In celebration of Dayton’s heritage of business accomplishments, Dayton Magazine created the Dayton Business Hall of Fame to recognize the rich tradition of success and civic involvement of the region’s business community.

The Dayton Business Hall of Fame honors men and women who have made a lasting contribution to the community in economic, cultural and civic endeavors. Inductees were honored at the sixth annual Dayton Business Hall of Fame event Aug. 11 at the NCR Country Club in Kettering. The event was sponsored by Coldwell Banker Commercial Heritage and Superior Dental Care. The media sponsor was WDTN.

Robert Murphy

President, Dayton Dragons

According to Robert Murphy, president of the Dayton Dragons, there isn’t one specific strategy that has led to the team’s success.

“It’s a comprehensive approach. From our standpoint, it all fits together like a big jigsaw puzzle. We want to be family affordable. We want to be providing family entertainment. We want to provide unsurpassed customer service. We want to be involved extensively in our community. And we also need to be very impactful for our corporate partners,” says Murphy.

That strategy has been Murphy and his team’s approach since the team’s inception more than 20 years ago when he first moved to the Dayton region. Murphy previously worked in the nonprofit sector and with other sports teams. But he jumped at the chance to lead the Dragons because of the opportunity to manage the organization as it started.

“That’s an amazing opportunity because you are now able to do a stadium build, build a staff from scratch, build a culture from scratch, create how we’re going to sell tickets, create how we’re going to sell sponsorships and what we would be doing in entertainment. All of those things were going to be like a clean slate where we didn’t have anybody here in this community doing these types of things. We were free to set it up the way we wanted to,” he says.

Because of this, Murphy built a culture that values creativity and puts the customer first in all situations. It’s led to the creation of multiple mascots (from the dragons Heater and Jade to Roof Man), dugout dancers and the addition of a live organist. It’s also enabled team members to go the extra mile for customers, such as providing tickets to customers who lost theirs.

Combining these different strategies together has proven to be a successful formula for the Dayton Dragons. The team has sold out every game since it began and broke the all-time record for most consecutive home game sellouts in 2011.

“I’m very proud of what our group has done here. We’re also pretty self-aware that this all doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We have amazing stakeholders in this community with the city of Dayton, Montgomery County, the Downtown Dayton Partnership, the Dayton Chamber of Commerce and the Dayton Development Coalition,” says Murphy. “We have great corporate support … We have amazing fans.”

When asked what advice he would give to upcoming business leaders and entrepreneurs, Murphy says that they should value working hard and having a great team.

“I have learned that you need to work hard and that can make up for a lot of your shortcomings. No matter how much smarter somebody else may be than me, I know that I can outwork them,” he says. “And I know it sounds cliche, but [when] you sit in my seat or anybody that’s running an organization’s [seat], you realize very quickly that no matter what your vision is, no matter what your strategic plan is, no matter what you’re trying to execute, if you don’t have great people executing, you’re going to lose every single time.”

Cassie Barlow

President, Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education
Former 88th Air Base Wing and Installation Commander, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

Throughout Cassie Barlow’s career—from moving up the ranks of the U.S. Air Force to leading the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE)—there have been two connecting threads: a love of education and workforce development and a passion for leadership.

“I absolutely loved every moment of it, being able to see the outcome of people succeeding based on a push that maybe you gave them along the way or based on something that maybe you said, and you don’t even remember saying that,” she says.

Barlow’s love of education was developed throughout her childhood in upstate New York. The daughter of two teachers, it was never a question of if she was going to college but instead how she would pay for it.

“One of the scholarships that I found was an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship, an ROTC scholarship. I applied and received a scholarship and signed up immediately because they were going to pay full tuition for me to go to Georgetown University,” she says.

While she initially planned to be in the military for only a couple years, she ended up having a 26-year career with the Air Force—a career that took her to 13 different assignment locations throughout the world, enabled her to earn several master’s degrees and a Pd.D., and saw her rise to the position of 88th Air Base Wing and Installation Commander at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Through those years, her love of education and workforce development continued to be a guiding thread.

“I was focused on developing the airmen,” she says. “How could I help them develop and get to the next point in their careers?”

When Barlow decided to retire from the military, she wanted to be able to continue to offer this type of assistance to the next generation of workers. This led to her current position as head of SOCHE.

“It’s about workforce,” says Barlow of the organization. With SOCHE, she can help develop the faculty and staff of the 23 universities in the region while at the same time work to create internships and co-ops to give students more work-based learning opportunities.

“It’s helping the student clearly figure out, ‘What’s next for me?’ and it is helping the business because about 70% of our students are offered positions when they finish their internship,” says Barlow.

While Barlow has learned much throughout her career, she says that one of her most valuable lessons has been the importance of diversity.

“When I had the opportunity to invite people to the table, I would invite people who look like me. I realized through those conversations that all I’m doing is inviting people who think and act exactly like I do and that’s not what we need,” she says. “I realized, ‘OK, I need people at the table who don’t think the way that I think. I need people who come from a different culture, who come from a different part of the country, who maybe have different beliefs than I do. I need them at the table because that’s the way that we’re going to make the best decisions.’ Over time, I became an advocate for all of those people who were different than I was.”

Jenell Ross

President, Bob Ross Auto Group

For Jenell Ross, president of the Bob Ross Auto Group, business and family go hand in hand. Her father started the organization 48 years ago, creating the first African American-owned Mercedes-Benz dealer in the world. Ross was just four years old at the time.

“I would come and jump in and out of cars when I was young. As I got older, whenever I could do papers projects, I would try to do something centered around the automobile industry so that I could learn a little more about what was involved with my life. I continued to do that all the way through college and beyond,” she says. “I just always loved the opportunity to work with people and provide a need and a want for those in our community.”

When her father passed away 25 years ago, her mother became president and Ross took over daily operations. And when her mother passed away in 2010, Ross became president.

“So very rarely do you have the opportunity to work with both parents in the same organization. It was very much bittersweet to have the opportunity and how the opportunity came about,” she says.

Today the Bob Ross Auto Group is the country’s only second-generation African American woman-owned auto dealer and is ranked as a leader in sales and customer service for each of its three brands—Mercedes-Benz, Buick and GMC.

“The industry obviously is really changing,” she says. “It still brings a lot of excitement. I still get excited when new vehicles come out and I have the opportunity to play with all the nuances that are involved now, which are much different than when I was a younger person.”

The Bob Ross Auto Group isn’t the only way Ross pays tribute to her family. After the passing of her mother, Ross founded the Norma J. Ross Memorial Foundation in honor of her. The foundation supports organizations that provide education and awareness about breast cancer.

“My mother was always saying that we’re always learning and you need to be educated. What better way to try to help the community than to help those understand the needs of their breast health and try to help those that are underserved or underinsured to really be able to focus on the preventative side of their breast health?” she says.

When asked about what lessons she’s learned over her career, Ross says she’s learned it’s important to believe in yourself.

“There’s always going to be someone to tell you that you can’t and you need to believe in yourself that you can. My mother was always very cognizant about of that. You can do anything you set your mind to, but with that, you also need to make sure that you establish a great network to provide you those opportunities of where you would like to grow and learn,” she says. “My dad would always say [you] always have to have the will and the want to learn, because you’re never going to know everything about the industry that you’re in.”