Midway Business Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Tom Germino of Germino Dental shares 40+ years of business lessons—growing from a one-chair startup (with his wife running the front desk) into a multigenerational family practic…

In this episode, Butch Zemar sits down with lifetime entrepreneur MZ, who built a 40-year event production company (think Bulls championship parades and Fortune 500 events—not your average company pi…

In this episode, David Cole of Aluminight Custom Outdoor Lighting sheds light—literally—on how professional exterior and landscape lighting can transform homes and businesses. From permanent holiday …

Butch Zemar chats with John Andrade, who went from teenage Nextel hustler to selling an online car platform (pre-Carvana) to banking—and somehow lived to tell the tale.

His takeaways? Failures are tu…

In this episode of the Midway Business Podcast, Butch Zemar talks with Lindy Hoyt, Founder of People Ambassadors, about why keeping employees engaged sometimes feels harder than keeping your New Year…

Host Butch Zemar sits down with Bill Clayton of Transworld Systems, the fixed-fee collection service ($10 an account) even the Girl Scouts would use. Founded in 1970 by doctors tired of losing profit…

In this episode, Butch Zemar chats with Virginia McGann of Integrated Back Office Solutions, who turns financial chaos into clear business roadmaps. She’s seen it all—QuickBooks files built during Su…

Host Butch Zemar chats with Michael Kupchak—accountant, educator, fraud examiner, and youth sports coach—about a career path that runs from small family business to teaching at the University of Chic…

Host Butch Zemar sits down with Jamal Wolf, who went from being Circuit City’s #1 computer salesperson (back when selling a desktop was like selling a car) to running two companies—Chicago Smart Busi…

In this episode, Butch Zemar chats with tech attorney Lisa Gavin, who’s navigated everything from fintech to ransomware settlements (yes, that’s a thing). Lisa lays out what happens when a hacker loc…

In this episode, Butch Zemar chats with benefits vet Gary Blaum, who’s spent decades in the TPA and PBM trenches. Spoiler: PBMs were cooking the books, and Gary brought spreadsheets to the gunfight. …

🎙️ In this episode of the Midway Business Podcast, Butch Zemar dives into the unglamorous truth about why people give up too early — and no, it’s not just because Netflix released another season of s…

In this episode of the Zemar Podcast, Butch Zemar takes us on a wild ride from outdated Navy aircraft to outdated employer health plans — because apparently, both refuse to die quietly. Using a broke…

In this episode, Butch Zemar delves headfirst into the bureaucratic complexities that hinder small and mid-sized businesses when it comes to managing employee benefits. He explores why some companies…

Let’s be honest—setting goals is easy. Achieving them? That’s where CFOs start twitching and HR hides under their desks.

In this episode, we get a masterclass in corporate reality checks. Think you'r…

This episode dives into the all-too-familiar boardroom ritual: reviewing the company's health plan with furrowed brows, followed by the annual shrug and “let’s just raise the deductible again.” Butch…

In this episode, we lace up the skates, tape our sticks (badly), and take a hard-checking look at how beer league hockey can teach business professionals more than a dozen leadership seminars and a t…

This episode takes a bold stand for a concept often left behind after the annual ethics training: integrity. From a 19th-century shipwreck survivor refusing to sell out his story to Rosa Parks refusi…

In this episode, we tackle everyone’s favorite workplace fantasy: achieving long-term goals without sacrificing lunch breaks, sanity, or the sacred Slack meme thread. From health insurance horror sto…

Ah, health insurance: the annual corporate Hunger Games where employers try to look generous, employees pretend to understand their benefits, and everyone ends up Googling “What is coinsurance?” at 2…