ABOUT US
To learn about who we are (TLG Founders Greg and Jessica), check out our bios here (TLG Founder Bios). Read on for The TLG story.
It’s fair to say that we come from a line of strong-willed entrepreneurs who have enjoyed the experience of being our own bosses since our family migrated here from Germany several generations ago. Find us a Lueck who disagrees… Needless to say, working together and building businesses has been a deep part of our family history.
It began with Greg’s father Anthony who started Lueck’s Home Improvement in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Greg’s several siblings and he all grew up fixing, installing, and (you guessed it) building things. This “improve it” trait has been a strong characteristic of the family and carried Lueck’s into its now, third generation, amongst several other similar (and different) businesses in the family.
Greg’s personal entrepreneurial ventures have included Firehouse Glass, North Bank Artist’s Community Project, and Centerstance, which in some way have all impacted our family – but Firehouse in particular is our collective favorite venture and hobby. To provide a bit of context: it’s a public access glassblowing studio Greg and his wife Rebecca (who is one of the best project managers around, an established artist and entrepreneur in her own right) founded in Vancouver, WA. It was Jessica’s first job around age 12 working sales in the gallery and has been a fun father / daughter art activity since its origin. Further, along with the above mentioned “Lueck influence,” has provided the inspiration for Greg’s son Andrew’s career in glassblowing and general craftsmanship, as he manages Firehouse and has an independent construction and custom art installation business (not to mention the excitement of raising 6 kids!). Anyway, Firehouse’s original logo was a roof with flames under it (you can visit Firehouse Glass’s website here), which might sound a bit similar to our logo for The Lueck Group – it is!
The funny thing is, it happened by accident. A little backstory - in the conception of The Lueck Group, Greg and Jessica were having parallel processes in deciding what were their next career steps. Jessica was considering how to become more independent to take advantage of academic, consulting, public speaking, coaching…i.e. a diversity of fulfilling engagements and finding it difficult to find roles that would support the development and application of all the expertise acquired through educational and professional pursuits. Greg had recently retired from NTT DATA and was convinced he was going to take the summer off and then figure it out but knew he wasn’t done playing in the Salesforce space. As things go with networking and timing, one conversation led to another and the convergence of an offering was born based on our joint expertise that was quite comprehensive for organizations – especially growing businesses in the Salesforce ecosystem.
So, here we were on a random partially cloudy day in Washington, Jessica and Greg were brainstorming about the as yet unnamed idea– Jessica taking the lead on documenting and organizing our initial offering and Greg rattling off additional considerations and insights while repairing the side of the house - specifically, nailing in siding from the latest home improvement project, repairing water damage! This is just a typical day of projecting for Greg. And for Jessica too, working with and around the “parallel building” as Greg calls it (don’t worry, we won’t expect you to master this skill!). You just never know how inspiration strikes though because later in the day we were actually seated inside, finishing developing our model for our company assessment and talking about the different empirically validated models as well as the ones we had seen applied in business. We deduced several things about them and agreed, we needed our own. We analyzed the pros and cons of the typical models – wheels, pyramids, pillars, etc. and none seemed to quite fit the desired intention. Eventually some brainstorming of categories and coloring with markers later, we had our buckets laid out and reorganized and somehow in our drawing, they had turned into siding planks on a house (see our Consulting & Advising offerings page for a visual). What resulted is a model that plays on a metaphor we think is great: organizations are like houses. They both need a solid foundation to build on and several critical components are required to withstand time and conditions. There is no doubt the siding project inspired this model.
Once the model was created we still had to find a name. And the reality is, neither of us were terribly stuck on this because we couldn’t come up with anything great that wasn’t taken (the glories of corporate America and being an entrepreneur!). Further, we both built our careers on our individual names in some way (Greg with a long history in the Salesforce and consulting industry and Jessica also being a consultant and PhD with public speaking engagements and publications). We figured something like The Lueck Group is the best way for you to find us. And so, with a name and a newly purchased web domain to match, Greg had the great idea to turn the model into our logo. We both immediately liked it in its familiarity and homage to our family history in home improvement and Firehouse Glass. Yes, this all happened in a single day. That’s the way we roll.
This example of the process we went through also sets the scene for the excitement we are carrying into The Lueck Group and the type of thinking, researching, creating, planning, collaborating, and executing we do and are able to accomplish as a team. We believe our experientially and empirically reliable approaches, as well as our perspectives as a multi-generational company make The Lueck Group a unique and valuable partner.
We look forward to helping organizations and individuals like you, make your business and career goals a reality.