Biography Profile
MIKE MINARD BIO
Michael Minard
CEO and Owner
Michael Minard is at once a life-long innovator, proven problem solver, skilled data analyst, compassionate business leader, and automation visionary who is redefining the future of real estate marketing. As CEO and owner of Delta Media Group since 2000, Delta has become the quiet giant of real estate brokerage technology and digital marketing, growing an astonishing 4,000% under Michael’s leadership.
Michael is a self-proclaimed tech “geek” and developer who is impassioned about automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). His entrepreneurial journey began as a sixth-grader when he discovered the power of computers and programming.
Michael credits his father, who was a self-taught Management Information Systems (MIS) Manager for fostering his intense interest in technology. His dad headed the development of the software -- Inventory, Accounting, Payroll and more -- that ran the Manchester Tool Company. Michael watched his dad’s success as a technologist grow, helping the tool firm’s parent company turnaround other manufacturing companies it had acquired.
BIOGRAPHY PROFILE
Michael Minard is at once a life-long innovator, proven problem solver, skilled data analyst, compassionate business leader, and automation visionary who is redefining the future of real estate marketing. As CEO and owner of Delta Media Group since 2000, Delta has become the quiet giant of real estate brokerage technology and digital marketing, growing an astonishing 4,000% under Michael’s leadership.
Michael is a self-proclaimed tech “geek” and developer who is impassioned about automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). His entrepreneurial journey began as a sixth-grader when he discovered the power of computers and programming.
Michael credits his father, who was a self-taught Management Information Systems (MIS) Manager for fostering his intense interest in technology. His dad headed the development of the software -- Inventory, Accounting, Payroll and more -- that ran the Manchester Tool Company. Michael watched his dad’s success as a technologist grow, helping the tool firm’s parent company turnaround other manufacturing companies it had acquired.
The Early Years
Born in Barberton, Ohio, and raised in Canal Fulton, Ohio, near Canton, Michael’s Northeastern Ohio roots would remain the center for his successes throughout his career. While not widely known, Northeast Ohio is a hotbed for invention and innovation, ranking in the top 15 markets in the U.S. for total patents over the last decade and a half.
Programming was Michael’s junior high and high school hobby. He's also had a talent and penchant for mathematics. He would excel in math, taking three college-level Calculus courses while still in junior high.
Even more remarkably, as a teenager, Michael started his own successful tech company. He designed ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems for firms in the construction industry. His work included the development and deployment standalone software that worked alongside QuickBooks and provided sales performance reports to help his small business clients run their operations. At 18 years old, he was part of the Claris Solutions Group (acquired by Apple).
Like many teenagers, Michael also enjoyed cycling, something that remains an active part of his life. He supplemented his tech development work by taking on a part-time job while in high school at a local bike shop.
Honing Leadership Skills
Ernie’s Bicycle Shop, a four-store franchise based in Ohio, was where Michael earned his first management stripes. Shortly after graduating high school and while studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Akron, he was named Store Manager at Ernie’s North Canton location.
Michael grew the shop’s revenue during his tenure by over 400 percent to nearly $1 million in annual revenue. His management success led to additional responsibilities for ordering and stocking multiple product lines for all locations. When he left Ernie’s, the North Canton store had the highest revenue and the highest profit margins companywide.
For the next two years, Michael pursued his passion for helping people and commitment to his faith by taking on a full-time position as Youth Pastor at Calvary Bible Church in nearby Green, Ohio. He was responsible for youth ministries for 6th to 12th graders, overseeing vacation bible school, youth sports outreach ministry, senior high ministry leaders, and more.
While he positively impacted the lives of more than 200 students, he also would leverage his technical skills to benefit his church. During his time Youth Pastor, he helped upgrade the church’s computer systems. Michael automated many of the Church operations, developing and implementing payroll software, giving management software, and membership software systems.
The Move to Digitalization and Automation
Another calling – his thirst for innovation – would lead Michael to start Miracom Design in the Canton area in 1998. His innovative web design company helped corporations launch web sites, as well as bring large printed product catalogs into the digital age.
Miracom’s primary client was a manufacturing and engineering firm with some 100,000 different product offerings. Michael pioneered automation systems to digitize a printed catalog of 100,000 products -- including specifications, part numbers, descriptions, and images – into web-accessible databases. He invented an automated software process that accomplished this feat.
Through automation, Miracom was able to undercut its competition with better pricing, successfully landing large businesses that generated between $10- and $200-million in annual revenue. Its automated software also provided Miracom with significantly higher profit margins than his competition.
It was at Miracom during the late 1990s that Michael pioneered and built what is believed to be the first website template engine. The website template engine was able to completely re-design and re-launch web sites of any size, without limit to the number of pages, in a matter of minutes. This technology would eventually become the web site template engine that powers Delta Media’s template system today.
The Delta Media Opportunity
Just as Michael was about to grow and expand Miracom in 2000, an opportunity emerged to purchase a failing firm based in Sunnyvale, California, called TigerFly.
Tigerfly’s overarching goal was to transform "brick-and-mortar" real estate companies into an e-marketplace, or Exchange. The platform that Tigerfly built would put real estate brokerages in control of their data. While the TigerData Exchange was built and ready for beta by the end of 2000, it never launched after the dot-com bubble burst.
While Miracom continued to operate and still serves a handful of clients today, Michael’s attention turned to the opportunity he saw with Tigerfly. In the fall of 2000, Michael and three other business partners purchased TigerFly, re-branding the company as Delta Media Group and relocating to Barberton, Ohio.
The first few years for Delta Media were tumultuous. Still, under Michael’s leadership, the company was able to rebuild and implement an advanced, highly flexible, and reliable platform, allowing Delta to expand its technology offerings and features rapidly.
From 2001 to 2007, Delta Media began a growth spurt in product offerings, client acquisition, and revenue. Three employees rapidly turned into a team of more than 50. Property listings on the Delta platform surged from 14,000 active property listings in 2001 to more than four million properties for sale in 48 states by 2007.
A Talent for Technology
During the successful expansion of Delta Media, Michael’s proclivity to solve business problems, combined with his entrepreneurial spirit, resulting in the formation of a complementary business that he created and ran alongside Delta.
By 2008, Delta’s growth had exploded by five-fold. Michael wanted to remove Delta from the hosting business. After an exhaustive search, he was unable to find a suitable data center in Northeast Ohio. Michael’s response: he built one.
At the dawn of the Great Recession, Michael founded SecureData 365. The data center was housed in Delta Media's new corporate headquarters in Canton, Ohio. The multi-story, 30,000 square foot Class A+ office building was custom built for Delta Media, housing both Delta’s corporate offices and the new 7,000 square foot state-of-the-art data center. Michael eventually sold his interest in SecureData, but it remains one of Ohio’s most advanced hosting centers.
Rebounding From the Great Recession
While the Great Recession technically lasted for only two years – 2007 to 2009 – its impact on the real estate industry continued well into 2012. It was a time when Delta Media, like most real estate technology providers, experienced significant client loss. Yet under Michael’s leadership, Delta Media was able to still maintain its overall client totals through effective new client acquisition.
Most of Delta’s competitors struggled to survive, but Michael focused company resources on re-engineering much of its legacy platform and fueled its technology inventions. His vision for the future helped propel Delta Media to a stronger position as a leading technology and marketing solutions provider.
Beginning in 2014, under Michael’s guidance, Delta expanded aggressively into Digital Marketing services, creating robust, unmatched Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. And in 2016, Michael bought out his remaining business partners and became the sole owner of all Delta Media stock. That strategy is Delta Media’s most important competitive advantage – being 100% family-owned – as it provides benefits that companies who have outside investors or obtained VC (Venture Capital) funding can’t match.
The Power of Data
Michael is a gifted data analyst, relying on skills versus intuition, helping him spot business and financial trends early. It's a talent that makes him one of real estate’s reliable visionaries, with the ability to create innovative new products and services he knows customers will need before they ask.
Numbers come easy to Michael – he loves his spreadsheets, diving into trends, projections, and leading indicators. It’s earned him a reputation for being a smart and savvy business leader, and why local business owners seek him out for advice.
All of the products and services that Delta Media offers its customers benefit from the exceptional systems Michael and his team have built to manage data. Best known for its all-in-one DeltaNET platform – including DeltaNET 7, its latest industry-leading, AI-powered version, born from 40,000 development hours and an investment of $40 million. Michael confidentially notes that today, Delta Media delivers real estate’s fastest, most durable, stable, secure and affordable technology platform.
Humility in Leadership
What energizes Michael as a leader is when others on his team are recognized for their contributions. He confesses that one of the keys to his enduring success in business has been remaining humble. Humility is unique in real estate, where bravado often poses as confidence. Instead of chasing headlines, Michael’s focus has been on surrounding himself with a cohesive team, stacked with “people who are smarter than me.” The result is loyalty, as Delta Media’s team retention rate is the envy of any business.
It’s also why Delta Media customers consider Delta a “partner” instead of a “vendor.” And it is why Michael is obsessed with helping solve the problems his partners face, approaching each as if it were his own.
He explains his desire to solve problems involving technology, business, and productivity is likely why he has excelled in leveraging business automation for Delta partners. He admits he is energized when solving problems that others say can’t be solved because he’s driven to help his brokerage customers.
Midwestern Ethos
Michael’s faith keeps him centered on the needs of others, while his Midwestern work ethic pushes him forward. Michael and his wife are active in the community where they live in Jackson Township, just six miles from Canal Fulton, where he grew up.
In addition to his involvement with his church, The Chapel in Green, he and his wife heavily support local organizations, including The Haven of Rest and Young Life. The Haven of Rest provides food, shelter, education, and hope for the disadvantage, while Young Life helps youths grow their faith.
Michael also remains supportive of several other local organizations, including Arts in Stark, a 50-year-old countywide non-profit using the arts to “create smarter kids, new jobs, and healthier communities.”
On any given Sunday after church, Michael will be on a bicycle ride with friends, in a bike race, or hanging out at home. And he will likely be thinking about what Delta Media will be doing next.
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Media contacts:
Victor Lund
(805) 709-6696
victor@wavgroup.com
Kevin Hawkins
(206) 866-1220
kevin@wavgroup.com
