Brad Ruth

Introduction

Brad was born and raised in Caledonia, Michigan, which is southeast of Grand Rapids. He graduated from Central Michigan University with a B.S.B.A. in finance and marketing. His wife, Kelly and he worked in the insurance industry for a couple years before moving to Stow, OH in 1998 to open a restaurant, Bellacino's Pizza & Grinders. As crazy as it sounds, they sold everything and took personal loans from banks and opened September 26, 1998. They ran Bellacino's for 11 years and then built a small strip center and moved to our new location in 2009. Bellacino’s is a franchise organization and the Stow location has been a top five franchise out of the 100 locations nationwide. Brad was getting restless and left Bellacino's in 2012 to become an account executive with Ritchie Marketing, which is a manufacturer's representative company in the foodservice industry. Brad moved into the Business Manager position in 2014 and ran a three-state territory for three years.
Brad exited his position to take over as President/CEO of Ascot Valley Foods in October 2017. He ran AVF for almost a year and was able to improve operations, sales, and profitability during his tenure. He moved on from AVF for various reasons, but one of them was because he had started his business brokerage company, Great Lakes Business Alliance, Inc. in 2016, and the business was taking off and it needed his full attention. In the meantime, the Ruth’s sold their majority ownership in Bellacino’s in 2017 to concentrate in other investment opportunities and Brad could dedicated his full attention to his business brokerage.
The Ruth’s purchased two cottages in Huron, Ohio in 2020 and started their short-term rental (STR) real estate company. The STR business has been a very interesting change from commercial real estate ownership and they are enjoying owning vacation properties they can use for personal use when they want to getaway with the family. Brad earned his Certified Business Intermediary (CBI) certification in 2020 and his commercial real estate license in 2021. He joined eXp Commercial as a Business Broker and Commercial Real Estate Agent. He has been a member of the Stow-Munroe Falls Rotary Club for over 25 years and has served in various positions including past president, secretary and is currently serving as a board member. He has also been on the board of the Stow Munroe Falls Schools Foundation for 2 years and it responsible for the mentorship program. Brad has over 25 years of business ownership experience and enjoys walking business owners through the transition of ownership of their companies and real estate.