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Logan Fahey, 26
Managing partner, Fahey Group; CEO, Robin Autopilot LOGAN FAHEY’S SUCCESS is rooted in failure. The managing partner of Fahey Group, a 3-year-old holding company and investment firm in Strongsville, has already started and ended more businesses and projects than many entrepreneurs twice his age. A landscaping business he started as a teenager, an advertising magazine and a painting company all fell apart before he took a job in finance he eventually left. And all that was well before a botched bid for a city council seat that ultimately steered the political junkie away from public affairs. “Those failures have all helped me,” said Fahey. “If I didn’t fail running for city council, if I didn’t have three ventures that completely failed early on, if I didn’t come close to filing bankruptcy and having the lights shut off, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” Today, Fahey is more than com-
fortable with building a business. Fahey Group operates several companies, including Landmark Lawn and Garden Supply of Avon, which sold its Strongsville location in 2019, and Robin Autopilot, a U.S. franchising platform for robotic mowers — a business he expects will take off in America in the coming years. Fahey also operates what was formerly known as Bloom Bakery, a small business previously run by Towards Employment to provide jobs for those with barriers to employment. Fahey designed the business concept himself before leaving the nonprofit for other opportunities — only to buy the business in 2019 after it failed. He plans to reopen Bloom as Fahey Bakehouse in late fall. Robin Autopilot is Fahey’s core focus. Having left the nonprofit world because of the red tape, he said he feels he can make a bigger impact on the
Mia Garcia, 29 Associate, Frantz Ward LLP MIA GARCIA LEARNED about empathy early on from parents who taught her to recognize and give back generosity in equal measure. A biracial background — Garcia’s mother is from Taiwan and her father’s family emigrated from Spain — had its own impact, leading her to understand different perspectives at a young age. Ingrained compassion has served Garcia well as an attorney with Frantz Ward’s business law group, where she guides individuals and businesses through complex trust and estate planning, nonprofit formation and corporate governance. “I’ve always been a naturally empathetic person, for better or worse,” Garcia said. “I want people to feel like they’re being taken care of.” A downtown Cleveland resident originally from Conneaut, Garcia handles wills, trusts, beneficiary designations and incapacity planning
forms for families facing the loss of a loved one. In her early 20s, Garcia cared for her own father before he died of cancer. Experiencing intense grief prepared the young attorney to lead tough conversations with clients in a calm, knowledgeable manner. A Case Western Reserve University law graduate, Garcia initially had criminal justice aspirations, but a summer working at the U.S. Attorney’s office turned her from adversarial courtroom litigation to a new path emphasizing community service. While at Frantz Ward, she began volunteering at Hospice of the Western Reserve, paying forward the care her family received during her father’s illness. Garcia supports her firm’s diversity and inclusion committees, recently developing guidance for a new mentorship program. She emphasizes the importance of relaying constructive criticism to attorneys of varied back-
Max Herzog, 26 Program manager, Cleveland Water Alliance GROWING UP IN MISSOURI, with his father a biology professor at Washington University and his mother working in philanthropy at St. Louis’ The Nature Conservancy, Max Herzog absorbed a great deal of their social consciousness and awareness of the impact humans have on the world around us. While studying political science and environmental studies at Oberlin College, Herzog spent three summers working with Foresight Prep, a pre-college institute based at Loyola University of Chicago that links interested high school students with professionals in the fields of sustainability and social justice. Herzog’s years in Oberlin familiarized him with Cleveland, which “checked all the boxes” as far as what he was looking for in a place to settle: a smaller, diverse city facing real issues where he could make an impact. “It’s easy to love this city,” he said.
Following graduation in 2016, he started work for the Cleveland Water Alliance, a network of Northeast Ohio public agencies, academic institutions and corporations whose aim is to foster economic development through water-related innovation. Herzog may be best known for his work there spearheading Erie Hack, a 2017-19 series of competitions that motivated more than 500 entrepreneurs and 100 partner organizations to devise technology solutions to tackle Lake Erie’s challenges. In addition to that work investing more than $200,000 into CWA’s innovation ecosystem, Herzog engaged over 300 Northeast Ohio high school students and college undergrads in hackathons and other Erie Hack projects. Another major project is the Smart Lake Erie Initiative, a collection of programs that brings the tech approach of the Smart Cities movement to natural
world in the realm for for-profit business. He still gets his dose of nonprofit work via the board of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. “I just thrive on the ability to really build something from scratch,” Fahey said. Randy Samsel, founder and CEO of eSearch Talent Solutions, met Fahey on the board of Towards Employment and then invested in Fahey Group due to the potential he sees in the business and the man running it. “Logan is not like most people his age. He has this combination of being able to recognize opportunity and thinking big. ... He’s an upbeat person with a mindset that has no fear,” said Samsel. To manage what Fahey has already achieved at 26, he added, is “unusual.” “I’m in the business of talking with people about their careers, and he’s already accomplished more in his career than what some people would view as a lifetime of achievement,” Samsel said. “He is absolutely destined for additional greatness.” — Jeremy Nobile grounds. “Lawyers are teachers for either clients or future attorneys,” she said. “You have to tell them when they make mistakes and navigate them through that.” Frantz Ward managing partner Christopher Keim noted that far from being a mere paper-pusher, Garcia recently orchestrated resolution of a bankruptcy litigation matter that saved a client from a seven-figure loss. “Mia brings thoughtful attention and detail to clients,” Keim said in an email. “She is first and foremost a problem-solver with a laser-like focus on the task at hand. The clients she works with truly appreciate her professional demeanor and responsiveness along with her good humor.” Garcia recalled how her father ended every phone conversation with “Do your best” and an appeal for grace in the face of adversity. “When things knock you down, the true definition of grit is how you respond,” Garcia said. “I still have so much more to learn, but I love being in a job that helps foster my thirst for knowledge.” — Douglas J. Guth resource management. In addition to generating research projects and industry collaborations, the initiative has so far landed Herzog more than 20 conference speaking engagements and multiple publications. His focus on sustainability and water extends to his volunteer activity as well, as an adviser and judge for the LIFT Intelligent Water Systems Challenge and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s multi-agency Nutrient Sensor Action Challenge. He also serves as an adviser and evaluator for an effort by Vermont to identify, accelerate and commercialize mitigation and beneficial reuse solutions for the state’s phosphorus imbalance situation. “Whether supporting innovation for industry giants like Moen and AT&T or leading democratization of water data through citizen science, Max has been instrumental in growing Cleveland’s Blue Economy,” Julius Ciaccia, senior adviser for Isle Utilities and former director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, wrote in his nomination of Herzog. — Michael von Glahn June 15, 2020 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 13
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