Jul 12, 2020
In this episode, I interview Craig Haltom, President of Oliphant Golf Management (OGM). He is an active golf course architect and builder, and has a growing portfolio of high profile golf renovation work in the Midwest. As the lead at OGM, he is very much hands-on and in the field, with a talented team of managers based in Central Wisconsin. He started out on a tractor in 2001 and then in 2013 became 50% owner. Now he owns almost the entire company after buy-out financing from his business partner Mike, who founded the company in 1996.
The company provides golf course management, construction, design, and renovation. When the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008, they went from $40 Million in annual sales to none overnight, with only one of the large golf course and real estate construction projects eventually being completed. In 2009, they built a bridge through the crisis, pivoted and started managing golf courses, now with 12 on their books.
Craig’s vision was to build a world class golf course in the rare sand dunes of Wisconsin, and right after the crisis, they started building Sand Valley, two 18 hole courses and a put three. With 130 full time employees stretching up to 400 in peak summer season and revenues climbing to around $40 Million a year, they grew organically through profits. He believes the hardest thing in growing a small business is, “Managing time. There’s never enough” and the advice he would give himself on day one of starting in business would be to believe in himself no matter what. Stay tuned for more on Craig’s super inspirational small business ownership journey.
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Additional Resources:
Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC
BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/