I worked for OBA for nearly 4 years. For the first three years it was a fantastic experience. The business was growing rapidly, employee needs came first and management worked with the team to get things accomplished, together. Around December 2018, the owner's wife started to run the business. The human element was removed and the work environment was "do more with less." Well it turns out the owners were sharing financial statements with a venture capitalist who was looking to purchase OBA. After stripping all the fat, firing unwanted staff, cutting salaries, changing commission structure and pushing production staff to the max they were able to sell the company on a full buyout deal with a company called Groundworks that was developed in 2016. The owner of groundworks is a money shark/venture capitalist type. He has no previous foundation repair experience. What he is good at is making money. So he started buying the highest performing foundation companies he could find and OBA is the golden nugget of them all. We built such a great business that he wanted to purchase us and use our model through the other brands. This is all good and well until you realize that in the last 9 months the culture that made this company great was ruined and most employees who see through the nonsense realize things will never be the same again. They lost the human touch. They lost the mantra "employee first." If your employees are happy you will have happy customers and the business will thrive. All that matters now are numbers. Resources are scarce, everyone is worked to the bone and the business is running more lean than ever. This is good for the owner's who cashed in a large sum of money in the sale. And I applaud them for making a business that was so attractive that this money shark could not wait to buy it. What I am disappointed in is the dishonest, cutting, backstabbing way they handled the situation. At the end of the day, money has changed what used to be good people. I recommend to stay away from this company. Seek a business that truly values you.
