Andy’s professional journey is similar to that taken by many candidates. He has been down the road of working all hours in a corporate environment, begging for a better quality of life, starving for a culture change, using a FranChoice Consultant, and coming out the other end as a successful franchisee. He understands the risk and rewards of leaving the safety of the corporate world for the franchise life, and his goal is to help his candidates navigate this process with as much knowledge and confidence as possible.

During Andy’s career, he followed opportunities wherever they took him within the corporate world, going from moving all over the US for opportunities. His last corporate move was to Atlanta in 2005.

While in Atlanta, he helped lead a successful division start-up for a Belgium-based company from its grassroots beginnings to over $10 million in revenue in year 4. During his career there, he managed and created many national and global partnerships with companies such as Apple, Wal-Mart, HP, Kodak, Fuji, and Xerox. Success didn’t come without a price, though. Andy saw himself working 12+ hour days, stressing about work in his sleep, leaving home before his wife and newborn son were awake, and coming home after his son was asleep every night. When he was not coming home late at night, he traveled across the globe and missed out on what he cherished most – time with his new family. Andy blinked, and all of a sudden, he had a 19-month-old son and a newborn daughter, and he felt he hadn’t been around to be a proper husband or Father. It was then he realized something had to change, and it was time to take matters into his own hands and control his destiny and schedule on his terms. Andy wanted a proven system that would allow him to use his natural skill set to build his business, but he didn’t know what that business was. That’s when he was introduced to FranChoice.

After going through the FranChoice process, Andy became a Regional Developer for SYNERGY HomeCare for the Floribama Region in June 2012 (State of Alabama and Panhandle of Florida). Beginning in 2012 with the lowest-ranked region in the system, Andy grew the region to #3 overall before selling his Regional Developer license back to corporate in 2016. In October 2013, Andy opened his own SYNERGY HomeCare agency and has since won many prestigious awards for revenue, growth, caregiving, and operational excellence.  

In 2018, Andy purchased another healthcare-related franchise, Profile, and after opening 2 locations and running them for two years, he sold both back to corporate.  

In 2020 Andy purchased his first independent company, a dumpster company called Big Red. Big Red has grown to over 340 dumpsters and 220 porta-potties under Andy’s ownership. Most recently, Andy has opened a seamless gutter company called Big Red Gutter Company. Andy operates all of his businesses in what is described in the franchise world as ‘semi-absentee ownership,’ where managers run the business’s day-to-day operations.

He is now the proud father of 3 children (Acker, Percy, and Catherine) and husband to Walker. He can take his kids to school, coach their sports teams, fish, and play tennis just about whenever he wants.

Andy’s goal is to help candidates find their perfect franchise based on their goals, skills, and financial requirements. Let Andy help you find your American dream, just as he found his. Andy can be reached at aluedecke@franchoice.com or 404-973-9901.

Why a Franchise
Service Based vs Brick and Mortar
Semi Absentee Ownership
The Process and How It works