Leronda Lucky was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, and graduated from Middletown High School.  She displayed a strong work ethic early, with jobs in a restaurant, hardware store and retail establishment.  She gained manufacturing experience with a five year stint with Crystal Tissue as a paper finisher.  Following that she worked in a customer service role with MetLife Insurance, and became a licensed MetLife agent for a year.  In 1994, Leronda joined the L.M. Berry Company for eight years, selling Yellow Pages advertising in inside sales, outside sales, and training manager roles.  From 2000 to 2002 she also took classes at Sinclair Community College.  While she enjoyed the Berry Company, at the end the job required her to be on the road much of the week, which proved too much, given that she was raising two sons. 
Therefore, in 2002, Leronda took a huge risk and started her own insurance agency, LFL Insurance Agency LLC, out of her home in Dayton.  At that time, as now, her business is the only Female African American independent insurance agency in the Dayton area.  As a start-up independent agency, it was very difficult to obtain a contract with a major property & casualty insurance company.  A break came when she was named the sole broker for the insurance for the huge construction project undertaken by the Dayton Public Schools.  In 2004 she hired an administrative assistant and leased an office suite in a major office building on S. Dixie Dr. in Kettering, Ohio.  In 2005, Leronda landed a contract with Erie Insurance, a major player in the property & casualty insurance field.  She also represents Farmers, AIG, Progressive, Motorists and Anthem.
While her business made progress over the next few years, Leronda was busy working in the business, not finding time to work on the business, and consequently the business was clearly lacking in terms of planning, administrative functions, market focus, and personnel management.  In May of 2008, at a Dayton Rotary Club meeting, Leronda discussed her situation with Leif Jacobsen, a SCORE counselor.  Leif put her in touch with SCORE counselor, Bob Halstead, who spent his long career in Dayton as a partner in a major insurance agency.  Leronda and Bob hit it off well immediately.  Over the next several months they worked on the following issues: organizing office tasks and hiring an office manager; selecting appropriate target market segments and focusing marketing efforts toward these segments; and networking, customer contact and follow up strategies.  They conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and worked on the issues that surfaced from the analysis.
Leronda’s business is now performing well.  Her vision for the future is to grow to the point where she can employ five agents, each of whom specialize in a particular insurance area, allowing her to focus on the commercial insurance area.  She credits Bob Halstead with helping her learn to be able to work both in the business and on the business.  She states: “Bob has provided me with very sound advice and has helped me implement that advice.  I am in much better control of my business, thanks to Bob.  He continues to be readily available to be my sounding board.  I am in his debt.”