The Rolling Meadows, Ill. Chamber of Commerce – celebrating its 50th anniversary – recently gave this year’s Business-of-the-Year Award to A.H. Management Group, which operates about 40 corporate dining programs in the Chicago area.
“We picked A.H. on our 50th anniversary because this company epitomizes what this award is all about,” said Linda Liles Ballantine, executive director of the Rolling Meadows Chamber of Commerce in a prepared statement.
“Through up-and-down economies, this third-generation, family-owned business, continues to grow and change with the times,” Ballantine said. “They are so deserving.”
Founded in 1939 as a jukebox company by Anthony and Isabel Hesch, the business today is run by the Hesch grandchildren: Mark, Craig and Chris and their cousin Chris McSwain.
The business moved to what was an empty farm field in Rolling Meadows in 1972, to a patch of land along Rohlwing Road that would become, in time, a thriving industrial park.
“We’re an anomaly,” said Craig Hesch, chief financial officer for A.H. “We are aware of that. But as big as we get, we try and keep it family. We’ve kept the communication channels open through each generation and we have remained committed to innovation and investing in new technologies."
A.H. — headquartered at 1151 Rohlwing Road — staffs and manages 40 full-service cafeterias, stocks and services more than 3,000 vending machines and still runs a jukebox and gaming division that includes renting pool tables, pinball machines and dartboards. A.H. is among the largest employers in Rolling Meadows with close to 300 employees.
A.H. also provides coffee service and a five-gallon water service for places of business.
Last summer, A.H. was the first to introduce barcode-scan technology to lunchrooms in the Chicago area, in effect putting automated convenience stores inside offices, plants and factories.
This new system, called Avanti Markets, gives employees more healthy and fresh-food selections while on the job and fewer reasons to leave the premises to go shopping for snacks, meals, beverages and other items such as birthday cards, pain-relief medications and lip balm.
For more information, contact Tim Sherwood at 847-833-9036.
