NEW BREMEN — Steve Hartwig, owner of Gilberg-Hartwig Funeral Home here, was named Business Person of the Year during the annual meeting, Tuesday, of the Southwest Auglaize County Chamber of Commerce.
During a luncheon in the Faith Alliance Church, chamber President Logan O’Neill said the award recognizes an entrepreneur who, by his efforts, has significantly and positively influenced his business and/or community.
O’Neill quoted Hartwig’s nominator in saying, “Steve has dedicated his life to serving New Bremen and the wider community. Not only is he dedicated to his business, but he serves on many community boards and is active in his church. He also volunteers to run the clock for the New Bremen High School boys and girls games and has served the New Bremen-New Knoxville Rotary Club in various capacities for many years.”
Also honored were the St. Paul United Church of Christ New Bremen Discipleship Team and the village of Minster. The former earned the Special Achievement Award for bringing value and improving the quality of life beyond its immediate community. The village garnered the Community and Business Pride Award.
The Discipleship Team hosts Family Fun Nights, Summer Porch Parties and Canvas & Coffee events. Recently the group began hosting community meals for the surrounding community. These meals were geared toward the shut-in, homebound, widowed and otherwise lonely folk of the area, but the project has blossomed into a full-blown occasion once a month for people of all sorts to get together and enjoy a good meal. Another large project the group established is a blessing cabinet, which is a cabinet of free items, such as laundry soap, toilet paper, diapers, wipes and shampoos, that cannot be purchased with funds from government assistance programs. The items are available to anyone in the community who needs them.
Minster was honored for its solar project.
“The Community and Business Pride Award is given to a business or organization that has made changes to its operation by expansion, renovation or significant growth, and has made a significant, positive impact on the community in which it operates,” O’Neill said. The solar panels installed in Minster allowed the village to reduce the energy cost to the village and its residents and businesses. The project has allowed for a sustainable energy source that did not require any investment from the village or the taxpayers. The immediate results of this project spurred an expansion of Dannon that will be run solely on solar energy and create up to 100 new jobs. Future community solar projects will allow residents to “go green” and purchase solar panels and in turn receive credits once the initial investment is paid off.
New Bremen native Steve Cashdollar, of Indianapolis, was the guest speaker. The founder of Inspiring Greatness, a series of online leadership and motivational courses, he recently published a book, “Simple Courage.”
“I’ve been interested since I was in my 20s in this idea of courage,” he told the 90 chamber members and New Bremen High School students who attended the meeting. “It didn’t come easy, understanding this idea.”
Cashdollar related stories about people who had overcome adversity to succeed, including tennis great Roger Crawford and Australian runner Cliff Young.
But first, he talked about himself.
“Tracy Roller called me. She was the most winning coach in Ball State University history. She said, ‘I need your help.’”
Cashdollar had helped to motivate the school’s swim, baseball and golf teams and had dreamed about being asked to work with a Division I basketball team. This was the oppportunity he had been waiting for.
“We’re playing tomorrow night and my team’s falling apart,” he quoted Roller as saying. He thought about what he might do and called her back.
“I told her, ‘I can’t do it,’” he said. “I still regret it eight years later. I was afraid. Lack of courage doesn’t serve anyone. Too much fear doesn’t serve us either.”
Cashdollar encouraged his audience to move out of their comfort zones.
“When you stretch your comfort zone, it never goes back,” he said. “If you have a dream that’s bigger or better or different, it’s just a little bit outside your comfort zone. Change your fear to curiosity and your curiosity to discovery.”
He suggested that listeners take the Signature Strength Test at authentichappiness.com to learn what their 24 key strengths are.
“Then focus on the top five or six,” he said. Utilizing strengths gives one more energy, more fun and less stress, and success comes a little easier.
He quoted author Deepak Chopra: “Everything you do makes a difference.” And he urged people to take responsibility for the outcomes of their decisions.
“Event plus response equals outcome. Humans have a tendency to blame the event but what we can change is the response,” Cashdollar said. “Your homework is to take full responsibility for a week: no blame, no criticism, no gossip, no judgment.”
He also noted that to succeed, one must have a purpose and focus on the purpose rather than how to achieve a goal.
“The brain is like a GPS. You have to punch in a direction. The how can get in the way too soon. Focus on the what. Visualize the end result.”
He ended by quoting Jack Canfield, author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” with whom Cashdollar collaborated to teach the STAR training program in major corporations throughout North America: “Just start. Do it. Start anywhere.”
Chamber board Chairman Travis Elsass welcomed attendees to open the meeting. Faith Alliance Church Senior Pastor Trent Fledderjohann gave the invocation.
