About Us
Who We Are and What We Believe
Who We Are and What We Believe
Our mission
is to define excellence and identify for consumers the highest quality
local companies. The three founders, Jim Stein, Greg Louie and Guy Sherman,
have decades of experience rating and certifying local service and professional
firms on behalf of consumers. Our entire team is dedicated to ensuring
you have confidence in the companies you choose.
We are totally committed to performing all ratings and ongoing certification
work with the highest integrity and accuracy. We believe:
1. You the consumer have the right to know which companies are
truly performing at the highest level of quality.
2. The highest quality companies should be rewarded for their ongoing
performance through public recognition.
3. Companies should be held accountable for their performance,
one customer at a time.
We do not allow an unlimited number of companies to earn Diamond Certified.
In fact, only a handful of companies can qualify in most industries, and
these we re-rate on a ongoing basis to assure you that they stay the
best. And, of course we stand behind each Diamond Certified company with
our own guarantee.
Chris Bjorklund
Consumer Editor and Ombudsman
Chris Bjorklund is known as the Savvy Consumer because she has worked as a consumer advocate for more than 35 years. Chris’ perspective on consumer issues and trends is unique in that she has worked in the both the private and public sectors, as well as in the media and non-profit world. Prior to joining American Ratings Corporation, Chris was the consumer reporter for KGO-Radio where she produced consumer segments for the morning and afternoon newscasts. She also managed the consumer complaint unit for KGO-Radio and TV. Before KGO, Chris was an Investigator for the Consumer Fraud Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, a consumer news producer for KPIX-TV and the Director of Consumer Education for the Rocky Mountain Better Business Bureau in Denver. She was on the national Board of Directors of Consumer’s Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, for 24 years. Chris graduated from Santa Clara University and later completed a Masters of Science in Consumer Economics at the University of Maryland.
Jim
Stein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
During the 1980s, Jim Stein founded and grew the Asian Yellow Pages and the Hispanic Yellow Pages into the largest second language Yellow Page company in the country with 24 directory titles in three states. In 1986 and 1987 he was recognized by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs and the Young Entrepreneurs Organization as one of the nation's top 100 young entrepreneurs. He also founded El Mensajero, which became the top Spanish language weekly newspaper in the United States in 1988 and 1989 as judged by the National Hispanic Publishers Association. In 1990, he founded ValueStar, the first company of its kind focused on rating local service and professional firms on their level of customer satisfaction. In 2001, Jim founded American Ratings Corporation and launched the Diamond Certified program which certifies local companies that are rated on an ongoing basis highest in quality.Through interacting with more than 6,000 local companies and analyzing over 1,000,000 consumer responses to surveys, Jim has developed easy to understand strategies for consumers to avoid disappointing service and techniques to help companies build their brand, better satisfy their customers, reduce their customer attrition, increase their customer referral rate and use their reputation for satisfying customers as a powerful marketing tool.
Greg
Louie
Founder and VP of Service
Greg Louie
is a graduate of California State University of Hayward with business
degrees in Industrial Relations and Personnel Administration. Greg started
his career in the High-Tech field where he managed sales teams for Micronics
Computers, Inc., Orchid Technologies, and eMotion, Inc. For each company,
Greg grew the revenue being generated and was recognized as a top manager.
After leaving the High-Tech industry, Greg founded Cypress Golf, Inc.
He expanded Cypress Golf from being a custom golf club manufacturer to
creating and running The Golf Guys Radio Show which has grown to be the
most listened to Golf radio show in the country with over 2 million listeners
weekly. As a business owner, Greg recognized the need for businesses to
be able to differentiate themselves from the competition. He discovered
ValueStar, a business that rated the customer satisfaction level of businesses
and gave them a mechanism to quantify their performance to existing and
future consumers. He got involved with ValueStar and ran their sales and
service departments. In 2001, Greg co-founded American Ratings Corporation
and launched the Diamond Certified program, which certifies local companies
that are rated on an ongoing basis highest in quality. Greg has extensive
experience of satisfying thousands of customers, starting businesses,
running sales and marketing teams, as well as working with over 7500 companies.
Guy
S. Sherman
Founder and VP of Ratings
Guy co-founded American Ratings Corporation with Jim Stein and Greg Louie in 2001. Together they introduced the Diamond Certified program, which certifies local companies that are rated on an ongoing basis highest in quality. Guy was formerly Vice President of Ratings for ValueStar, Inc., an independent rating organization focused on evaluating customer satisfaction levels of local service businesses. Prior to joining ValueStar in December 1998, he was a partner in Liz Willard and Company, a privately held sportswear wholesale business. From 1992 to 1997, Guy was president of two privately held medical supply and service companies, Penny Saver Medical Supply, Inc. and Colorado Portable X-Ray, Inc. From 1986 to 1992, Guy was Northeast Region Vice President for Tru Green Corporation, the lawn care subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc. His previous experience includes controllership and financial positions with two technology companies, Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Schlumberger. Guy started his career as a CPA and audit supervisor in the New York office of Deloitte Haskins & Sells. He received a B.S. in Business with a concentration in Accounting from the State University of New York at Albany.
American
Ratings Corporation
504 Redwood Blvd., Suite 210
Novato,
CA 94947
Email info@diamondcertified.org
Phone (800) 738-1138
Fax (800) 643-9963
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©2002-2008 | American Ratings Corporation