The Kimball Companies

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0- 204The Kimball Companies is a twenty-first century business phenomenon: it has built growth and profitability around the simple, but often neglected, principle that America needs strong families for the country to thrive and prosper. With assistance from the Small Business Development Center at the University of Central Florida (SBDC at UCF), over the past three years the company has seen revenues grow to more than $10 million while helping thousands of children and families strengthen their confidence and relationships.

Comprised of four businesses, its core business A+ Tutor U, as well as Family Table Time, School House to Your House and FAMILYing.com, The Kimball Companies (formerly Learning Centers of Central Florida, LLC), reflects CEO Neal Kimball’s passion to improve family life by teaching students struggling in school; building strong connections among teachers, parents and students; helping families communicate; and uniting families with new technologies.
Mr. Kimball has combined his passion for strengthening the family with a keen business mind to create a company that is making a meaningful positive difference for families. He has used his command of marketing and sales gained from more than 20 years in corporate America to build entrepreneurial businesses that appeal to and serve the needs of students and parents, teachers and school administrators. In doing so, over the past three years The Kimball Companies have experienced a 336% increase in staff to 96 employees and a 25.4% increase in revenues for its core business, A+ Tutor U, while serving more than 7,000 students, families and schools across Florida and in Washington, D.C.
The success being enjoyed today by The Kimball Companies has been hard earned. It is a classic small business development story of a passionate entrepreneur having an idea and then through his courage and determination creating a new business, new jobs and a new solution, in this case for struggling students and families of all sorts.
Coming from the corporate world, and starting his business from scratch, Mr. Kimball sought out and benefited from training and consulting from Certified Business Consultants at the Florida SBDC at UCF. He created his original business plan with the help of the SBDC, and then benefited from ongoing counseling about managing his finances and marketing. The Kimball Companies participated in the SBDC at UCF’s Small Business Institute, a student management consulting program offered in conjunction with the College of Business Administration at UCF.
More recently, he has been an active participant in the SBDC at UCF’s CEO XChange program, a senior executive roundtable program where progressive chief executives discuss vital issues, opportunities, trends, and best practices in a confidential, peer-to-peer counseling setting. “The SBDC at UCF has been an invaluable resource to me every step of the way,” said Mr. Kimball. “From the beginning, their CBAs have been there for me with sound guidance and a thoughtful perspective, as well as useful tools and support. And today I am benefiting from the ideas and counseling I get from my peer CEO’s in the CEO XChange program offered by the SBDC at UCF. Small businesses in Central Florida are really missing out if they don’t take advantage of the amazing assistance available from the SBDC at UCF.”
And Mr. Kimball is not through with the SBDC at UCF. He is currently participating in the SBDC’s Growth Acceleration Services program in which companies receive 50 – 100 hours of high-level consulting aimed at helping them develop sustainable growth strategies, whether by increasing revenues, streamlining operations or improving financial management.
The success of The Kimball Companies and its CEO Neal Kimball has not gone unnoticed. He and his company were nominated and awarded the distinguished 2012 Entrepreneurial Success Award by the Small Business Administration for the SBA’s North Florida District, State of Florida and Southeast Region. This award recognizes small businesses that have grown to be large businesses (as defined by SBA size standards) with the assistance of the SBA and on the strength of the company’s growth, financial performance, innovation, response to adversity and community contributions.