We had the good fortune of connecting with Grant Quezada and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Grant, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Our outward or civic focus at Founding Fathers Collective has been through our mission statement; Community, Connection, Care.

My business partner, Jesse Burke and I are both from Prescott along with our wives. We left after Highschool and all did the college thing. Jesse served in the Airforce Reserve for 4 years and I spent 8 years active duty in the army on the Special Operations side and am still serving the last 8 years on the AZ National Guard side.

Our goal was to create a Community Hub in Prescott that brings people together from all walks of life, age range, demographics etc and be a touch point for our community where people go and help participate in creating Culture and finding meaningful relationship.

Founding Fathers Collective is a parent company that owns and operates 6 different entities under roof with one additional Company that a friend of our runs and operates. We have a Specialty Coffee Shop, Functional Fitness Gym, Jiu Jitsu, Mercantile store, Self Serve tap wall (largest in the state) Cigar and Whiskey bar, Members only Speakeasy, Barbershop (2021 won top ten salons in the country for Salon Today).

This year, 2022 Founding Fathers Collective won the Prestige W.O. Lawton Award for Business Leadership. Out of 300 other Work Force Development Businesses in the United States we were chosen as number one and had the privilege of flying out to Washington DC 2 weeks ago to receive the award in person.

We use our businesses to bring people together through ongoing events in the community and heavy participation in local non-profits and several boards that we continue to sit on and help run and lead through serving our community.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

Founding Fathers Collective currently employees 67 individuals across six different separate businesses all under one roof. W focus internally on our team and alot of Professional development and encouragement toward autonomy and proper decision making skills, which after a year and half of business has led to a retention rate of about 85% from our original hires.

Externally we have focused on how to best serve the community through charity work and acts of appreciation toward those who make our community run and operate. whether that is police, fire, first responders and also the city workers and staff. We focus heavily on the men and women who are the leaders in our community and getting involved in their stories and showing support in what they are doing which in turn pays dividends for the success we have had in our first year of Business and all the other new projects that have started to pop up. We focus on leadership through service and care deeply about stewarding the future of our community.

Every thing in Excellence. We do everything with attention to detail and focus very heavily on the primary, secondary and tertiary effects of what we are doing and the impact it will have on those around us.

There have been alot of ups and downs and set backs to include some very serious life and death health issues that arose in the middle of the entire build out. Jesse, Julie, Veronica and I rose to the occasion and continued to stay the course and focus on what we were building and the impact we believed it would have on our friends Family and our community. NEVER QUIT, you can pause and breath BUT NEVER QUIT.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Sunrise at spruce mountain lookout and sunset at Sierra prietta lookout. Food- Breakfast the Local, St Mikes Hotel, Be simple. lunch / Dinner Farm Provision, County Seat, Its Time for Lunch, The Finn, Colts BBQ activities – Sharlot hall Museum, Mountain biking all over the place, kayak or canoe Watson and Willow Lake, Hike -granite Mountain, the Dells, Thumb Butte, or any where on the 55 Mile Prescott Loop trail.

People – Hang out at Founding Fathers Collective and you will meet the entire town from kids to the individuals who run the communities it has become a collection of all activities. The Raven Cafe.

Drink/Night life – SEVEN SIX Speak easy, Superstition Meadery, Whiskey Row, Marks Beer Garden, Back Alley Wine bar,

Lodging – Hassyampa Inn, Saint Michael Hotel, Airbnb ( Senator Highway, Mt. Vernon / Park avenue, The Dells)

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My Wife Veronica has been such a proactive cheerleader in mylife. She has always supported everything I have done and has always been a sounding board of encouragement and hard questions. We have been married for 15 years and she was present for all of my military service and 6 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. our first 8 years we spent average 2 1/2 months together through out the year due to the insane Operation Tempo of deployments and Schools and Training. After leaving the Military to focus on family life I immediately jumped into Business Owner and Entrepreneur Mode. I started everything with a one chair Barbershop and doubled size and revenue for 4 years. At which point I hired my Business Partner to come in and help scale and grow the business which quickly led to focusing on the new massive project of a 14,000 square foot building to renovate and overhaul with a total budget of 4 million dollars and a build out and opening set for the middle of COVID. the last several years have been exciting and exhausting but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And Veronica has been there the entire time.

Website: foundingfatherscollective.com

Instagram: foundingfatherscollective

Facebook: foundingfatherscollective

Image Credits
Founding Fathers Collective owns the rights to all photos and logos

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