Gary Burden

Introduction

Gary is a native of Ohio. Gary has been instrumental in the transfer of more than a dozen businesses and has celebrated with past Buyers who later sold their Businesses for three times what they paid for them.

He holds a Bachelors of Science with a major in Systems Engineering and a minor in Leadership from the United States Military Academy. While Gary was working on his high school goals of becoming an Airborne Ranger, he started to see that our liberties and our nation's future hinges more on information and finance than it does on our Armed Forces.

Gary moved back to Ohio and started a career in Financial Planning. After seeing the financial landscape through four financial planning firms, Gary opted out of the traditional financial advisory approach and independently founded Financial Stewardship Group, whose mission was "to sow the seeds of financial freedom through wise financial counsel, one person and one business at a time." Gary's early marketing efforts as a solo financial planner resulted in the sale of four businesses in just eighteen months.

Gary collaborated with Lee Huff on some of those sales and shortly thereafter joined Ohio Valley Business Advisors to collaborate further in helping family owned businesses maximize their God given resources throughout the transfer process. Gary's efforts were focused on market analysis, positioning and networking to broaden the scope of the business owner's opportunities. In 2022, Lee Huff retired and sold OVBA to Gary, so Gary experienced first hand the roller coaster ride of buying a business.

Gary earned his Certified Financial Planning designation. He served as the Treasurer for the West Point Society of Northern Ohio for nineteen years and he was recognized with the Paul Harris award for his service in Rotary.

Gary currently resides in Hiram, Ohio with his wife, Jennifer, with three out of six children still at home. They now have three grandchildren. Gary and Jennifer have home schooled on a small family farm where they have raised grass fed beef, dairy goats and pastured poultry. Gary's hobbies include reading, backpacking and preparedness. Their family attends the Church at Troy, an unregistered Baptist church.

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Ohio Valley Business Advisors was founded by Lee Huff. Lee quickly saw the need for experience and professionalism within the business brokerage community after leaving the corporate world and working with Brokers to find a business to buy for his family.

Mr. Huff is a seasoned executive with over forty years of sales, marketing, and general business management experience for large corporate suppliers of engineering services and capital equipment, such as Dravo, Gould, Measurex, and Thermo Electron. He founded Ohio Valley Business Advisors LLC a machinery appraisal and business brokerage company. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Marketing for Kadant Web Systems a $40 million division of Thermo Electron. In addition to his Vice-Presidential responsibilities, he was General Manager of a $7 million SBU (Strategic Business Unit) for which he had full P&L responsibility. His real-world business management experience combined with his CMEA and CBI accreditations make him uniquely qualified to provide his clients an unparalleled level of service and ROI value. Mr. Huff was involved in multiple M&A transactions at an executive level while with public companies and has personally sold more than fifty main street businesses. He served on the board of Koinonia Homes, a non-profit serving adult with developmental disabilities, both as a Board Member and as the Secretary Treasurer.

CBI – Lifetime Certified Business Intermediary
Mr. Huff was awarded the Lifetime CBI designation after demonstrating a superior knowledge of the business brokerage profession. He completed more than eighty classroom hours and passed the IBBA International Business Brokers Association (IBBA.org) certification exam. The initial CBI designation is sanctioned by the IBBA and is closely scrutinized, taking more than three years to achieve. The Lifetime CBI is awarded to Brokers who maintained their CBI designation for more than twelve continuous years. During his fifteen years as a CBI, Lee guided both Buyers and Sellers through dozens of business transfers, worth tens of millions of dollars in total business value.

CMEA – Certified Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
Mr. Huff was awarded the designation of Certified Machinery & Equipment Appraiser by the National Equipment & Business Brokers Institute (NEBBI.com) and is a licensed member in good standing with this organization. As such, he worked closely with John Harris who has more than thirty years of appraisal industry experience and who is ASA certified. The CMEA designation requires forty classroom hours, successfully passing a certification exam, peer appraisal review and continuing education.

SBA/MEA – Senior Business Analyst/Machinery & Equipment Analyst
Mr. Huff was awarded the designation of Senior Business Analyst and Machinery & Equipment Analyst by the Society of Business Analysts. These designations required classroom hours, passing an exam, peer approval, and are considered precursors to the CSBA and CMEA designations respectively.