Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to MB&A's Monument Matters, a podcast produced by the Monument Builders of North America. For all things monumental.
MBNA is a 118-year-old association whose mission is to define and promote memorialization in a viable, innovative and diversified way for its members and to enhance awareness of memorialization by the general public and the entire remembrance industry.
In that spirit of promoting memorialization, the MBNA Marketing Committee is providing these podcasts as an extension of our monthly magazine MB News.
Each podcast episode features a discussion related to a magazine theme. Monument Matters podcasts invite everyone to listen and share. You'll find all of the episodes of our first season on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. I'm your host Mike Johns, CM AICA from the Johns Carabelli Company Cimarano Monuments and Flowers in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm also a past president of the Monument Builders of North America. Today I'm talking with Eric Gunno, owner and operator of Chillicothe Monument and Hardy Memorials, and Eden Grace Heimer Smith, their design manager. Good morning and welcome. Morning Eric. As I understand it, Chillicothe monuments is a 10 year old company that was formed by members of the same church. Tell us a little bit more about how you became a monument builder.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: You know, it all started about with three best friends.
We have one Justin Long who is a funeral director at a local south there in Chillicothe, a State Farm agent, Dave Strickland and me. I was a general contractor for 25 years and we saw a need to find a reparable monument company in Chillicothe, Ohio.
And people would come to Justin the funeral director and ask him hey who, who do you recommend? And he, he couldn't recommend really anyone. And we said well let's start a monument company. None of us knew anything about it, but I figured we had the funeral director, we had State Farm agent who had the sales and I was a general contractor. I could figure out how to settle and do the foundations and all that. So that's in February 2015, Chillicothe Monument was born.
We knew nothing the first year we completed 32 monuments, working our day jobs and then pouring foundation setting stones in the evening. It wasn't easy, but it was rewarding.
We were fortunate enough to have a mentor in the industry, Jay Hardy, who he generously guided us through the early stages. He once told us when he retired he'd sell us his business and In June of 21 he did just that.
That's when everything changed. I stepped away from general contracting to focus full time on our new venture which now included Harding memorials. I drove into learning the craft from designing on Gerber Omega sandblasting headstones, operating a crane truck, completing data desks.
Three of Jay's skilled employees stayed and helped train me in every aspect of the work.
The results speak for themselves. In just the past year, we completed 442 monuments, 553 dated deaths. But more than numbers, what matters us is honoring lives and helping families go through the hardest days with dignity, compassion and craftsmanship.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Very nice.
So three years ago you decided to join mbna. So what prompted you to take that step and how has that membership benefited you and your business?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Three years ago, I made the decision to join Monument Builders of North America at the Baltimore convention. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions for our business at the time.
I mean, I still am, but at the time I'm relatively new to the monument industry, just getting transitioning out of the general contracting field. I quickly realized how much there was to learn from design producing, and I saw MBNA as a valuable resource that helped me accelerate that learning curve.
What drew me in was the opportunity to connect with others who had been in the business for years.
People like you, Mike, they were willing to share their knowledge, experience and insight. MBNA wasn't just an organization, it was a community.
Through the conventions, workshops, networking, I've gained not only technical skills, but also relationships that continue to help our business grow.
I just recently was at your office for hands on training after the Cleveland convention.
The support tools I found in MBNA have been instrumental in helping us scale from small evening and weekend operations to a full service monument company.
So I just want to say that I'm still learning and that's what keeps me motivated. And MBNA is there every step of the way.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Well, I've said this many times. You know, even someone who has this experience that I do, I still learn from my peers and, and from the folks in that I have met through mbna.
But I really like. You know, there's been a number of ways that I have talked about what I get out of my association with mbna. The, the context I've made, the friends that I've made.
But the word community is kind of a new one to me in that description. And I think it really is a good way to describe who we are and who we become is a greater community whose like minded people are really after the same thing.
So I appreciate you using that word specifically and hope to hear that more in the future.
So you've been in the business for 10 years. You've been MVNA members for three, so I imagine there haven't been that many conventions in your history. But I do like the fact that you decided to participate in our Aspire Awards program.
So, MB and A. Aspire Awards recognize member firms whose initiatives draw positive attention to their company and, by extension, the monument industry. Honoring heroes Memorial Day cleanup at Soldier Circle is an excellent example of the Aspire Award, a project driven not by publicity, but by the desire to honor the lives of veterans and give back to the community.
So, Eric, can you take us back to the moment when you first realized Soldiers Circle needed attention? What did you see and what made you decide to take action.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Back in 2023, Johnna Palver, she works at the Ross County Veterans Services.
She was preparing to retire, and she told me that one of her personal goals was to clean every headstone at Soldier Circle before she stepped away.
So that moment stuck with me.
I brought the idea in to our marketing team in 2024, and we started talking about what it would take to make it happen.
I also reached out to John Upalver, and she was ecstatic when I suggested we take the full project and have it completed before Memorial Day, the busiest time of the year for us. My team looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was.
But after talking it through, we all agreed that it was.
It was more than just a project. It was a chance to honor veterans, serve our community, and do something meaningful that went beyond business. And it turned out to be an incredible effort and wants one will always be proud of.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: So, Eden, I see you nodding your head in agreement and so organizing the first official cleanup since 1928, I can imagine, was no small feat. How did you go from an idea to pulling together nearly 100 volunteers?
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Yes. So the media team he's talking about, funny enough, about a week or two before he had brought the idea to the rest of us.
A group of four of us all sat down and said, you know, we've been outsourcing our social media.
There's. We're fortunate enough to have a lot of young people at the company, me being one of them. So Chance Smith, Elena, Ison, Eric and I all sat down and said, let's make an actual media team.
So just having had that started and already working towards our online presence for social media, this was a really good way, you know, a lot of motivation to hit the ground running because we were so excited about this project. So Chance had made TikTok videos, Erica did, had done several different interviews with Local news outlets.
And Elena and I just hit it hard with flyers and posts and signage.
She had reached out to several different high schools for their.
Their national honor societies to get students involved. We had reached out to local businesses to see if there was anybody that was interested in that regard.
And we just. I think even by the end of it, I'm sure all of my co workers were annoyed by how many times I. They'd get texts from me a week saying, hey, make sure you share a new video. Make sure you check out the new post.
And everybody, you know, did their part and work together, and we pushed really hard pretty much up until the day of the event.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: So were you surprised by the response from the community?
[00:10:57] Speaker C: I would say we weren't surprised. You know, Chillicothe. Chillicothe rallies. We have a pretty incredible community, and I think we all really thought they would show up. We had a lot of interest that we were very excited about, But I think even keeping the faith, we were still excited the day of to see that even more people had turned up.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, the rain kept us away a little bit. You know, we were worried about. It was drizzling that day, and I was getting a little nervous, but they just kept showing up.
I asked my daughter Elena to go around and ask all the volunteers how they heard about it. Just know to see what was working.
And one of my favorite ones was, well, the pike county judge told me to come here today.
So we had. We had a lot of people knowing about this event.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: People from all different walks of life.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: That's awesome.
So you mentioned that was more than just cleaning headstones. It was about honoring stories.
So tell us a little bit about the history of the cemetery.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Greenlawn Cemetery was established in 1860, just before the end of the Civil War.
As the war concluded, there was a growing recognition that many veterans would want to be laid to rest with honor with the proper military headstone. That's when Soldier Circle was created.
At the heart of Soldier Circle stands a flagpole surrounded by a circle of military headstones. It began with Civil War veterans, but over time, the circle became the resting place for heroes from many conflicts. We have veterans from the Spanish American war, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
Each headstone marks not just a grave, but a story of service, sacrifice, and love for the country.
That's why this project was never about cleaning headstones. It was about preserving and honoring the legacy of men and women who gave so much.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: So, speaking about that legacy and those individuals, are there any Particular stories that stand out that you'd like to share.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: There is one story that really resonated with me was the marking of an unknown soldier in the circle.
Did not know about this. Lived in Chillicothe all my life. Just north of town stood camp Sherman, the third largest military training camp during World War I.
And in 1918, the influenza epidemic swept through the camp, killing over a thousand soldiers.
Amid the chaos, one soldier died without the form of identification.
His headstone, marked simply to honor his service was one I personally cleaned during the training video.
This experience felt especially meaningful, knowing he never made it home and his remains unnamed.
The other one was. The second story was during the actual cleaning event.
I had a brief but impactful conversation with a gentleman who brought his grandson to help clean his grandfather's headstone in Soldier Circle. It was moving to witness the generations continuing to care. And they both showed up to honor their family. It was very neat to see them participate in the event.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: So you shared some of the social media reports, or media reports, I should say. And what other positive attention has the project received?
Eden.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: So additional, in addition to winning the Aspire Award, which we are super duper grateful to be recognized for, just two weeks ago, Eric had accepted the first Capital Historical Award from the Ross County Historical Society.
Thank you. We were very honored to receive that.
But from this event, we've also had several different contracts that have been reached out. Eric might be able to touch on that a little bit better.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: You know, recognition was never our goal for this. I mean, it's been incredibly rewarding to see how the work has resonated in the community.
But the Ross County Veterans Associations has contacted me to sandblast and laser all their columbarium doors.
The Ross County Historical Society has given me a contract to clean and level headstones. And I didn't. I didn't ask for any of this. They came to us just because of doing this one act of kindness. It's been amazing, really, as that is tremendous.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: It's.
It's great when you know to be motivated as you were selflessly, and then to have some reward come back. It's not a bad thing. But I certainly understand that that was not your motivation at all. That's just a unintended benefit, let's say.
So, looking ahead, are you planning similar efforts in the future?
And what advice would you give to other companies wanting to do a similar project?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: One, I would say just start to Frankfurt Historical Society, another veteran headstone cleaning project. They contacted me.
It's a smaller project, but I Said, listen, I have all the supplies. I have 100 buckets. I have scrub brush, I have D2. I have everything left over, you know, from the project. So we, they said that they could come up with the volunteers and I told them that I would help them with, you know, all the supplies.
So that's right now where we are with, with volunteering on that.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: So aside from just get started, any other words of wisdom?
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Well, words of wisdom, I'm not very wise. But the, the thought was, how do we honor lives well lived? How do we honor the community that we. We are part of?
We wanted to give back and that's what we're here on this earth for.
So this, I mean, yes, it took a lot of planning. It took a lot of work, but we had so many volunteers show up. It was six hours in our day on a Saturday.
And then when you go by Green Lawn Cemetery and Soldier Circle now that we use D2 biological cleaner for the, the cleaning, those headstones look brand new.
I mean, shining bright white. It was unbelievable on that. So you know what Nike says, Just. Just do it.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: All right, Eden, any words from you on that regard?
[00:18:52] Speaker C: I just think, you know, we all, we all came together. Eric can joke that he voluntold us all to show up and be there, um, but a lot of us at the company are actually a military family. So it was, it was something pretty special and close to our heart. And I just think that, you know, the right people will, will show up. Like Eric said, I think having faith and just doing it.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Well, that's awesome. That's a great testament to you folks and your community for sure.
So with that, I want to thank Eric and Eden for taking time to talk with us today and sharing this project and a little glimpse into your community and how it fans together and showing other monument builders how it's possible.
So with that, I'd like to say that the June issue of MB News celebrates all of the award winners, both the Aspire Awards and the Design Competition Awards.
I know you will enjoy reading about the unique stories behind each of these projects. So thoughtful crafted by fellow MBNA members.
So thank you for listening to Monument Matters. MBNA invites you to stay connected through Facebook and LinkedIn or visit www.monimalbuilders.org for upcoming events and webinars for MBNA. I'm Michael Johns. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen. If you found this worthwhile, please take a minute and share the link with a friend for comments and feedback. We'd love to hear from you. Please drop A note to infoonumentbuilders.org have a great rest of your day and thank you.
