H.E.R.O., Inc. was truthfully conceived, in the beginning, out of necessity. At the end of 1999 I retired from the State of Michigan. My position, for nearly eight years, was running the Veteran Employment and Training program in eight counties in and around Lansing and Battle Creek, Michigan. It seemed medical conditions caught up with me, due to my serving in Vietnam in 1968-1969.

This placed my family in a place we'd never ventured and it found me labeled as permanently disabled in the eyes of the Veterans Administration. We faced many dilemmas! The good news: I fell back on times of when I was a member of the Northeast Grand Rapids Lions Club. I learned so much from fellow members, about people, assisting folks in need, and about giving back to the community. They, The Lions members, unknowingly showed me the way to face these life altering decisions I had to make. Eventually, my loving wife, children and son-in-law helped me forge an idea, we would find a way to assist businesses to succeed in the Michigan. Hometown Enterprises Resources Online, Inc. - H.E.R.O. was born. With the assistance of my wife Linda, my daughter Shilo and her husband Lynn (a gifted business computer solutions expert).

As time allowed and medical treatments at the Ann Arbor VA continued, we visited business owners to discover their needs. They repeatedly mentioned the need for an advocate, someone to assist them make their business successful and much more visible to potential customers. They needed customers to visit them instead of passing their businesses by daily. This assistance had to include some sort business solutions and inexpensive advertising to help them deal and compete with the giant conglomerates.

In time our family decided internet marketing these small businesses while also bringing them into the 21st century. We started H.E.R.O., Inc. and began suggesting business solutions and the incorporation of simple, well laid out, and effective web sites. The web sites had to be effective and affordable. They needed to tell a story about the business, had to inform others what they had to offer and how to easily locate there products and services.

In its infancy, we gave and continue to give, a free listing of the business, their address and phone number. In time, if they wanted or needed a web site, we visited them, gathered ideas and offered suggestions. A business solution concept and web site development business was born. It met their business needs and slowly, we believe the businesses we touched survived.

Our family continues to operate, offering business solutions and developing web sites anywhere in Michigan, as people and business owners refer clients. As we developed contacts, resources, other business solutions, and solution partners, we discovered we needed more room for expansion.

In 2003 we re-located the business to Alto, Michigan (south of Grand Rapids) as our desire to help businesses grow. We decided to give back more to the community and to further assist fellow military and combat veterans in need, using our web resources.

In between our work and giving back to the community, we make frequent trips to our back yard to enjoy the wild life from birds, Hawks and an occasional Eagle, to viewing the neighbors prehistoric looking creatures on Hawkins Bison Farm .

Two Way Donations:

Beginning in Holt, MI and continuing in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area, we discovered the need for recycling older technology. Used computers needed to be placed in the hands of Veterans who couldn't afford a computer system. As we repaired and replaced computer systems from business and personal systems, we began recycling them for deserving people.

Through "pastoral referrals only, no matter the faith," we began finding good homes for computers, for people in need. Since this is not funded by anyone but us personally, this occurs as our budget allows.

Assisting business with solutions and giving back to fellow veterans has become an extremely rewarding adventure! Life can't get any better than that!

• Control Data Institute - Computer Programmer - Southfield MI
• Michigan State University - Landscape and Nursery Management - E. Lansing, MI
• Alpena Community College - Associates: Computer Technology, Business Accounting, Pre Legal - Alpena, MI
• Davenport University - Computer Technology and Management; Accounting - Battle Creek - Lansing, MI
• Many Veteran Benefit and Training Classes & Certificates NVTI - Colorado, Veteran Service Officer -VVA, DAV and VFW

• Northeast Grand Rapids Lions Club
• Vietnam Veterans of America
• Disabled Veterans of America
• American Legion

• Lions Club of Bell Bay
• Kiwanis
• Veterans of Foreign Wars

• Web Site Development
• On/Off Site - Computer Repair
• Upgrading System Hardware
  • Modems, PCI Cards, Sound and Network Cards, etc
• Training and Installation - Computer Software
  • MS Office Products; Access, Word, Excel, Power point; Publisher, Picture It; Works; Photo Editor;
  • Paintshop Pro; Corel Word Perfect; Quicken; Family Lawyer; Much More

• Networking Solutions
• Wireless Solutions
• Operating System Installs and Upgrades
• Training and Installation - Internet software
  • Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Netscape; Firefox, etc
• Archiving Data
  • Critical Files
  • Personal Video and Music CD's
  • Photos; Documents
• Importing and Exporting Data, and Files
• Business Solutions
• Satellite Internet Systems