From her childhood riding horses on a Colorado ranch to traveling throughout the country to meet facilities maintenance business owners, Elly Gluschke has always been driven by a sense of adventure. In this spotlight, we dive into what drew Elly to her current role on our Investing team, what she learned about the role people play in a company’s success, and how a shot in the dark put her on a varsity collegiate rowing team.
I grew up in a rural ranching community in Colorado, and as a kid, I was all over the place. I loved helping my dad on our property, bailing hay in the summer, and working with our horses. I did a lot of competitive horseback riding and loved soccer from a young age, so I was always out of the house getting my hands dirty.
My mom works in the airline industry, and my dad is now retired from a career as an expedition ship captain, so they opened my eyes to a lot of non-traditional career paths while encouraging me to try new things.
Though I loved Colorado, I was excited to see what else was out there. A few ankle injuries made college soccer difficult, but I knew I wanted to play a sport and experience a rigorous academic environment.
I ended up studying history and joining my college’s varsity rowing team, where I rowed for three years. When I sat down for my first meeting with the coach, she asked if I had any experience with the sport growing up. I told her, “I’ve kayaked before. Does that count?” I learned firsthand that the answer is no.
I had no idea what I was signing myself up for. I thought, how hard could it be? Turns out – very hard. But it was also amazing. I love being in a team setting. Even now, I view my job the same way I view a sports team. We all have our roles to play, but we’re working closely together and helping each other improve.
In college, I interned at a firm that focused on raising capital and immediately became intrigued by the whole investing industry. “Investing” is this buzzword that you imagine has a heavy financial connotation. But in the field, I realized every discussion circled around one recurring theme: a company’s leadership.
Our review process was just as focused on the people leading the business as the company’s financial profile. Success was similar to what I experienced in rowing: it boiled down to whether you had the right people in the boat. Do you have the right team to do what you set out to do? Do you have the right people interacting with your customers? Do you have the right managers creating the culture you want to be known for?
You can fix a lot in a business: you can go through the numbers, change pricing, and switch to new software. But one thing that’s impossible to manufacture is good culture.
I think that’s what makes Orion so unique: we truly do want to partner with the best service providers in this space. We aren’t looking for fixer uppers. We want to work with cohesive, strong teams that are ready for that next stage of growth so that rather than pulling people out, we’re bringing people in. We’re providing more resources, we’re expanding sales, and we’re building new opportunities for growth.
Coming into Orion, I was excited to see other professionals from non-traditional finance backgrounds who loved what they were doing. And the field services space meant a lot to me: you’re providing essential services to communities through a great profession. It reminded me of the pure labor of love it was for my parents to take care of our property. I worked every summer for a neighboring ranch doing physical labor six days a week all the way through high school, and it really made me appreciate the value of genuine hard work.
Another thing I noticed right off the bat with this team was this mentality of, why not us? Why can’t we be the team that builds the best commercial field services company? As someone who moved across the country to pursue a finance career with a history degree, that message really resonated with me.
My job is to have candid conversations with owners about what we’re building and how that can align with their goals and values. If they’re interested, I guide them on how they can make an informed decision about their business. I don’t need to apply a hard sell because what we do speaks for itself.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how open owners can be in sharing their aspirations with their businesses. While sitting down with someone for a few hours over a meal, sometimes you get to learn about the real problems they’re looking to solve, and that excites me. It makes me think, we can work with this. We can help and chart a path forward together.
My job is to be a spokesperson for Orion – to share what we do, why we do it, and how it could be applicable to what an owner is building. I’m not in the place to persuade someone of what to do with their legacy. They’ll know that for themselves.
Orion has been on a tear for the last five years: we’ve grown exponentially, and I’m really excited to see where we’ll be another five years from now.
We’re now becoming a true partner in the industry. If we speak with an owner who’s dealing with a problem we’ve encountered before, we’ll very openly say, “one of our companies dealt with that last year. Do you want to speak with our operator there?”
Of course, we have the hope that one day we’ll be able to work with that business, but we also want to improve the industry as a whole. That creates stronger relationships, and it helps us become good stewards in the field.
An owner recently reached out to me with questions about how to evaluate his leadership team, and I was able to provide him with insights into our talent assessment process. It excited me to see that he doesn’t view us just as a buyer but also as a potential resource for his company.
We might not see any return on our investment from the time we spend helping owners before a partnership, but we still value doing it because of growth it brings to our industry. Facilitating these connections within the field helps us truly live up to that promise of being a long-term partner.
People
Orion Group
June 23, 2025
