Name: Ben Hulme
Age: 41
Title: General Manager of Zerorez of Phoenix and co-owner of Zerorez of Tucson. We are a recent BBB Award winner and working to not only create Stark Raving Fans, but to help the community and provide a better alternative to chemical-heavy cleaning for one’s home.
Married/Single: Married
Kids: I have five kids, four boys and one girl. My oldest is a senior is high school and my daughter, the youngest, is in 2nd grade.
City you live in: Gilbert
A typical day in my life includes…
in my personal life, my entire family is all active. We’re all early risers so on a Saturday at 6:30 a.m. the house is already up and moving. After my “honey-do” list we have different family activities planned. It usually involves something active, like hiking or road biking. During half of the year, I’m coaching some kind of a sport my kids are playing on Saturdays.
In my professional life, we also start early at Zerorez, so I get there at about 6:30 a.m. because we have a team meeting with all of our technicians at about 7:00 a.m. The technicians are about two-thirds of our work force so it’s important to meet with them. Things start to slow down around 8:30 a.m. and that’s when we focus on other things like our customer service and marketing departments. It’s all fun for me.
I was born…
Walnut Creek, CA, which is in the Bay Area.
My favorite thing about Arizona…
oh, I have a lot of favorites. But at the end of the day, it’s the people. There are just good people here.
I’m listening to…
the Classic Country station on Pandora and somehow I’ve convinced most of my kids to like it, too.
I’m currently reading…
The Washington Hypothesis by Timothy Ballard, which is about the miracle of how our country came to be. I enjoy authors that are able to bring me to a different place and time. It helps me to understand things from a different point of view.
My family…
is what I live for. Whenever my wife takes the kids out of town or on vacation, I almost feel as though my life as no purpose.
If I could have dinner with anyone, it would be…
I’d go George Washington on this one and probably because of that book that I’m reading. Also, during this last fall break, my family and I took a trip to Washington D.C. and we went to Mount Vernon. He had his flaws but he did a lot to make good things happen.
One thing I cannot live without…
my green drink. My wife makes it every morning for us. It’s primarily spinach, carrots, berries, bananas, chia and flax. If I go a day without it, it throws my body off.
When I was younger, I wanted to be…
a dentist. High excitement, huh? My uncle was a dentist and I just loved what he did. Although it’s a great profession, I just realized when I got into college that I really liked running businesses.
I’m inspired by…
people who serve other people. People who do the right things for the right reasons and look for opportunities to help people.
The person who motivates me is…
my wife. She’s a good person and I’m always trying to keep up with her.
If I could change anything in the world, it would be…
every year after Christmas – and we’ve been doing this for 17 years – we take a week to go down to Mexico and build houses. If I could change anything, I would change the situations of people who don’t have the basic necessities of life.
The perfect day would be…
a day spent with my family working on a service project. That’s our favorite week of the year by far. I’m surprised and proud to say that my kids have come to love that project as much as my wife and I have over the years.
My first job was…
I had a newspaper route – classic.
My life…
my life’s story is far from written. I’ve accomplished a lot of things I’ve wanted to but there is still so much more that I’m excited for.
I’m currently working on…
the feelings associated with my first child leaving the home.
Always…
have hope.
Never…
let other people pull you down or change what you want to accomplish.
Favorite quote…
what my wife says every morning; “Today is going to be a great day.”
Biggest dream…
is to be a high school football coach. I love kids at that age and I enjoy helping them to figure out what they want to do. It’s fun to be involved in that process and to help kids find out how much they are capable of accomplishing if you give them the opportunity.
My pet peeve(s)…
traffic. Thankfully I’m in a job where I don’t have to commute that much but it’s getting worse as I get older. My other pet peeve is that the ASU football stadium is not selling out. That is driving me nuts.
