I guess I’ll start like everyone should by giving you my name: Greg Stowe I say this because growing up I was always told to be polite when you’re asked something, so that’s where I’ll start.
I am the middle child of a very close family. I say middle but I am my father’s first child and my mother’s second. Yes, this is a bit confusing.  My mother had my older brother at a young age and then me two years later. Then, two years after that came my younger brother, Matthew.
We all grew up very close; closer than most families in America do. We did everything together. When other kids were hanging out with friends, we were at the beach together. During the summers we all worked together. My father owned a business cleaning windows and I got to clean the screens. The window cleaning business turned into office cleaning. I had great parents and close brothers.
At the age of 18, I joined the United States Navy. On July 13, 1997 to be exact. I remember this because it was my mother’s birthday and she was not happy about it. While in the Navy I would come home on weekends to help the family clean. Then I got word that my ship was getting deployed to Singapore. There I was, a young man that was very close to his family now getting sent to a country on the other side of the world. Yes, I was scared to death.
I spent a year or so getting to see every country in Asia. I went to Guam, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines and the Persian Gulf. It would be fair to say that I have learned more from those travels than any school can teach. After that, I was sent back to San Diego, California and my family. To this day my mother thinks that the Navy took the boy away and created a man.
There were many other adventures that I had from then til now, where I sit and write this morning, but in my life there are three things that I am always drawn back to: God, family and the family business So where am I now? Well, I am married with a total of five kids. I married a girl that had two kids and now we have three more. Their ages are: 15, 13, 7, 3 and 7 months (two boys and three girls). I work for the family business: OctoClean. I have since graduated from cleaning the screens to Franchise Development. I love the cleaning industry and I have turned what most people see as nothing or something unseen into a franchised business that supports families like mine.
All my life my mother would tell me to do something that matters to people. I feel that we as a family have created a place that can make a difference, not only for one person who wants to be a Franchise Owner, but customers all over Southern California. We are a group of people that have formed a place for building owners, hospitals and property management companies to depend on when they need to provide their customers with a clean and germ-free environment. And yes, we are cleaning geeks at times, but that’s what makes us great at what we do.

*Photo courtesy of Melanie Savolainen