When a business has been around for more than a century, it obviously has found a model for success.
The key to the longevity of the Andy J. Egan Company can be found in the core values of integrity and generosity the company established at the start and that it stays true to now.
And that determination to stay true to itself helped Andy J. Egan Company claim the prestigious honor as the overall winner among small businesses at the 2025 West Michigan’s Best and Brightest Companies To Work For® event.
‘We have such a wonderful team and keep that priority on the work-life balance,’ said Abbey Tutas, human resources associate with Andy J. Egan. ‘Everyone is super dedicated to … the work we do but also want to have fun and be able to recognize people for the hard work that they do. I think that keeps them engaged in their job.
‘(The award) means a lot to the entire company,’ she added. ‘We work so hard throughout the entire year, all work together as a team day in and day out. So, to be honored for that work really means everything.’
The ceremony, held before some 300 people at The Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville, honored dozens of businesses from the West Michigan region in 14 ‘elite’ categories, including three overall winners.
It’s all designed to recognize organizations that display a commitment to excellence in their human resource practices and employee enrichment.
Best of the Best – Large Business
Bronson Healthcare Group, a healthcare provider covering Kalamazoo, Calhoun and Van Buren counties, was named the overall winner among large businesses.
Bronson excels in delivering outstanding service but also has a profound impact in its community and with its employees. Last year alone, the company provided over $147 million in uncompensated benefits to Southwest and South-Central Michigan, averaging $402,000 daily in free or subsidized care and programs.
Their commitment to community extends beyond just healthcare — through initiatives like the local market offering fresh, locally sourced foods and programs that assist individuals with insurance enrollment. They offer cancer prevention education through culturally sensitive outreach and have addressed health disparities by distributing free colon cancer screening kits to individuals with limited access to healthcare and launching educational sessions to boost screening.
‘One of the things about Bronson is we really are about educating our employees, promoting women, encouraging them to continue to learn,’ said Kristan Rudd, a talent acquisition specialist with Bronson. ‘Dreams always come from behind you, not between your eyes. It’s upon you, our culture, our engagement, but when you have a dream, it doesn’t often come at you screaming in your face.
‘During Covid we faced a lot of challenges,’ she added. ‘Since Covid, we’ve increased almost 2,000 employees, which is amazing. We keep expanding surfaces and bringing on new things, so it’s been helpful.’
Best of the Best – Medium Business
Mercantile Bank, a Grand Rapids-based financial institution offering personal, business and mortgage banking solutions, was named 2025’s Best and Brightest Medium Business overall winner.
Mercantile has made significant strides in fostering an environment where employees feel valued and engaged. Among the many initiatives to enhance the employee experience, they have implemented flexible hybrid remote work, introduced Jean Day Fridays, and enriched their vacation schedule.
The creation of a Fun Committee and the introduction of a Day of Giving, where employees can use paid time to volunteer, highlight their commitment to creating a positive and inclusive culture. Additionally, increased annual tuition reimbursement reflects their dedication to supporting both personal and professional growth.
Tina VanValkenberg, a senior HR partner with Mercantile, said the bank was proud to be recognized for its efforts.
‘It truly means that we’re doing the right things, especially by our employees,’ she said. ‘We’re investing in our employees, giving them what they need, listening to them, supporting them.’
In addition to the three overall winners, elite awards were handed out in 11 other categories. They included:
Civility and Inclusion: The winner, SpartanNash, fosters a culture of civility and inclusion through meaningful actions that reflect deep respect for all individuals. Employees for the Byron Center, Mich.-based food distributor receive cultural and anti-harassment training, and internal materials, such as manuals and training that are available in multiple languages to ensure equal access to information. The company recruits talent from culturally diverse colleges and
specialized firms and supports veterans through engagement programs and a Veterans Day event that includes a commemorative coin ceremony. Team committees build connections across backgrounds, and understanding is promoted through a cultural learning center and events that celebrate global traditions.
Communications and Shared Vision: BDO USA PC sets a high standard for communication and shared vision through a well-rounded, inclusive approach that keeps every team member informed, engaged, and connected.
Senior leaders model transparency by using videos, roundtables, and direct letters to communicate strategic goals and company values. Communication flows in both directions—employees share feedback through surveys, discussion forums, and town hall meetings.
Community Initiatives and Corporate Responsibility: Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan has shown a strong commitment to corporate responsibility by supporting initiatives that promote healthier, more connected lives.
Through corporate contributions, it funds nonprofits across the state that improve access to health care, nutritious food, and education. Employee-led campaigns, like the milk match program, have raised thousands for local food banks, and donations on Giving Tuesday were matched to support organizations across multiple regions. The organization tackles pressing health issues — like heart disease, maternal care, and mental wellness — by sponsoring educational events and supporting awareness campaigns. Through employee and executive volunteer programs, staff make a direct impact, further solidifying the company’s role as a trusted community partner.
Compensation, Benefits and Employee Solutions: Hungerford CPAs + Advisors, a full-service tax, accounting and business advisory firm in Grand Rapids, has crafted a comprehensive benefits package that balances both tangible and intangible offerings to meet the diverse needs of its team.
Despite rising health plan costs, they’ve ensured their employees receive comprehensive coverage with minimal premiums, even becoming self-funded in 2024 and providing ample notice of the change.
They also cover the costs for professional education, dues, and offer 100% tuition reimbursement. Beyond the standard benefits, they host family oriented social events, catered dinners during peak seasons, and celebrate major life milestones.
Creative Wellness and Wellbeing Solutions: Consumers Credit Union, based in Oshtemo, Mich., and offering personal and business banking services, launched several creative initiatives that focus not only on financial wellness but also on physical, emotional, and family health.
They provide a robust 401(k) program with 100% matching contributions to ease financial burdens. They also introduced Centivo Care, a mobile app that provides 24/7 access to primary care and healthcare navigation at no cost to employees or their families.
Their wellness program extends beyond gym memberships to include a comprehensive wellness reimbursement for a wide range of activities, including childcare and fitness classes like yoga and HIIT. To help with wellness goals for accountability, employees earn cash incentives for their participation.
Employee Achievement and Recognition: Grand Rapids-based Lake Michigan Credit Union has created a robust culture of recognition, with divisional award events hosted by the C-Suite to celebrate staff and foster team unity. These themed events reward top performers with days off, monetary bonuses, and crystal awards. When in-person gatherings became impossible, the company adapted by hosting creative virtual events, broken into daily sessions over a week to accommodate staff schedules.
Beyond these major events, the company has built a comprehensive recognition culture. Peer-to-peer PRIDE awards honor employees who embody core company values, while departmental achievements are highlighted in the CEO’s monthly newsletter. The organization also offers spontaneous ‘Put Em’ Ups’ for on-the-spot recognition and provides an intranet page for staff to share success stories, promotions, and milestones. Other initiatives like service awards, retirement gifts, memorial trees for fallen staff, and bonus programs further demonstrate the company’s commitment to celebrating employees and ensuring that everyone feels valued and appreciated.
Employee Education and Development: Total Quality Logistics demonstrates a strong commitment to continuous learning and professional growth, offering a variety of educational initiatives designed to support both new hires and current leaders.
They have developed an internal training program to help transition new employees into the company, providing a mix of industry training, sales training, and hands-on practical experience, all while offering competitive salaries and benefits.
Their Learning & Development team creates specialized training materials and ensures their team stays updated on modes and services. Leadership development is a priority, with an in-house department focused on cultivating leadership skills, and an impressive 90% of sales leadership is promoted from within.
Employee Enrichment, Engagement and Retention: Gun Lake Casino Resort in Wayland, Mich., excels in fostering an engaged and enriched workforce by seamlessly blending communication, recognition, and employee-driven initiatives.
At the heart of their culture is the personalized company app, which connects Team Members across departments with real-time updates, interactive Q&A forums, and spotlights on anniversaries, promotions, and achievements. They actively encourage employees to shape their workplace through the Bright Ideas platform, where employees can submit suggestions that are personally reviewed by the executive team.
Recruitment and Selection: LRS, an independent waste diversion, recycling and portable services provider, successfully onboarded over 600 new employees in the last year, driven by dynamic growth and expansion. This company understands the importance of not only growing its teams but also retaining and mentoring these new hires to ensure they have the tools and support needed to thrive.
Their recruitment strategy is built on extremely effective methods, including internal job postings, employee referrals, social media sites, campus recruitment, state employment agencies, and job fairs. These efforts have been instrumental in attracting the right candidates, ensuring a strong and scalable workforce that will continue to drive the company’s success.
The making of a great team begins with careful recruitment and selection, where the team ensures each member is not only a perfect fit in terms of skills but also shares the same vision, work ethic, and passion for success.
Leadership, Strategy, and Company Performance: the HR team at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital plays a critical role in driving performance and growth. Through Talent Acquisition and Retention, they attract top-tier talent while refining strategies to keep a high-performing workforce.
The Employee Engagement function fosters a positive culture by offering ongoing development opportunities, boosting both satisfaction and productivity.
Additionally, the Learning and Development department ensures employees have the technical and soft skills needed to meet organizational and client needs.
HR also works closely with C-suite leaders, holding weekly discussions on company performance and contributing to strategic planning, while assessing the effectiveness of leadership across all levels.
Strong leadership within a high-performing team is about creating an environment where individuals are empowered to grow, take initiative, and align their efforts with the broader strategy, ultimately driving company performance.
Work-Life Blend: University of Michigan Health West has mastered the art of work-life blend. As a 24/7 operation, this organization understands that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
They’ve made it a priority to foster an environment where well-being caters to diverse needs. From unlimited PTO for salaried employees to flexible schedules and remote work options, this organization empowers its workforce to take control of their time and manage personal responsibilities without compromising productivity.
They’ve created a culture where employees are trusted, valued, and equipped to succeed in both their professional and personal lives. In this company trust is the key to productivity and hence work-life blend. This reduces burnout and fosters long-term commitment.
Of course, the conference honored dozens of other companies as being among West Michigan’s Best and Brightest Companies. Some are veteran winners, while others are new to the success.
For instance, Rehmann, a fully integrated, professional advisory and asset management firm, has been a Best and Brightest winner for 23 years.
‘It’s a huge honor,’ said Katie Stewart, a senior manager and human resources consultant at Rehmann. ‘We really focus on our culture and engagement. One of our values is putting people first, and we really live that out.’
Meanwhile Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, located in Grand Rapids and featuring sculptures and horticultural landscapes, earned a third straight award.
‘For us it’s a chance to be able to give back and celebrate the fact this is such an awesome honor,’ said HR Manager Audrey Koster. ‘We’re proud to have won it and want to celebrate the other people who have. We have been really innovative and moving things forward. We try to do everything we can to listen to our employees and make some changes based on the things they ask us.’
The event itself was a success, drawing more than 300 people to The Pinnacle Center. That kind of success draws the attention of sponsors at a variety of levels.
‘It speaks to our culture and who we are,’ said Shawn Barber, training and development specialist for Roman Manufacturing, a Gold Sponsor. ‘We want to build up and support not only our own people but also to be big advocates for the community. We believe in being good stewards to the community, whether it’s local or the business community. These events mean a lot. They can allow companies to show off the great things they’re doing and how they’re supporting people.’
Pearls Of Wisdom
An enthusiastic crowd recently gathered at the Pinnacle Center in New Hudson to honor a variety of business leaders from the West Michigan region in the annual Best and Brightest Companies To Work For® competition.
Dozens of winners were recognized, including 14 winners in ‘elite’ categories. Among them were the best overall winners among small, medium and large businesses.
But picking up awards wasn’t their only contribution to the day. Several CEOs imparted some of the reasons for the success that earned them the honors, taking part in a panel discussion.
The discussion, moderated by Jennifer Kluge. President and CEO of the National Association for Business Resources and the Best and Brightest Programs, featured:
Michael J. Alcala, the vice chairman Board of Directors and CEO Emeritus of GNS North America, an automotive supplier of hot and conventional stamp components.
TJ Estabrook, the managing partner at Pella Windows and Doors by HORNE.
Kelly Springer, CEO at Metal Flow Corporation, a worldwide leader in deep draw and progressive dice stamping.
Scott Sylvester, CEO at Consumers Credit Union.
Here’s a sample of the discussion:
Question: There’s been much change in the world these past few months. Setting politics aside, how have the most recent legislative changes and or executive orders impacted your operations, your team, your culture, and your strategy? And then what does the next six months look like for you?
Springer: We’re in the metal stamping business, and so tariffs have certainly been a key topic for us. We have production facilities that are located in Holland, Michigan, and we also have a production facility in Musi, China. So, our customer base is based around the world. Tariffs are a big conversation for us. And when we think about it from the operations perspective, we’ve really keyed in on the message of what are internally things that we can control and externally, what can’t we control? And trying to guide our operational team members to really focus on things that we have to control every day to be successful.
Alcala: Tariffs are on our agenda as well, and really, for us as a company, we’re fortunate that it hasn’t had an impact so far, especially in our Michigan facilities. We do have some impact with fasteners that we get from Canada and China, but at least for the short term that has been it from a financial impact.
Estabrook: We are a little bit more insulated. We are an independent distributor, so I’m not part of the manufacturer. We’re just in 60 counties in Michigan. Our replacement division is the one that’s been impacted the most. As we all know, consumer confidence has been low over the last handful of months because of the uncertainty out there, and we’re seeing significantly less appointments for replacement, and I think people are just a little fearful.
Question: Let’s talk about culture. These are award-winning cultures, obviously that’s why you’re on the stage as the CEO or as the leader. What do you do to make sure that there’s a strong culture in your company?
Sylvester: It starts with the hiring process and if you’re hiring somebody in accounting, clearly the people in accounting are making that interview happen to see if it’s the right fit. But that’s just the first step in our organization. We have a team that basically is a cultural fit interview and its individuals throughout our company that participate in that. Every new hire has to go through that interview. Then we only hire in groups once per month. So a group comes in, it’s really like a cohort for their career at Consumers Credit Union.
Alcala: I think probably one of the biggest things that I did was created an operating model and really led the rebuilding of the culture. Culture is everything. Every day we’ve got a basic philosophy that performance is a consequence of business process and behaviors and that our job as leaders is to inspire and to build those conditions that result in those behaviors and that performance.
Question: We hear so much about talent … talent woes, talent gains, not the right people in the right seats, shortage of talent. Can you walk us through what your current situation is with talent?
Springer: Everybody has those talent challenges. I think it’s looking ahead for us, I think of our talent really simplistically. We talk about our people, our processes, our products, and having pride. Our people are our greatest asset. And when we think about that, we can have great technology, great equipment, we can make great investments, but it takes great people. And for us, we have great technically sophisticated product that we make for great customers, but we need great technical talent. And when we have to fill that pipeline, we need our apprentices to grow and develop.
Estabrook: The most important thing that we do is our recruiting efforts. Our executive team is involved in every aspect of it, and the reason it’s so important is we are looking for the right fit and we have an extensive process. We have 2-on-1 interviews, and we have a panel interview. This is largely sales folks and then management level folks. But the whole point behind this process … At the end of the day, if you don’t get the right fit, it’s going to be a mistake for you and for that other party.
Leading Through Change
A second panel discussion centered on businesses being able to lead through change. Moderated by Becky Ploeg, vice president of people and culture at Grand Rapids-based Comfort Research, the panel talked about the various ways they’re leading the way during a time of continual change.
The discussion included:
Mary Cook, the Executive Director of Human Resources at Air Lift Company.
Jennifer Koster, the Chief People Officer at Liv Communities.
Mandi Lucchesi, the culture manager at Lake Michigan Credit Union.
Luke McCotter, the Executive Vice President and Chief People and Sustainability Officer at ADAC.
Here’s some of the discussion:
Question: How do you ensure that employee engagement still maintains its level of importance and becomes a strategic necessity with all the change coming?
Koster: I think the best example that I can think of in my career was actually when we were going through a disposition of our senior living communities. That was a lot of rapid change for the entire organization. And one thing we did is I was working with an executive coach at the time, and she challenged me to cast a vision to the team who was leading the change. We started with the question, what if this was actually the best thing that happened to everyone involved? So, the buyer, the sellers, the team members, the residents, what if this change was something that could be positive even if it wasn’t necessarily originally thought of that way? And a beautiful thing happened from that vision is that the change leadership team decided that they wanted to have a goal of what’s next for every single person.
Cook: At Air Lift, we have a couple things. I work with a bunch of engineers and accountants, and they don’t always embrace the people side. So, I try to speak their language. We spend an inordinate amount of time and effort and money on ensuring our culture is solid and fun and exciting. And all of our people … choose to stay because of our culture.
Question: How are important decisions communicated in your company and what data or information do you share?
Cook: At Air Lift, we subscribe to a management philosophy called breaking business. GGOB and the two main tenets of GGOB is for your employees to think and act like owners and to get a stake in the outcome. And so, with that, their stake in the outcome is what we call gain share. It’s an annual bonus based on our revenues. So, every month we have a gain share meeting where we go over basically the state of the business, we share financials, we share our products that are in development … and we make sure that everybody understands the financials.
Koster: We use the Rockefeller habits … it starts with our one-page strategic plan for the whole company. We have our quarterly tough rocks that flow from that, and then monthly team meetings, maybe weekly or biweekly one-on-ones and then the all-important daily huddle. As an executive leadership team, we meet every week, and we can then have all of that information passed down through those meeting rhythms outlined in the Rockefeller habits very quickly throughout the whole organization because we have a very small group of people at many different locations.
The transparency is very important with every company and what we have been doing, again, we have new leadership, and we have been making sure that it’s a priority that we’re being very intentional with transparency and communication.
McCotter: A couple of things that we’ve changed at ADAC over the years is the executive team now meets weekly, which keeps us directly on pace with where we’re going. In years past, the executive team would be kind of … doing a catch-up and it was way more reactive and proactive than communication that trickles down throughout the organization. So, we go from weekly executive meetings to a monthly management meeting and over the last two years we created a dashboard that was more visual. So, everything from the financial performance to people, metrics to production and operations as well as sales. The dashboard is very crystal clear and it’s either red, green or orange depending on where we’re at our performance. It creates transparency because it’s very clear where we’re at, what’s performing well and what’s not, and then we can refocus the organization on where we go from there.
Question: Retention and engagement are harder than ever. We’ve seen a lot of new and cutting-edge offerings by employers to address the engagement and retention piece. What are some tangible tools or best practices?
Lucchesi: We have a lot of different programs that we offer our employees. First off, we have our engagement survey that we do every year and just completed our second year and had hired the last year’s participation, which is amazing. We have feedback sessions so that all voices can be heard and it may be something that can have an actionable item to it that we can work on throughout the year. So, we want to make sure that our employees’ voices are being heard, that they feel seen, that they know that they’re valued. We do have programs like our wellness champions that do offer Andersons of gym memberships and challenges each quarter in some of the fun things that we like to get into, make sure that we’re active, the predominant challenge, which we make it as simple as possible so as many people want to participate and that’s part of the engagement and that retention.
McCotter: So, I think one of the best things we did a year and a half ago… we launched a recognition platform. Over the years we talk about, ‘hey, we need some different ways to recognize our operators day in day out.’ When something gets done on the line or they point out a quality issue, how do we recognize them in the moment? And that platform has been phenomenal and the usage has gone up every month since. One of the things that has been great about our new executive team is we’ve kind of acknowledged we don’t have to have all the answers. And as we’ve talked through, ‘Hey, I’ve got an issue with this employee or this person’s doing really well, what can we do with them from a career path that maybe I haven’t thought of?’
