Saving blue-collar businesses

While many investors are searching for the next tech unicorn, other savvy funders are eyeing family-owned enterprises, the trades and so-called “dirty jobs.”

One of those investors is Mike Griffin (BSBA ’87), a partner at Griffin Brothers Companies (GBC) in Charlotte.

For three decades his passion was growing his family’s consortium of dirty businesses.

“We sold our founding business in 2016, and I thought that might be a time to start a private equity division and recruit people with an exceptional work ethic and limited means,” he says. “Now my passion is mentoring and coaching. I like to stay engaged with college kids, helping them find jobs and giving them advice. It’s about providing social capital.”

Griffin created ZoomUp Investments to fund and grow business in the dirty-jobs category, and mentors young business people – his Zoomers – who are the majority owners of the companies.

Creating legacy businesses

“I’m trying to find young people who want to grow well beyond their personal needs and need capital, mentoring and a path,” says Griffin. “Generational wealth is what I’m preaching.”

The original thought was to buy legacy-challenged family businesses. Griffin and Austin Helms (BSBA ’16), an entrepreneur apprentice (EA), met with 40 owners to share their vision of purchasing their businesses when they were ready to retire and then place young entrepreneurs to lead them.

“So many blue-collar businesses are owned by baby boomers, 10,000 of whom turn 65 every day, and many of these businesses close upon their retirement or death. We’re in danger of losing those businesses if they don’t find the next generation of leaders,” Griffin notes. “Chapel Hill does a great job teaching leadership. If I can talk young men and women into considering a leadership position in these fields, I know they’ll be successful.”

But matching the owners’ timing with Zoomers’ readiness was difficult, so he turned his focus to helping young entrepreneurs start businesses in those industries.

Entrepreneur Apprentices

Since 2008, Griffin has hired seven EAs to work side-by-side with him for one to three years while they fine tune their entrepreneurial skills.

It is no surprise that all seven EAs are Tar Heels: Justin Mueller (MBA ’08), Macon Carroll (BA ’10, MBA ’14), Helms, Tyler Tonnesen (BSBA ’18), Nicolas “Nico” Gómez (BSBA ’19), Austin Bryant (BA ’22, MAC ’25) and Jared Porter (BA ’24).

“My hope is that an apprentice transitions into a Zoomer, and then serves as the primary operator and majority owner of a ZoomUp company,” says Griffin.

Graduating to become Zoomers

Today the ZoomUp portfolio has 10 companies and 14 Zoomers. A Zoomer leads the acquired business and owns up to 90% of the business.

UNC is fertile ground for ZoomUp partners. Jerome Trehy (BA ’09, MBA ’16) worked at Charlotte-based Red Ventures before becoming Griffin’s inaugural Zoomer. He acquired Roland Black Heating and Cooling, a 46-year-old business.

Helms became the seventh Zoomer with the creation of NuBlue Service Group with licensed partner Derek Thornburg. “With Derek’s experience and Austin’s passion, we started it,” Griffin notes. “Now Austin is learning the business from the bottom up. He’s turning wrenches during the day and figuring the business side at night. We achieved $45,000 revenue in the first month, hired a third plumber and bought his fourth truck.”

Houston Summers (BA ’16) and Sebastian Williams (BA ’10) worked as consultants for Deloitte and IBM, respectively, before becoming Zoomers. They created Ravel, which performs water and fire restoration and preventative maintenance services for residential and commercial properties. In 2020, through the ZoomUp model, they acquired Sasser Restoration, an established commercial disaster recovery and restoration business.

Showing gratitude

Griffin’s dedication to the Business School and University is deep, but it didn’t start out that way.

“I wasn’t happy about the liberal arts curriculum – I just wanted business,” Griffin laughs. “I didn’t feel I had time for psychology or things like that. I resentfully signed up for an interpersonal communications class and it was one of the most impactful classes I took. It made me think about human behavior and understanding yourself better so you can understand others. Today I attribute Chapel Hill’s liberal arts focus with giving me a more diverse education. I resented it, but it might be the most important stuff I learned.”

Fraternal organizations provided other transformative moments. Griffin joined Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity his junior year and became one of its leaders. Then he and a group of friends started a social fraternity, Delta Sigma Phi, where he got a taste of being an entrepreneur, running their house and its business dealings.

“Until my senior year, I thought I’d go work for a big accounting firm, but I fell in love with starting that fraternity,” Griffin says. “When one of my dad’s vendors took me to lunch, we talked about that and he helped me realize that I could do that same entrepreneurial thing within my father’s business. Having that experience at Chapel Hill, plus the education I got at the Business School, I knew I could grow and diversify the business my dad spent almost 30 years building.”

Griffin isn’t just a financial supporter and employer of Carolina graduates – he’s also deeply involved in the life of UNC Kenan-Flagler. He has shared his time, expertise and insights with the community, serving on the UNC Kenan-Flagler board and the Family Enterprise Center board of advisors and mentoring students.

In a new venture, Griffin hopes to replicate the ZoomUp business model at UNC in the form of a new curriculum, hosted at The PITCH, which teaches ambitious students how to run a small business and then selects the most promising to join an apprenticeship network so they can connect with the thousands of UNC alumni who are successful business owners.

Carolina was a blessing, says Griffin. “About 10 years ago, I started reflecting. I connected the dots that a lot of my success could be attributed to my experiences at Carolina, academically and socially. I felt like I had this debt to pay back. So, I give back.”