Celebrating Tom Reahard, the Founder of Symmetry, Upon his Retirement
Tom Reahard’s legacy and impact shaped a generation of people building remarkable payroll products.
2024 has marked two incredible milestones for Symmetry–our 40th year in business and the retirement of our founder Tom Reahard.
When people find out that I’ve worked with my father Tom Reahard for over a decade, I’m most often met with the exclamation, “I would NEVER work with my family!” I typically respond to this rhetorical statement with a slight smile while quickly steering the conversation to a new topic. Internally, however, I can’t help but reflect on what a beneficial and enjoyable relationship it has been. One based on mutual trust, respect, and complementary skill sets—a dream foundation on which to build a company.
Both my dad and I have thrived in our partnership over the years at Symmetry. As a self-taught engineer and self-proclaimed “Payroll Geek,” he’s immersed himself in the technical challenges of building great payroll and onboarding products, while I’ve spent the last decade working my way around other parts of the business, solving our most pressing needs and charting the path forward.
I consider it one of the greatest joys of my life to have been able to work alongside my dad since I first asked if he would hire me back in 2011. That fateful conversation led me to be the first marketer at Symmetry and began what would be a decade plus long study of what made my dad successful in technology and business.
Nearly four years ago, when my dad decided he was ready to step aside as the CEO of Symmetry and have me step in (to his very big shoes!), I began an earnest reflection on both my dad’s success and on Symmetry’s success in the payroll industry. What have been the key drivers of this success? As the new leader of Symmetry, how can I keep those pillars at the heart of Symmetry to ensure our continued success? In celebration of his retirement, I’d like to share with you my reflections of a lifetime under my dad’s care and guidance as his daughter and a decade of personal study as a fellow Symmie under his leadership at Symmetry.
What follows is a declaration of five key attributes that I believe are key to both our past and future prosperity and happiness at Symmetry:
- Resilience
- Generosity
- Lead by example
- Do the tough things
- Always make it personal
Resilience
Symmetry was not an overnight success story. Instead, it took many years of enduring both the ups and downs of building a bootstrapped software business in the mid-eighties. Although my parents effectively shielded me and my siblings from the stress of Symmetry’s trials and tribulations during the early years of the company, I have heard many stories of these days and of my dad’s relentless pursuit to build what customers wanted and to find ways to work around the many barriers that were outside of his control.
I attribute Symmetry’s emergence from these challenging days to my dad’s innate ability to never give up, to push forward and keep trying, and to do it with such faith. My dad’s resilience is a driving force behind why over 65 million people and counting have their taxes calculated by Symmetry.
Generosity
My dad Tom loves creating value for clients and then joyously delivering that value to grateful customers. Everything that he does is infused with generosity. That is the second secret to his success, his generosity.
Earlier this year, my dad reminded the Symmetry leadership team that our clients on average use Symmetry products for 23 years. Thus, we should be generous and giving with our time, energy, and support, because we are starting a relationship that will last a very long time. In doing so, my dad has endeared decades of Symmetry clients to Symmetry, a trait that we still hear about today that sets us apart from other software partners.
When we sold Symmetry to Gusto, my dad distributed all of Symmetry’s cash reserves as life-changing gifts to his employees. In doing so he said, “I want people to know that they too can be generous. I want to make this example, so that they know it is possible.”
Whether you are a client of Symmetry, someone using our free tools on PaycheckCity.com, or a colleague, we all have been the beneficiaries of my dad’s uninhibited generosity and I encourage us to keep passing it forward, to your clients, to one another, and to our broader community.
This brings me to my next trait, lead by example.
Lead by example
Growing up, what I remember about my dad was that he was at every school event, performance, and game. He and my mom took us to Michigan in the summers where he squeezed in work between trips to the sand dunes, junior golf clinics, and time on the lake. When I told him that this is what I remember of our childhood, he said with visual relief, “I’m so glad that’s what you remember. What I remember is putting you to bed and coding all night long.”
Today, I don’t think much has changed. Despite our best efforts over multiple years to support my dad in ramping down towards retirement, he remained one of the first engineers to take on a tricky Symmetry Tax Engine ticket, to sit down with another Symmie to explain a difficult concept, or debug a client issue. He does what he expects others to do and how he expects others to do it–with tremendous care, thought, and a go-the-extra mile special touch. When we pour that much of ourselves into not just what we do, but how we do it, we create the environment where we will succeed, so let’s follow Tom as we lead by example.
Do the tough things
From my perspective, my dad’s passion at Symmetry is coding, connecting with clients, and mentoring us all. But also as my dad’s right hand person at the company for the last seven years, I’ve seen a different side of him. A side that I have tremendous respect for. He does the toughest things, things that few others have the courage to do, and things that make the biggest difference to the company and by effect, all of our trajectories. This is leadership that can’t be delegated and that takes fortitude of character to carry out. In these pivotal moments in Symmetry’s history, my confidence and pride in my dad has swelled and I vow to continue in his legacy by doing the right and toughest things. This is the third pillar of my dad’s legacy, do the tough things.
Always make it personal
It is easy to tell that my dad cares a lot. He cares about Symmetry, our clients, our employees, and our personal lives. He cares about our family–the Reahards–he cares about your family, and cares about all of us as the Symmetry family. He has attracted other people to join Symmetry who also care. He has the anniversaries of people’s births, marriages, and deaths tracked in his personal calendar and reaches out to people on the commemorative dates. He even has people’s pets milestones tracked! The other day he sent me a celebratory Slack message, “Happy hole in one anniversary!”
It is his ability to “always make it personal” that I believe grounds our company in humility and connectedness to one another and endears so many to him. I urge us all to keep this at the forefront of our work together. Do you care about the things that he cares about? Do you care about your clients and about your team? Will you be resilient and generous, will you lead by example and do the tough things, will you make your work personal? These attributes are at the core of each and every one of us, they will empower us to do our life’s best work, to do it with a great deal of personal satisfaction and meaning, to enjoy the journey that it takes us on, and to appreciate the people around us.
Tom’s legacy will continue to thrive in the heart of the Symmetry Tax Engine, in the culture of our company, and in the lives of the clients he helped, the employees he mentored, and the friendships he cultivated. I know that I will keep practicing these tenets and will ensure that Symmetry teaches others who come after us. In doing so, we will make sure that what has made Symmetry great will continue, and what has made Symmetry great has been my dad Tom.
Do you have a well wish or sentiment of how Tom’s impacted and inspired your journey?
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