. But those are the characteristics of McIntire HVAC that stood out after sitting down for coffee with Shelley McIntire, Owner/President/Heart of the Company, and Sarah Elwood, Creative Director. Bill McIntire, Co-Owner/Founder/Estimator, joined us in spirit while he was busy getting his crew up to speed for their morning job assignments (sorry, Bill, we'll make the next one a happy hour when you can join us 🍺).

Your business isn’t just like anyone else’s. So, why would you work with vendors who claim to help everyone? You’re not everyone. You have specific things you’re trying to accomplish. You might be expanding into a different market, researching new products and services, or preparing to downsize as you approach retirement. Your service providers must align with where you’re trying to go. They must help you get closer to that goal. Otherwise, what are you paying them for? Innovative is a managed service provider. We handle everything in your business that plugs into a network jack (or has a wireless connection) – that’s your servers, computers, phones, printers, and copiers. By that description, it sounds like most any business could be a great Innovative client. But here’s the not-so-secret secret, anyone with some basic tech skills can install and troubleshoot computers, servers, phones, printers, and copiers (i.e., technology). Innovative’s value comes from helping businesses communicate better and generate more useful information (i.e., money-making information) with their technology. Long story short, it doesn’t make sense for you to hire us if technology can’t make a positive impact on your business and profitability.

Innovative has much more to offer than just our technology and business expertise. We proved that last Thursday when our team put their blood, sweat, and hopefully not too many tears into cleaning 103 historic gravestones for the Sharpsburg Historical Society during United Way of Washington County's Day of Caring. We learned a lot about cemetery preservation and were assisted and trained on proper stone cleaning techniques by Robert Mosko and his crew from Mosko Cemetery and Monument Services. Here, Robert gives us a demonstration of how to properly clean a gravestone with just water and a scrub brush.