About Us

Brad was born and raised in Caledonia, Michigan, which is southeast of Grand Rapids.  He graduated from Central Michigan University with a B.S.B.A. in finance and marketing.  His wife, Kelly and he worked in the insurance industry for a couple years before moving to Stow, OH in 1998 to open a restaurant, Bellacino's Pizza & Grinders.  As crazy as it sounds, they sold everything and took personal loans from banks and opened September 26, 1998.  They ran Bellacino's for 11 years and then built a small strip center about a half mile from their original location.  They moved to their new location in February 2009.  Brad was getting restless in the restaurant business and left Bellacino's in 2012 to become an account executive with Ritchie Marketing, which is a food service broker.  He moved into the Business Manager position in 2014 and ran a three-state territory for three years.  He was recruited to fill the position as President/CEO of Ascot Valley Foods (AVF) in October 2017.  He ran AVF for almost a year and was able to improve operations, sales and profitability during his tenure.  Brad moved on from AVF  for various reasons, but one of them was because he had started GLBA Inc. in 2016 and the business was taking off and it needed his full attention.  He had been selling businesses evenings and weekends for the past two years and it was too hard to do both.  He has over 20 years of business ownership experience and he enjoys walking business owners through the transition of ownership process.

Testimonials

 
Dear Brad,
We want to thank you for the outstanding service that you provided in selling our business. We were impressed with your professionalism and the way that you covered all the details and requirements so well, helping us to understand what was needed to successfully sell our business. We highly recommend you to anyone desiring to sell their business. Thanks again for all your fine efforts in our behalf.
Sincerely,
Jim & Marie Bly

We highly recommend Brad Ruth and Great Lakes Business Alliance to anyone interested in selling their business.  Brad helped us sell our business in 2017.  This was our first exposure to this process and Brad was very professional, patient and informative throughout the entire transaction, from the listing of the business through the closing date.  He provided knowledge, guidance and great customer support.

Kim & Nancy 

Tallmadge, Ohio 

We highly recommend Brad Ruth if your are looking to sell your business. Brad was very professional with us and all the potential buyers he brought to us. We had been trying to sell our business for two years on our own with no success. When Brad listed our business we had immediate interest from buyers and multiple offers. We closed the sale 6 months after listing with him. He was very knowledgeable regarding our business and we were very happy with the final sale price.

Jim & Denise

Stow, OH