My name is Seth Sanderson and I founded First Impression Power Washing in 2022. It started as a way to make some extra income during my summer break from teaching. With two young kids at home, it seemed like we could always use an extra dollar to spend, but since then, some things have changed.
So why First Impression Power Washing and why now? There are a number of factors, both personally and professionally, that lead Lauren and I to making this decision.
Professionally, I can’t make it more clear to those outside of education other than to say that teachers are superstars - they put others first and continue to serve. I loved my opportunity to work with the students that I did and I am thankful for the administration at Hinckley-Big Rock School District that I had the privilege of serving under. However, it is an emotional and physical grind of preparing lessons, adjusting to individual students' needs, staying up to grade papers, and lists of changing requirements. I applaud all the teachers that are giving their best effort. While it may not be forever, now was the correct time to exit the classroom. Fortunately I am able to continue to serve as the varsity boys basketball coach and I love getting to do it!
Personally, my mom passed away last August from ovarian cancer and, while it was one of the most trying times our family has had, it did offer me a new perspective. It is easy to assume the future is going to look exactly how we want it to. It is easy to assume that the future is going to be there at all. This has given me much more appreciation of being in the moment and doing what is best for my family. While small business owners spend long hours and have added stressors, I am looking forward to being able to serve my family more and to incorporate them more in my day to day!
But why start a business? Why not get a job at one of the many companies in the area or try to work remotely? You see, small businesses have shaped my life from the beginning. Entrepreneurship is wound deep into the DNA of my family. My mom, Annie Sanderson, and my grandfather, Phil Foster, started a manufacturing business in 1980 in the small town of Lee, Illinois. I was fortunate to have gotten to grow up in and around “the shop” for the first 10 years of my life and it was some of the best memories. During the summers, six of us cousins would get dropped off with my grandma in the morning, while my mom, grandpa, two uncles, and three aunts all went to work. Every day we got to have adventures and build memories with the people most important in my life, my family.
I was also privileged to get to see the way a small business could change the lives for so many families. By the time the business was sold, it employed over 100 people and ran 24 hours a day. Despite all of this, my mom could not have been more proud that she knew each employee by name, but also that herself and the siblings could talk to each of the families at the company picnic. Times weren’t always good…there was plenty of worry about money, about problems happening at the shop, about times they had to have hard conversations with employees and with each other. Even as a kid, you can tell when there is stress at home. However, those moments were opportunities for my parents to model grit, determination, and flexibility. I am as thankful for those moments as for the good ones.
It was not just my mother that was involved in small business. My dad, Dan Sanderson, is a farmer, working with his brother day in and day out as fourth generation farmers that have grown the family farm from where their father had it. I don’t think there is a better profession than farming for teaching you how to have a long term view and to have faith. When you put the seed in the ground in April, you can have the best equipment, the best technology, and the best plan on how to adapt, but you are still relying on the sun to shine and the rain to fall!
My front row view of small business leadership has continued as an adult. I was very fortunate to marry my wife, Lauren, in 2015. In the years since, she has founded and grown her dog training business, Rock Kennel Training. She worked her way up at an animal shelter from cleaning kennels every morning at 6 AM to the trainer and playgroup coordinator. She went to work at a prestigious private dog training facility. But her passion couldn’t be contained to working for someone else. She has too much passion for her clients, too much passion to continue expanding her knowledge, and too much passion for helping dogs become the best version of themselves to be contained within someone else’s vision.
Author C.J. Heck has said, “We are all products of our environment; every person we meet, every new experience or adventure, every book we read, touches and changes us, making us the unique being we are.” I count it among my biggest blessings to have been in the environment that I was raised in and been surrounded by the people that I have been. It is the qualities learned from these people that we at First Impression Power Washing promise to bring to you - providing opportunities for others, showing grit, determination, long term vision, faith, and most importantly, a passion for the people we work for and with.
Proud of you for taking this step!!