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Dennis Reist
Dennis was born and raised in the Kalamazoo area. The third child in a family of six children, learning how to get along with others was a lesson that started very early in life. Learning to fix broken things also came early in life. Dennis' father worked long hours in his own business and would point the kids to the tool box when the bicycle or a toy or the car needed repair. He would give advice and encouragement, but the repair work was mostly up to the kids.
Dennis has two older brothers and two younger brothers, and when he was eleven years old, his baby sister was born. This event prompted the building of an addition onto the family home. This is where Dennis got his first real experience with home construction work, and his love for woodworking was born. He has designed and built wood furniture and is talented at all kinds of home construction and repair.
Dennis is happily married to wife Mary Anne and has four children; Nikolas, Nathan, Emma and Max.
Dennis was educated at Comstock Public Schools and studied electronics technology at Kalamazoo Valley community College. At the age of twenty, he bought his first house and at twenty one started his own television repair business. It was the 1970's, and the transistor was revolutionizing the electronics and home entertainment industry. It made home entertainment devices much more reliable and much less expensive, and the market for repairing them was rapidly shrinking. After two years in business, Dennis decide to move into other areas of customer service. Dennis has worked in grocery stores and managed customer service departments for Hammond Machinery, Electrolux Corporation, and Depatie Fluid Power.
Dennis decided to leave the corporate world in 2005, bought a condemned house on James Street in the Edison neighborhood, and set out to restore the house to its original glory. In 2008, Mary Anne lost her job, and Dennis started looking for a job that would provide him with some regular income. That is when he met David Lee, and was immediately captivated with the Leeward Group concept. Dennis joined Leeward Group in April of 2008, and often says “There are rewards that I get from working with Leeward Group that have nothing to do with money. I was looking for a job with income, and I found work that I love with a purpose that is meaningful for so many people”.
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Send mail to davidlee@leewardgroup.net with questions or comments about this
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