Family-owned consulting firm moves to bigger office downtown to accommodate growth

LoVasco got its start in 2013 as a small, family-owned consulting firm specializing in insurance, employee benefits and retirement services. The father-son team started out in a small space in the Buhl Building in downtown Detroit. Today it has grown to a point where it needed to move.

LoVasco recently relocated to 8,000 square feet of office space in the One Woodward Avenue building at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson avenues. It brought 20 employees with it to the 15th floor of the Minoru Yamasaki-designed skyscraper overlooking Hart Plaza and the Detroit River.

"It's really starting to feel like a home," says Michael LoVasco, executive vice president of LoVasco. "Everyone has a view of the water."

The LoVasco family went into business for itself in 1956 when John LoVasco (Michael LoVasco's grandfather) started selling insurance. Gene LoVasco (Michael LoVasco's father) joined the business in 1986. The family grew the company before selling it in 2007.

John LoVasco retired but Gene LoVasco kept working for the larger firm until his five-year contract expired. Then he and his son decided to give a family business another try.

"He was ready to be his own boss again," Michael LoVasco says. "We had talked about launching a business together."

So far it's working out quite well. The company grew its revenue by 50 percent in its first year and then another 30 percent the following year. This year LoVasco is on track to hit another double-digit revenue increase.

It's achieving this growth by serving primarily privately owned family businesses based in Michigan. Those companies range in size from a couple hundred employees to five-figure staffs.

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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Read more articles by Jon Zemke.

Jon Zemke is a news editor with Model D and its sister publications, Metromode and Concentrate. He's also a small-scale real-estate developer and landlord in the greater downtown Detroit area.

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